‘GOODBYE, America; it was nice knowing you.’ Those were the words of the British writer Philip Pullman the day Donald Trump was re-elected president of the United States. John Cusack, the American actor, reminded his compatriots that they had just chosen as their head of state a convicted multiple fraudster and a confirmed rapist (more of that later). And the son of David Bowie poignantly said of Kamala Harris’s defeat that ‘we overestimated the goodness in people’.
I imagine that for many politically aware individuals there are pivotal events in life that strike a chord and alter your weltanschauung irrevocably. For me, three stand out in particular. In 1977 the South African police state murdered the political philosopher Steve Biko (and a few months later Rick Turner). At that point, I lost all faith that anything good could come out of white South Africa (prophetic: now we have the odious Elon Musk); and then they killed the human rights activist, Neil Aggett.
Next there was Brexit. Since mid-2016 the flag of St George and anything associated with England (as opposed to Britain) I have associated with betrayal of the anti-fascist cause to which our parents contributed and of the gradual progressive post-war European settlement that resulted. Now here is 5 November 2024 and the return of a man of pure evil to the White House and the most powerful political position in the world; although we may yet see him reduced to a pawn in the hands of people who are even worse.
Already there has begun a flood of disgust and disbelief that this could be happening. Trump’s first victory in 2016 could be put down to historical circumstance; an unfortunate aberration. That administration ended with his attempt to overthrow the constitutional state using a fascist mob. There has been a steady parade of ex-employees of impeccable conservative credentials informing America of the true nature of Trump and the danger of a second term. The list of his misdemeanours goes far beyond those referred to from Cusack’s list. He is a loudmouthed liar and braggart, a serial purveyor of invective (remember the tweets sent about London’s mayor before his state visit to Britain), a misogynist and patriarch, a crooked businessman and a man of gross moral turpitude.
And yet the last characteristic does not shock a nation as the dictionary definition would suggest. Instead, a majority of Americans who turned out to vote supported him even more emphatically than in 2016 and 2020. So, what does that make them? How are we to judge them? How do they explain and justify themselves? Some are the cynics you find in any society out for the perceived main chance. Others are gun-toting crazies and fascists with frontier fantasies of the sort on display during the January 2021 insurrection. Undoubtedly, there are many people who feel left behind and impoverished by the current capitalist system that prefers consumers to workers. But why would they rally behind big businessmen, financiers, technocrats and believers in less government? Will they deliver an economic safety net of lower food prices, health care and college education?
But large numbers are so-called Christians, albeit of the white ethnic nationalist type; the sort who wave around bibles and crucifixes in support of racism. It would be negligent to forget to say that their biblical literalism, patriarchy and authoritarian attitudes are shared by many nominal Christians in Africa (and Islamic, Hindu and Jewish fundamentalists after their own fashion). Both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches need to wake up and denounce this brand of Christianity, although not the people who deserve liberation from it.
Turning to the political as personal, in my teens I grew up literally surrounded by Americans. On New Providence, even in the sixties prior to mega cruise liners, there were sometimes more tourists on the island, almost all American, than locals although few of them ventured further than Nassau’s city centre and beaches. There were a few Americans at our school, too, although most of them attended private institutions rather than Government High School, which was modelled on British grammar schools (and is remembered with great pride by its dwindling band of ex-pupils). To adapt a (rather ungracious) wartime British phrase, Americans were ‘overfed, over-confident and over here’.
At this stage the USA was at the height of its power and in the middle of the Cold War: the Cuban missile crisis was in late 1962 and brought us to the edge of the nuclear war that many Americans would seemingly then have welcomed. What I saw did not appeal: brashness and arrogance were traits British children of that era were taught to reject. Indeed, we were not supposed to talk about ourselves. At a young age I had a sense that the USA lacked nuance; a place of primitivism, crassness, macho and glib answers whether fundamentalist religion, military might (‘bomb them into the Stone Age’) or unrestrained capitalism. Brought up in British liberal and social democrat culture this was not a world I recognised as tenable or just. Americans appeared to come from another planet entirely. To put it plainly, I was thoroughly anti-American in every way possible; even to the extent (embarrassing now) of being pro-Soviet.
Youthful perceptions and prejudices can last a while and it was not until my thirties that I shook off anti-Americanism. Then at the end of the Cold War I began to understand that the USA, however flawed, was key to global democracy; and how much its brightest minds were essential to world progress. One was still aware that a lunatic fringe of fundamentalists and conspiracy theorists lurked in the background, but they were not in the national mainstream and Democrats and Republicans shared the same basic values foundational to democracy such as the rule of law and universal human rights. By and large there was a national consensus around these. The tipping point seems to have been during the 2008 financial crisis, created by a supposedly prudent Republican administration.
When Trump defeated Hilary Clinton in 2016 this was greeted with surprise. Four years later that had turned to extreme alarm and the administration ended with the shedding of blood. What we thought was the genuine USA was welcomed back into the world. But we turned out to be wrong. Maybe it has been the last four years that were aberrant in twenty-first-century America. Serious commentators are suggesting that it may have seen its last free presidential elections. We are, after all, about to see a country run by people who think the only true citizen is a white male. And in case this is seen as unusual, take a look at India under Narendra Modi where the only genuine Indian is increasingly regarded as Hindu.
And here we are, unbelievably, today with Trump about to name another Cabinet, one unlikely to include the sort of restraining influences that salvaged the first. This time we may get people who believe their brains are being eaten by worms as a result of vaccines; or tech-weirdoes intent on global domination. The big man himself has threatened deportations totalling millions, the use of the military to pacify urban areas and destruction of his perceived enemies especially those in the press. In short, he has promised to behave like a dictator.
Already the forces opposed to right-wing populism are rallying around and not just in the USA. This is now a worldwide crusade against fascism in the form of authoritarians like Netanyahu, Putin, Kim, Khamenei and Xi; and those in the B-league who want to bring down liberal democracy such as Farage, Zuma, Wilders and Le Pen. If a small chink of light can be seen, it might be greater global solidarity among those who value liberal and social democracy.
Perhaps we have relied upon unwarranted hopes and assumptions about the USA for far too long. And, perhaps, that little boy in Nassau in the 1960s was at least part right.