Trump: the cunning of the paper tiger?

Never before has so much been written in so little time about the inauguration of a country's president and his first week in office. This frenzy had been predicted long ago. The media spectacle of President Donald Trump's inauguration is only paralleled by that which marked the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. On one hand, the dramatic celebration of the unilateral imposition of rules on humanity; on the other, the dramatic celebration of rules consensually accepted by all of humanity. This juxtaposition summarizes the transitional period the world is experiencing. What does Trump represent in this transition? The metaphor of the "paper tiger" to characterize the USA is from Mao Tse Tung. It is a complex metaphor, as it signifies both weakness and strength (strength to disguise its weakness). What are the strengths and weaknesses of the USA under Trump's leadership?

As Immanuel Wallerstein taught us, the modern world-economy and interstate system of the last five centuries show multiple signs of exhaustion. It is not necessary to fully agree with the details of his analysis to give him credit for drawing attention to the fact that something profoundly disturbing is fatally affecting the functioning of this systemic (economic, social, political, cultural, epistemic) whole that we call Eurocentric modernity. What will come next is unpredictable. This whole has been characterized by the continuous expansion of capitalism and colonialism driven by the following fundamental beliefs: infinite economic growth, unilinear progress, science and technology as privileged rationalities, the civilizational-racial-sexual superiority of those who have the power to unilaterally impose their will (what I have termed the abyssal line: the necessary coexistence of humanity with sub-humanity), unequal exchange between central and peripheral countries, political democracy and social fascism as guarantors of unjust order with less violence, and the increasing strengthening of the State as a guarantor of national cohesion. The tension between an increasingly globalized economy and a system of states based on ideas that are as inclusive as they are exclusive (sovereignty and citizenship) has been constant. Peace and war have become twin sisters. 

Imperial rivalries continued until, starting in 1870, the imperial dominance of the USA began to take shape, a dominance that would culminate in 1945 after the most recent and longest "Thirty Years' War" (1914-1918, 1939-1945). The USA was the only central country whose infrastructure emerged unscathed (and even strengthened) from the war. Between 1945 and 1970, the USA was not only the dominant country but also the hegemonic one. It is true that the Soviet bloc existed, pointing towards a bipolarity. But there was a reciprocal containment between the socialist and capitalist blocs on the political level (well illustrated in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962), while in the world economy the USA dominated without rivals. When, in 1955-1961, Third World countries (recently independent from historical colonialism or still colonies) sought to transform bipolarity into tripolarity, they were promptly neutralized. 

During this period, being dominant had two components: unilateralism and hegemony. Unilateralism means the ability to dictate the rules of the game in international relations that best suit the dominant country. Hegemony means the ability to do so without resorting to force, through mere political pressure. The use of war (whether cold or hot, regular or hybrid) was always available, and superior military power was a powerful deterrent. Indeed, the metaphor of global war was always on the agenda, but as a way to reaffirm hegemony, and it evolved over time: war against communism, war against illicit drugs, war against terrorism, war against corruption. 

From 1970 onwards, everything began to change, and US hegemony began to lose its unilateralism. Economic rivalry emerged with Western Europe (with its rapprochement with the Soviet Union) and Japan, although Japan remained a political ally of the US. The first oil crisis occurred in 1973, followed by defeat in Vietnam that same year, and the humiliation at the hands of Khomeini's Iran in 1980. While Japan stagnated from the 1990s onwards, the "yellow peril" was renewed in an unprecedented way with the rise of China. Since then, US unilateralism has ceased to be supported by hegemony, and without it, the use of military force has become the primary political recourse. Military involvement in the Middle East and Ukraine are examples of this. Military support for Ukraine was never intended to make a Ukrainian victory possible, but rather to weaken Europe (to be a political ally, Europe had to cease being an economic rival) and Russia, as China's most important ally. High-tech communication and information technologies and the entertainment industry were the last two resources used to regain hegemony, but the yellow peril had already appropriated them as well. Without exclusivity there is no hegemony, and unilateralism without hegemony has only one recourse at its disposal: war. But, in this case, the war will, for the first time, have American territory as its theater of war. 

 Paper Tiger?

Given this, what is Trump's role? His inaugural address aims to convey the message that unilateralism is no longer based on hegemony but rather on exceptionalism. It contains all the components of the American myth: manifest destiny, frontier spirit (far west, wilderness), territorial conquest, terra nullius (no man's land, that is, "ours"). To this myth he adds a new element: domination was a cost, the development of the last hundred years was the "white man's burden" of the United States, and therefore the world owes reparations to the USA. It is the dramatic affirmation of a defensive unilateralism, the confirmation of decline disguised as a return to the Golden Age. Those who oppose it should prepare for the apocalypse. The speech is a treatise on symbolic politics, but the political hubris was so hyperbolic that it had to translate into an immediate avalanche of executive measures. The frenzy of words demanded shock and awe (the name of the 2003 military invasion of Iraq) on the executive level. If there is a paper tiger, the strength of disguising weakness prevailed at first. What will this mean domestically and internationally?

The internal plan

Domestically, the principle of institutional terra nullius is being applied radically. The American state is now a potential institutional Gaza. Institutional cleansing mirrors ethnic cleansing. But the similarity ends there, given that American institutions are less weak in relation to Trump than the Palestinians are in relation to Israel. We are entering a long, destructive, and destabilizing period of power struggles before a possible ceasefire is reached. The state, as a factor of social cohesion, typical of the modern world system, becomes the main factor of national fracture. The danger of this institutional struggle lies in the fact that it will always be on the verge of chaos, on the verge of extra-institutional conflict. 

The strategy of fracturing is complex because it is carried out in the name of true cohesion, ethnic-racial cohesion. Hence, the anti-immigrant fury. That is, the founding principle of national cohesion, citizenship, is replaced by the principle of community. The modern movement from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft is inverted. But the end of citizenship and its replacement by neo-tribal communitarianism were long inscribed in the plans for the end of secularism and the emergence of identity essentialism. From the ruins of citizenship will emerge religious belonging and exclusionary identitarianism. 

Therefore, the Trumpist terra nullius does not imply a total break with the recent past. Trumpism began before Trump and will continue after him. The seeds of what was to come, both regarding the end of secularism and the emergence of identity essentialism, had long flourished in the media, social networks, schools, and universities. If we wish, it is possible to go back much further. It has been truthfully said that with the Trump Administration, capital, which has always dominated American politics, lost confidence in politicians and decided to assume power directly. Thirteen billionaires on the government team. But hasn't Congress long been dominated by capital? Doesn't a large part of the senators and representatives belong to the 1%? On the other hand, the reformist liberalism that translated into social policies, the creation of middle classes, and the general improvement in the standard of living (welfare state) had long since ended, and the Democratic Party had been the instrument of this destruction, especially from the 1990s onwards. 

Even if it doesn't constitute a rupture, the dramatic accentuation of certain trends promoted by Trump will be destabilizing; and we cannot forget the recent polls that seemed to indicate civil war as a real possibility for a significant percentage of Americans. Alternatively, one could think that, after all, the supporters of civil war have just won electorally. Now they will demand that the President transform the counter-revolution into common sense, as he himself stated in his inaugural address. Whether he can do so or not is an open question. It is not out of the question that they will soon turn him into a scapegoat. The decline of the US is structural and cannot be stopped by the triumphalist rhetoric of demagoguery.

On the international stage

The dramatic nature of the deportations aimed to signal a complete upheaval in the inter-state system. However, one cannot underestimate the real policies that will be implemented without drama. Firstly, it should be noted that the protectionist, nationalist, tariff-imposing, and (re)industrialization policies now advocated by Trump are the same policies that peripheral and semi-peripheral countries of the world sought to follow in the 1970s and 1980s and were severely punished by US-dominated multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Such punishments caused much social suffering, increased poverty and hunger, deindustrialization, urban violence, the emergence of organized crime, and dictatorships. Wouldn't it now be time to propose reparations, for example, the cancellation of the external debt of these countries, some of which are still suffocated by it? And will all other countries from now on follow the same type of policies proposed by Trump for the US? Or are we witnessing yet another manifestation of unilateralism based on American exceptionalism? It is already clear that the economic and freedom of expression that Trump's magnates promote in every far-right echo chamber around the world is freedom for their own ideas and repression and censorship for the ideas of those who oppose them.

Trump's defensive-aggressive unilateralism aims to provoke the same institutional destruction internationally as it is causing domestically. The targets include not only UN institutions but also all alliances between countries, whether regional or not. The preference for bilateral relations and the fact that import tariffs are determined not by the type of product, as has been the case until now, but by the type of relationship between the producing country and the US, aims to destroy in the long term any interstate alliance that rivals the US, be it the European Union or the BRICS.

In international politics, too, ruptures often disguise continuities. After all, given that the criterion for tariffs is what I indicated above, what is the real difference between tariffs and economic sanctions? Didn't the destruction of the European Union begin with Brexit and then with the war in Ukraine? In this realm of ruptures/continuities, perhaps the cruelest example is what may happen to the martyred people of Palestine. The ethnic cleansing that began in 1948 with the creation of the State of Israel is about to become official US policy towards Palestine. Ethnic cleansing of Gaza, which will be followed by that of the West Bank. Without the drama of the deportations of immigrants, the brutal ethnic cleansing is announced as benevolent humanitarian action, as Donald Trump seemed to affirm, referring to the desolation of the rubble produced by the incessant Israeli bombings. 

And now?

When weakness disguises itself as strength, it can lead to even more catastrophic results. The paper tiger has the strength to destroy, but not to build. There is no place today for unilateralism, much less that of the US. The global challenges facing humanity demand multilateralism, civility, and mutual respect. The two great victims of the paper tiger are democracy and ecology. The millionaires surrounding Trump know that the policies they intend to impose cannot be imposed democratically. For now, they have decided to occupy democracy and transform it into a fascism with a human face. Since fascism with a human face is an oxymoron, if they are forced to choose, we know in advance what their choice will be. If we consider that the imminent ecological collapse can only be avoided by a new global hegemony—a great convergence of efforts built democratically among human beings so that it can be executed democratically among human and non-human beings—it is easy to see that Trump's unilateralism, devoid of hegemony, is the shortcut followed by the elites of global capitalism to legitimize fascism 3.0¹. The novelty of this fascism is that it is global and imposes on all humans what humans have imposed on nature since the 16th century. Given this, it is difficult to imagine anyone thinking that it is neither necessary nor urgent to fight, resist, and dare to win. 

¹I refer to fascism 3.0 because I characterized the type of governance that Donald Trump proclaimed in November 2020, on the eve of losing the elections, as fascism 2.0. Fascism 2.0 was based on the following premises: not recognizing unfavorable election results; transforming majorities into minorities; double standards; never speaking or governing for the country, but always and only for the social base; reality does not exist; resentment is the most precious political resource; traditional politics can be the best ally without knowing it; polarize, always polarize. Fascism 3.0 expands the premises of fascism 2.0 on a global scale. https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2020/11/14/artigo-fascismo-2-0-como-usar-a-democracia-para-destruir