Interview with Alexander Stille: “Trump has an authoritarian project, he is ready for anything”
Trump's America 2.0
"The working class, which made him win the elections, got nothing from the tycoon, only the emotional "spectacle" of the deportations. But the popular opposition is strong"
Militarized America. America at War. Trump's America 2.0. L'Unità discusses this with Alexander Stille , an American journalist and writer who collaborates with prestigious publications such as The New Yorker and The New York Times, and teaches journalism at Columbia University. His latest work, The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) has been a success with critics and readers.
He sends the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles. He threatens to go to war with Iran, in support of his friend and cronies Netanyahu. Professor Stille, what kind of America does Donald Trump have in mind? There are many explanations. I believe that there are various currents and elements within the Trump administration that have different visions and goals. Trump's goal is simply to increase his power as much as possible. Something that goes beyond a purely political sphere and affects the pathological one , linked to his excessive ego, to an uncontrollable megalomania. Expanding his power is for him almost a physiological need, an insatiable appetite. It doesn't matter how to satisfy this hunger for power, the end justifies the means, coherence doesn't matter, what matters most for Trump is the end he pursues. To achieve it he is willing to do anything and its opposite. He may be in favor of a negotiation with Iran if he emerges as the great hero who saved the world from the ayatollahs' atomic bomb, or he could support Israel's military initiative, if not even be part of it. Opposite options, which must however lead to the same result: how good Donald Trump is.
You referred to different elements within the tycoon's " magic circle" . Who and what are they, Professor Stille? People who have more nuanced visions. I think, for example, of his immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, a leading figure in the Trump administration, who has a white nationalist vision, with the declared aim of reversing as much as possible fifty years of open immigration to the United States, which have changed the demographics of the country from predominantly white to much more cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic. So, let's close the borders, let's prevent immigration from various African and Middle Eastern countries, let's encourage, if possible, white immigration from Europe or, last but not least, let's consider white South Africans as a persecuted people. This last idea is the most emblematic expression of what is a deeply racist vision, based on the sick fantasy that whites in South Africa are victims of genocide. Then there is the vision of the evangelical right, which seeks to reverse decades of secularization of a more secular country and impose religion at the center of national life.
Professor Stille, is there a common denominator to these visions? I would say so. And it is an “Orbanian” vision: to transform the United States into what political scientists call a competitive-authoritarian regime.
What do you mean? A regime in which opposition parties continue to exist, but they are so weakened that, ultimately, electoral competition becomes merely formal or almost. It becomes so, because in the meantime you have taken power within all sectors of civil society that were able to resist or balance, albeit increasingly weakly, the central power. Hence the war against universities, the mass purges within the public administration, the attack on the judiciary, the complaints against NGOs and law firms that represent causes considered adverse to the Trump administration. Here then is a whole series of measures put in place aimed at eliminating the sectors that remained independent from Trump's power. Who perhaps hasn't even read "Project 2025 ", but it's all written there. Vice President Vance said it openly, we conservatives have lost culture , we have lost universities, and to regain power we must attack universities, cultural institutions, public administration. Vance has openly repeated that we need to fire millions of bureaucrats who are not similar or obedient to us and replace them with our own staff. All this goes completely against the tradition, which dates back to the early 1900s, according to which public administration is apolitical, in which those in power must limit the number of positions that the executive can choose, while the vast majority of public bureaucrats are people who serve in right-wing or left-wing administrations and who have technical skills that they continue to exercise despite the change of power in Washington. Trump and his advisers would like to change, overturn all this. All of statutory America on their side and take power in the various sectors that have remained independent. This is the common strategy. Trump perhaps understands all this in a not very articulated and visceral way, that is, everything that is not my friend is my enemy, therefore I wage war on all those sectors that have not flattered me, that have not shown me obedience. Others, in his administration, follow him with a more articulated, much more targeted policy, the one set out in “Project 2025” . It should also be noted that among the centers of power within the Trump administration, there is also the old Republican base, the very rich big donors who finance the election campaigns, obtaining in exchange a huge tax cut for the sectors of the economy that these financiers represent.
In these various circles of those who contributed to bringing the tycoon back to the White House for the second time, is there anyone who had a nasty surprise when they woke up? The working class. The weakest in this coalition of power groups. The class that won Trump the election has gotten nothing. The tax cut will favor the wealthiest classes, the working class will suffer cuts to health insurance, to food stamps that help those who earn too little to make ends meet. In return, they have something…
What, Professor Stille? The spectacle of deportations. A kind of Roman circus, a third millennium Colosseum, which is good for the masses to tell them " look, we promised to deport the illegals, promise kept". Nothing on the economic level, only a spectacle to satisfy the emotional need for the working classes.
If the salt of a democracy, beyond the balance of power, is the existence of a strong opposition, is this opposition present within American society today? I think so. Last weekend we saw protests that brought 5 million people to the streets and squares of several cities. Some of the largest demonstrations in our recent history. There is one problem though…
Which one, Professor Stille? The official opposition, the Democratic Party, is confused, divided, poorly organized, and yet crucial to counter Trump's "Orbanian" designs. Then there is a more robust popular opposition. To defend democracy in the United States, these two oppositions must meet, to be able to win the elections, starting with the midterms, and prevent the ongoing overthrow of democratic institutions and powers.
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