Watching the staggering news coming out of the US every day (and there will surely be more between the time I finish writing this and the time it’s published), it’s hard to find a logic, to decipher a strategy. I can think of at least four possible strategies:
- The United States would continue, under Trump as under his predecessors, to assert its superpower and would still like to impose its conceptions of the world and its values (democracy, individual freedom) on the rest of the planet. This can be deduced, for example, from Trump’s obsession with defending the right to freedom of expression and the right to bear arms, his hostility to the Chinese regime, and his desire to subdue the Venezuelans. Conversely, this is not the case with his indulgence of the world’s other dictatorships, including Russia; nor with his reluctance to defend Ukrainian democracy; nor with his very reserved attitude towards Taiwan, presented more as an obstacle to the development of American industry than as an outpost of democracy.
- The United States would feel in decline, close to bankruptcy, and Trump would act only to reduce debts and deficits, grab vital raw materials, and keep his fellow citizens away from deadly drugs. This is what we see, for example, with the tariffs (if they are really intended to bring in revenue); with the budget-saving campaign; also with what he is doing to push Mexico, Colombia and Canada to combat fentanyl trafficking more effectively. And also with the desire to regain control of the Panama Canal, to occupy Greenland and Canada, so rich in resources vital to the United States. To reduce the public debt, tariffs would have to be more than a negotiating tool, which they are not; he would also have to dare to raise taxes on the rich, which he did not do. He would have to accept more immigrants to maintain growth, which he doesn’t do; he would also have to fight obesity, a fatal disease, which would mean attacking the giants of the country’s agri-food industry, who have been poisoning it for a century; which he doesn’t do; finally, he would have to relaunch a vast campaign of public investment in roads, points, road and drinking water networks, which he doesn’t do either.
- The United States would be embarking on a reactionary crusade to defend white, masculinist values worldwide. We see this in the vast campaign against migrants, against Islam, against women’s rights, against the presence of minorities in government, universities and businesses. Yet we don’t feel he’s ready to take this fight to the international level, or even openly in the United States.
- The United States would be at the service of a techno-fascist doctrine, which would like to put an end to democracy, impose its technologies on the whole world, and govern it through control of all digital networks. This is what he is doing with his attacks on Chinese and European firms, on the European Union project, and on democracy in Germany, Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe. It’s what he’s doing when he hints that he might run for a third term. It’s not what he does when he repeats that Musk and the technologists are only there to give him their opinion and that he decides as he pleases.
In fact, it’s all of the above, depending on the day, depending on the hour. So it’s none of the above, since no one strategy dominates the others. And they are partially contradictory. In fact, what dominates is a feeling of omnipotence on the part of a few people, who don’t necessarily agree with each other, with Trump at the forefront, who think that the world can only obey them and that deciding the fate of human beings is no more difficult than manipulating a video game controller.
For that is the main constant in all this frenetic activity: employees are being fired, borders are being closed, vital aid is being withdrawn from starving populations, people are being expelled from their homes in the United States, and preparations are being made to empty Gaza of its inhabitants to turn it into a real estate development zone. All this as if human beings were nothing more than digital characters, without any reality, without any affect.
And that’s what’s so important – both the most frightening and the most encouraging. Most frightening, because they don’t care about human life, and can destroy millions on a whim. The most encouraging, because humans are obviously not video game characters, even with superpowers. They have feelings, ambitions, demands; they fight and they always end up winning against all tyrants. Let’s just hope these hyper-powered gamers haven’t done too much irreversible damage before their inevitable defeat.