It was midnight and the polls on the east coast of the United States were about to close. By then I’d had enough of the idle chatter that passes these days for political journalism. But before I headed to bed, still hopeful America would see sense, I had one last thing to do.
I deactivated my Twitter account – I refuse to think of it as X.
I’d been a comparatively early adopter, and my tally of more than 60,000 posts was a good indication of a life partially wasted. It was a small gesture to signal my disgust at Elon Trump-Musk’s debasement of the platform, unnoticed I’m sure in Silicon Valley, but important to me.
Fascists – and we are seeing the emergence of fascism in the United States – thrive on the indifference of people like you and me who just want to get on with our lives. I don’t have to support right-wing propagandists by being on their platforms, and I won’t.
As someone who believes democracy is the least worst political system we have, I cannot challenge the result of this election. For the first time in his political life, Trump is not a loser. His victory over Kamala Harris was comprehensive.
This was not 2016 when he lost the popular vote, nor was it 2020 when he lost the presidency, this was the rise of a phoenix – a rise from a pyre built on shady business deals, sex scandals, racism, and bully-boy tactics. It says something about the corruption of US politics that it did not matter to voters that Trump was a convicted felon.
Trump Mark 2 will be unfettered by Congress, the Supreme Court and by a Republican Party which has embraced the lowest form of politics – the politics of the mob.
The changes coming at us will last longer than a single term. They will fundamentally alter the world in which we live. That might appear overly alarmist, but the future has already been mapped out.
For ordinary Americans – including many who voted for him – it will mean greater hardship. Trump’s first presidency was an economic disaster. His approach to health care – embrace of anti-vaxers, further erosion of healthcare for women, and end of Obama Care – will mean premature death for tens of thousands and more. And he will destroy communities – migrants who are doing all they can to make America great again through hard work, like generations before them, including the Irish.
For the rest of us, it means the triumph of Putinism as a force in global politics as America retreats; the marginalisation of Ukraine, which will be pressured to kow-tow to Moscow; and the empowerment of Netanyahu and his killing machine. As for the climate, already teetering on the edge, Trump will do all he can to push it into the abyss.
The American Dream is now the preserve of white men, and its guardians are Silicon Valley billionaires who have discovered that control of communications and manipulation of the web is the surest way to power and riches. They made billions on the back of Trump’s victory.
The right-wing media they control became a factory for lies, and unlike the undisciplined left, they were always ‘on message’. The stories which shaped the debate – including Haitians in Springfield eating pets – started in right-wing outlets and were then adopted by Trump-Vance.
In the wake of the result, the most sickening thing was the sight of world leaders – most notably Britain’s Keir Starmer – sucking up to Trump. But that’s what the British do to fascists. All Starmer needed was a white sheet of paper and he could have been doing an impression of Neville Chamberlin after his meeting with Hitler.
Ultimately this is a mess of America’s making, and America will have to sort it. The left, or what passes for the left there, needs to mobilise, and fast. The mid-terms in two years time are an opportunity to check Trump’s hegemony.
In the meantime his poisonous views must be challenged, vulnerable people must be protected, he must be attacked with every democratic weapon available.
As for Europe, it must fill the vacuum; checking Putin, providing leadership on the climate and the war in Ukraine, and doing all it can to secure a two-state solution in the Middle East. And if it must, it must stand up to Trump, calling him out for what he is – a danger to his own people, and to the world at large.
Appeasement must not be an option. Trump should be treated like the pariah he is.