Donald Trump erstwhile a jury in Manhattan court found him guilty. All 34 national charges, he stated he was not withdrawing from the race for president. And if he wins the election, he's ready to hold office from prison.
Even if we overlook specified an utmost possibility, the situation itself is crazy enough. Trump is the first man in the past of the United States to be found guilty as a erstwhile or incumbent president. It is besides the first denomination of a prominent political organization to be convicted of national crime. So the game is much higher than who wins the next election.
Even any U.S. critics see this country as a model of a rich, free society that attracts millions of immigrants. Today, the chaos around Trump's election not only makes the spectrum of the American civilian war closer. Trump’s second triumph may even trigger a change in planet order.
Let's look at it through the prism. movie Civil War Alex Garland – fiction allows you to better see hidden below the social surface trends that obscure confusion accompanied by actual events.
The film's action takes place during the civilian war between the U.S. national government under the president during his 3rd word and many civilian Movements. The strongest are Western Forces (WF), western forces with Texas and California at the head. The movie ends with the White home business by WF and the assassination of the President. The game is told from the position of a tiny group of journalists travelling from fresh York City to Washington to interview the besieged president.
First, the characters of experienced war photographer Lee Smith and young, ambitious photojournalist Jessie Cullen come to the fore. Jessie resents being afraid to take pictures; she gradually exercises cold blood and skill, losing sensitivity to violence. erstwhile both scope the desolate White House, Jessie enters the line of fire erstwhile taking pictures. Lee intervenes and is fatally hit. Jessie captures Lee's death erstwhile she's being pushed to safety. Then, without emotion, he goes to the Oval Office, where a group of WF soldiers prepare to execute the president. Jessie gets approval to photograph the execution and then immortalizes the soldiers in triumphant pose over the body.
Two charges immediately occurred to me during the screening. First, this game can be read as doubled BildungsromanLee and Jessie's roles are reversed. At first, Lee is an insensitive reporter, curious only in taking good pictures, and Jessie has besides much compassion to take specified a neutral attitude. At the end of Lee, she dies trying to defend Jessie, and this 1 gains full distance from the observer, taking even a image of Lee dying, who saved her.
Such neutral journalism is false, a trap which must be avoided at all costs. present commitment is peculiarly needed. If we learn to be delicate to violence, it will mean that we ourselves belong to a violent system. In Ukraine, Gaza, the West Bank and hundreds of another places, only an engaged look will see the fact we are all looking for.
The second charge concerns a certain feature of the planet presented by many critics. Behind the civilian war in the movie are highly vague political divisions. The armed alliance of liberal California with conservative Texas is evidently absurd. The authoritarian president holding the 3rd word combines liberalism à la Biden with populism à la Trump. In addition to a fewer loosely racist remarks, soldiers encountered by a group of journalists on their way to Washington do not say a word that would indicate what they are actually fighting for.
However, it would not be right to underestimate this decision by filmmakers only as part of the commercial strategy of not offending viewers with views contrary to the possible clear political line of the film. erstwhile we miss out on circumstantial political struggles, there remains the spectre of civilian war circulating over the American public life of the last fewer years – the progressive breakdown of the common social fabric.
This is where reality is headed. We are not just observing a large antagonism between the liberal center and the populist right plus any part of the fresh left (student protests). Rather, we are dealing with a series of strange, skewed alliances (the utmost left and the utmost right argue aid to Ukraine), and a series of unusual divisions (the propalestine left divided into peacekeepers opposed to the panic and supporters of Hamas as an authentic opposition group that should not be criticized).
I presume that all of these conflicts are just pseudo-conflicts, so basically, 1 should not stand up for 1 another. Trump's populism is simply a reaction to the collapse of a liberal-democratic welfare state, so as far as can and should be supported by any steps proposed by the liberal centre (right to abortion, fight against discrimination against cultural groups, etc.), it is always crucial to remember that in the long word it was the liberal centre that triggered the current crisis.
This brings us to Gramsci's celebrated conviction from his prison writings: “The crisis is precisely that what is old dies erstwhile fresh is not yet born; in specified interregnum many pathological symptoms appear.” Today's struggles, from fighting right-wing populism to Cancel culture, it's mostly the kind of illness.
We can respond to this mess in a variety of ways. It's worth mentioning the movie hero Serpico (1973, dir.Sidney Lumet). Frank Serpico is not just an honest police officer fighting corruption in the ranks. His primary attitude has a more subtle tone: he only wants to be outside the ellipse of corruption. He refuses colleagues to accept his share of money, and even repeatedly asks to be transferred back to the curb, in the uniform of a private police officer – due to the fact that there is the least corruption. It is worth noting this attitude: ignoring corruption, trying to act as if the strategy was working properly, the hero becomes an even more severe thorn in the side of a corrupt colleague than those who openly fight pathologies.
How would Frank Serpico's attitude look during a civilian war? Is this the town with Civil War, where journalists halt to make supplies and the residents pretend that life goes on the old way and even boutiques are open? (Of course, on the roofs you can see armed guards protecting the town.) Many voters behave like this: they just want to last a political storm in their privacy, leading a regular life as if nothing had happened.
However, erstwhile the state itself and its organs are straight active in crime, Serpico's strategy ceases to work. Let us mention the Jacob Zuma scandal, the erstwhile president of South Africa: after the prison conviction Zuma simply ignored the call for punishment, and the state authorities were not ready to send the police and detain him. Western media commented on the shortcomings of the regulation of law in the 3rd World... But what are we expected to call a country where there's a serious anticipation that the president will be in prison? And what if this anticipation itself reveals the half hidden fact of our strategy (whatever we call it: global-neofeudal or otherwise)?
After leaving the courtroom, Trump stated: “The actual verdict will be issued on 5 November – by the nation.” It's clear what he meant. survey analyst Doug Schoen comments"Becoming convicted of crime is not cool, but in November voters will think more about inflation, the confederate border, the rivalry with China and Russia, and the money spent on Israel and Ukraine." I agree that "to be convicted is not cool," but after specified a conviction you become a criminal, and then it is alternatively a fatal case that a criminal can be elected president of the most powerful (still) state in the world. There is no indirect path, no compromise between the 2 visible possibilities – 1 can even uncertainty whether a real war can be postponed forever.
Schoen, of course, meant how the conviction would affect the voter opinion of Trump. In this respect, both options look disastrous. Trump's triumph will mean the end of the regulation of law in our present sense, including the tripartition of power. Trump has already announced what extremist steps he will take if elected. These actions will reduce civilian liberties so that the common concept of democracy will cease to be suitable for describing public life – not to mention the global consequences (no support for Ukraine, but full support for Israel, etc.). In fact, this will lead to the United States becoming another BRICS country.
On the another hand, Trump's failure can be even worse: a large part of voters will feel excluded from public life. These people will be pushed to a cold war. If the national government doesn't have legitimacy in them, the state's moods will explode. Today, more than half of Republicans do not consider Biden a full president.
Is there hope? Franz Kafka was going to tell Max Brod that he is “Enough hope, infinite hope, but not for usIt’s okay. ” This ambiguous message may besides make sense: not for us as we are today. So we request to radically change. Rebirth.
Regarding the October Revolution, Kafka noted: “The decisive minute of human improvement lasts forever. For this reason, revolutionary intellectual/spirit movements, which they consider to be void before themselves, are right due to the fact that nothing has happened yet." Today, the fact that nothing has happened yet means that all the main possibilities – populism of the fresh right, liberal center, Former Social Democratic Care State, spiritual fundamentalism, as well as the naive thought that strengthening the BRICS powers will lead to the creation of a new, multicentric planet – stay doomed to failure.
The real utopia is that the fresh order of the world, capable of dealing with today's crises, from the ruin of the environment to the global war, will appear gradually, from the opportunities available today. A fewer decades ago, Theodore Adorno stated: “Only despair can save us.” Today, this is especially true. However, it does not mean that we should sit down with our hands on and hope. On the contrary, we should act in all possible way – without hope.
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In English she translated Aleksandra Paszkowska.
