I went coast to coast, from Baltimore/Maryland to San Francisco/California. Was looking around a bit, talking to some folks, taking note of “the media” and enjoying the greatness of the place. The upshot of it all, as seen through a personal lens and processed in the meatgrinder of one’s idiosyncrasies: Donald Trump is not a political one-hit wonder and no aberration. Trumpism will leave its mark on America for years to come.
Trumpism says: life is permanent competition and struggle. Kampf as we say in the language of Wolfgang Goethe and Adolf Hitler. There are winners and losers. He who is stronger gets all the power. The strong one is most powerful alone, as Friedrich Schiller has William Tell declare: Der Starke ist am mächtigsten allein. There is “us” and “the other”. He who won’t heed my words must learn the hard way. Wer nicht hören will, muss fühlen. And may the devil take the hindmost. Den Letzten beissen die Hunde. These are not novel ideas. They relate to one deeply rooted orientation in America’s history which has emerged ever so often, up to the abominable Roy Cohn (always hit back, never apologize) who was young Donald Trump’s guru. Most of the time pre-Trumpism took second place behind the collective aspiration, equally deep-rooted, to do good and to let the rest of the world participate in America’s blessings. But the ghost was ever present. In 1935, Sinclair Lewis thought up a Hitleresque power-grab in the United States, „It can’t happen here “, and the parallels to the goings-on of today are intriguing. In Donald Trump broke to the surface what was long simmering underneath.
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The basic elements of Trumpism are part of the American (and by the way, the European) self They are not aberrations on the fringe, but present „in the middle of society.” Seen from this angle, Donald Trump Is a very American president. This is why he will resonate beyond his term.
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Poor Americans. The easy out of anti-Americanism is not available to them, unlike Europe where it is ubiquitous and acceptable. East of the Atlantic Ocean there is hardly a dinner table where “the Americans” would not be lampooned, mostly justifiably, but even more often self-righteously so. It has become hard to resist indeed, but I would rather not give in to the inclination. I do not want to be an anti-American. Neither do I want to join the embarrassing chorus of my-farewell-to-America sob pieces that populate European feuilletons. I simply note what I see and hear. And I continue to watch how “the Americans” deal with their Trumpism.
„Gaz-a-Lago“ in Kansas City
As noted earlier, one woman out up a sign „Stop the Genocide – no US arms to Israel” in her front yard, and her friend made a joke: Why not put a sign “Gaz-a-Lago” next to it? The homeowner was not present when the joke was let out. The two women are at loggerheads on the issue and do not talk about the Middle East anymore. They are “best friends” and want to stay that way.
„Gaz-a-Lago” makes you cringe because the joke with the real estate approach – kick the tenants out, demolish, build new – is too close to reality. This is precisely what happens right now, the demolishing is practically done, and the kicking out of the inhabitants is under way.
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We said nothing. In Donald Trump’s America you are wary of explosive political issues, lest you are looking for trouble. You hold your tongue and keep quiet. This is not an isolated observation. People do not talk – not anymore – about the things that separate them. The political camps have evolved into guarded compounds from where no one bolts. In actuality, the US support of Israel’s starvation strategy in Gaza – unmatched in the merciless efficiency of a high-tech “western” military power – could be expected to provoke an outcry like Black Lives Matter or Me Too. But nothing is felt. Not anymore: Where protests erupted, particularly at places of higher education, they were put down by administrative measures of school administrations. On our trip we visited a half a dozen campuses and not one showed even the slightest trace of piping up on Gaza. The only political propaganda item was a grafitto for nuclear power – nuclear saves nature – at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo/California.
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Next to the silence is the fear. In the corporate world, caution with political exposure has been advisable for quite a while. The new thing is that in the land of uninhibited free speech the state takes on the role of fanatical agitator. Bureaucrats have to comply with loyalty questionnaires, and whoever does not toe the line is fired. The politically undesirable are turned away at the border. Canadian friends in New York know a case first-hand. An acquaintance, Canadian, was refused entry to the United States after she spoke her mind when questioned by the customs official about her take on President Trump. Now they fear getting stuck at the border when returning from a family visit up north. They are green card holders, legal residents for almost five decades.
“No Kings” in Atlanta
Loyalty tests, governing by decree, disregard of court orders, using the military against alleged domestic upheaval – Trump is trying his hand at autocracy. The pattern is the Latin-American Caudillo. This precisely makes him attractive to many Trumpists, but even more so irks the opposition. This is why the big nation-wide anti-Trump-protest of mid-June took place under the motto of «No Kings». In Atlanta, I saw thousands gathering on Liberty Plaza in front of the State Capitol but compared to a Trump rally the event was low energy. Most strikingly, the crowd on Liberty Plaza was almost exclusively white. Not a trace of the erstwhile so highly touted rainbow coalition. In Selma/Alabama the observation was confirmed. All whites from out of town, said the Black man who sold memorabilia next to the Edmund Pettus bridge where on «bloody Sunday» in March 1965 batons and tear gas stopped the civil rights march. Here too, a «No Kings» action took place, said the man, but neither the black nor the white locals – still segregated -were participating. Only “whites from out of town“.
The speeches at „No Kings“ were a boring recital of the complete catalogue of left-wing grievances, and as such mirrored the cluelessness of the opposition. Politically, anti-Trumpism is incorporated in the Democratic Party which cannot achieve anything in Congress because Trump’s Republicans are in the majority and sticking together like Leninist cadres. The Democrats are clinging to the hope of winning the next elections, their discussions circle around the most promising candidates. Whatever occupies the minds of the electorate beyond personality issues remains mostly out of consideration. The one exception is old Bernie Sanders, born in 1941. The senator from Vermont is the only credible voice in the anti-Trump-camp that reaches over mere electioneering. Sanders says what he already said in 2010. Then, in a long filibuster in the US Senate, he opposed the budget of President Obama whom he accused of selling the middle class down the river. This time around, there too was a Democrat filibuster against the budget, Trump’s budget, even longer than Sanders’, the longest ever. But the filibusterer, Cory Booker from New Jersey, only signaled a personal ambition. His speech contained above everything else the Word “I”.
One uncomfortable truth completes the picture: Some facets of Trumpism are secretly appreciated in the camp of its opponents. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy is not only an antivaxer who cuts funding for vaccine research but also a man who goes against the big food corporations. He fights the use of synthetic food dyes and campaigns against health-hazardous sugar. This is grist to green mills. Even more support can be found for Trump’s criticism of woke code-of-conduct mandates and his move against diversity, equity, and inclusion – the exaggerated DEI-programs of universities and corporations to provide targeted preference to all kinds of minorities. I have talked to several opponents of Trump which expressed not-so-secret satisfaction that some reigning in is taking place.
Mamdani in New York
To say that Zohran Kwame Mamdani, the winner of the Democrat primary for the mayoral election in New York, is a surprise is an understatement. Mamdani, son of an academic/artistic Indian household, the mother is a filmmaker, is young, inexperienced, nice looking with a way of words, an immigrant from Africa and a Muslim. And he calls himself a «democratic socialist», without reserve. Asked «do you like capitalism?» in a CNN-interview, he responded «not really» which made the interviewer’s jaw drop. To question capitalism is a capital sin in America, politically, and socialists are easily branded as «communists». Senator Sanders, formally not a member of the Democratic Party, too is a «democratic socialist». He sees America in the grip of an «oligarchy» of large corporate interests and their allies in both parties, resulting in growing inequality between rich and poor, hand in hand with the erosion of the «middle class». Against the Democrat establishment he denounced the effects of globalization on the lower classes, – «our disastrous trade policies so large companies can continue their efforts to outsource American jobs to China and other low-wage countries». This quote from the 2010 filibuster could be from Donald Trump. They speak of the same thing, from different poles. Where Sanders talks about «oligarchy», Trump says «elites», where Sanders puts class warfare from below on top, Trump appeals to the chauvinist instincts of being American.
„We reformers “ in Andersonville
In Andersonville/Georgia, population 237, next to th building with the Pepsi dispenser there stands a large column in the middle of the road, inscribed «Wirz». It is the memorial for Henry Wirz, commander of the infamous prisoner-of-war camp close by where 45000 prisoners of the Confederates were crammed together, a third of them dying of hunger and disease. A neighbor steps out of a house. “They murdered him”, he says. Henry Wirz, a Swiss immigrant from Zurich, was tried and hanged in Washington, D.C. on 10 November 1865, one of three executed war criminals in the American civil war. The neighbor says that Wirz was not a war criminal but the victim of a hunt for scapegoats, and that he had no part in the circumstances in the camp, as Ulysses Grant cut all supplies.
The Wirz column should make a first-rate target of cancel culture which is hunting down politically unwanted architecture throughout the country.
- Were there any attempts?
- No, but they are still active.
- Who are «they»?
- BLM and Antifa.
With BLM, he means the Black-Lives-Matter protests of the last decade against police brutality on blacks, with «antifa» the rowdies who like to label themselves as left-leaning «antifascists», perhaps similar to the «black blocks» in Zurich or Bern. Both are rather fleeting social-media-generated constructs. The Caudillo in the White House portrays and fights them as diehard organizations.
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We talk about everyday life. A lot of what Donald Trump has promised, is not realized in the first six months of his presidency. Gas prices are not halved. The prices in the supermarket are still high, in Cambridge/Massachusetts I paid seven dollars for half a gallon of milk, twice as much as in high-cost Switzerland. The job miracle too is not really materializing, despite the intensified hunt on undocumented immigrants which allegedly rob the nation’s workers of better wages.
- What do you say about Trump’s promises which are not fulfilled?
- Not yet fulfilled. He is trying everything, but resistance in Washington is great, in both parties. We call it the uniparty. We reformers have a rough deal.
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Not so rough. Trump’s Republican party moves to his tune like a cobra to a flute. They wave all his projects through congress, even when they violated deepest-held tenets. The crass example is the «big beautiful bill» on taxes and spending. According to all computations and protections (exception: his own), the bill will increase the already enormous public debt by billions. This is anathema for «fiscally conservative» Republicans but by way of old-fashioned pork-barreling the administration brought enough sceptics to reversing course and voting yes.
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Trump’s opponents denounce the bill as «redistribution from the poor to the rich» and «gift to the richest», because it not only adds to the public debt but also provides for cuts of health insurance and food aid for the poor. But these painful measures only will kick in by and by, i.e., after the elections. On the other hand a whole range of immediate measures will be felt in the wallet of the not-so wealthy: Tax advantages for child care, a deduction for retirees, no tax on tips (a Trump idea which was immediately aped by the opposition), higher deductions of state and local taxes. The bill might not be beautiful but it sure is crafty.
God in Prescott
The rodeo in Prescott/ Arizona, Frontier Days, had it all, wrestling and roping hoofed beasts, ladies’ horseback race, a clown. What sticks in the memory is the mood at the place. The event was free of all aggressiveness, but not low in energy as «No Kings» was. A kind of unanimity was felt, a serenity grounded in the matter-of-factness of going about things that do not need to particularly promote or celebrate itself. The «Cowboy way of life», as the man behind the loudspeaker said. Probably something invented, imagined or longed for, expressed with large belt buckles, low-sitting Wranglers and wide-brimmed hat, the ladies sporting boots below very short skirts. There was not one Trump-insignium in the whole arena. The big show belonged to God. The appeals to the Almighty took such a long time that the following national anthem was a mere encore.
Christians in Chimney Rock
Polls say that religion is losing ground in the US, but where there still is faith, it is more thorough, more demanding and more overtly worn on the sleeve. When a believer tells you about something unexpected or inexplicable, she often says it’s a God thing. On the highway, where you hardly ever see a store with fresh groceries, for every Dollar Store you encounter a half a dozen churches, in Missouri or Tennessee easily more. Giant crosses and huge billboards recommend the guiding hand of the Lord and his son to the traveler. At times the finer points of the teachings are at issue. «Jesus Christ is not God», was written on a billboard in Texas. Scripture says Jesus did not live before he came to earth. Good to know.
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It is basically impossible to not make fun of the American obsession with the good book. But there are Christians which take their beliefs so seriously that they act on it. In Chimney Rock, a village in North Carolina that was totally destroyed by hurricane Helene, residents said that they got little help from the state and even less from the insurance companies in cleaning up and rebuilding. Asked whether there was no support at all, two people said unisono «The Amish». A busload of members of the Amish, a branch of anabaptism, came down from Pennsylvania and worked for several weeks on removing the debris. A local Christian organization, «Spokes of Hope», was also active.
Jesus on the radio
Christian radio – the car radio is inevitable on a road trip – caters to such people. The programs deal with the all-too-human challenges like child rearing, relating to your spouse, outreach to lapsed family members. Quite often laced with helpful special offers on nutritional supplements, wonder pills or ways out of debt. Once you get stuck with a Christian talk show, things get political, far beyond the ever-present abortion issue and always taking the viewpoint of the ruler in Washington: «us» vs. «them». Somewhere before Jackson/Tennessee one Stefano Genazino of «C-Fam (Center for Family and Human Rights) was holding forth on the world situation in general and the United Nations in particular. Surprisingly enough, it was neither China nor Islamism where he identified evil. The enemy is Europe whose influence on the UN must be checked. Genazino did not preach isolationism at all. He rather demands the widening of «conservative» cultural wars to the world stage. Hs example was the fight over Ukraine. President Trump, he said, has his ideas about ending the war, but the European Union and NATO («two different organizations, but there are a lot of overlaps») are trying to tie his hands. «There really is resistance from the EU, and they have become rivals.
Windmills along route 66
In the vocabulary of travel journalism, route 66 is «mythical» or «iconic». Thanks to Nat King Cole it has entered the great American songbook, and for Harley-Davidson-riders from Europe it is the Camino real. Today, the route for long stretches is modern Interstate 40, and where still existing as a highway, a ruin – a miserable ensemble of decaying motels, closed watering holes, fading murals and old vehicles bearing testimony to erstwhile greatness. In front of a garage in Tucumcari/New Mexico I saw four Edsels.
Hopefully, everything will be left as it is.
Standing out along the way is the transition from Oklahoma to Texas. In the Texas panhandle you see miles of rotating windmills, larger and more plentiful than in Germany. Texas, while still an oil state and republican-red to the last gill, is the largest and fastest growing producer of wind energy in the United States and number 5 in the world. This probably has little to do with ecology or exiting from fossil energy. It is a matter of dollar and cent: Wind is cheaper. While the Caudillo in Washington bad-mouths wind power wherever he finds an occasion, lamenting the esthetics of the rotor towers and evoking the protection of birds (he does not like the windmills next to his golf court in Scotland), the Texans have embarked on the economically more rational path, regardless of Trumpism.
Language rules in Petrified Forest
In the visitor’s center of Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, the park service regularly presents archeological objects. Behind a glass window, a friendly ranger showed a two hundred-million-year-old bone, a remain of some sort of crocodile, he said, a detour of evolution so to speak. When we are alone, questions closer to today could be asked. The wave of terminations of government employees did not exclude the National Parks, the «liberal media» are concerned about closings, cuts in services and the like.
- Is that so? Have colleagues of yours lost their jobs?
The ranger smiled and showed a plasticized piece of cardboard with some words written on it.
- Here is that the government tells me to say. I am not supposed to speak by myself.
Discipline de language, as the French say. We call it «Sprachregelung» – the corset of words prescribed by higher-ups to their underlings. We spoke anyway a little bit.
- Did you see the young man passing by? That’s an intern. We are using them now, they take over tasks which we cannot execute anymore. They are paid by the „Friends of Petrified Forest “. The lady in the cashier’s booth at the park entrance is an intern too.
Climate change in Piedras Blancas
Along highway one on the Pacific coast, not far from Hearst Castle, is the protected area of Piedras Blancas. On the beach you can view the sea elephants. Lazy colossuses, bulging like liverwursts, lying side by side and sometimes on top of each other, occasionally letting go a grunt. It stinks. The elephants – all males – are shedding their hides, shreds of skin are rotting in the heat. A volunteer explained that the animals arrive from waters up north, males and females after each other, then back. He said that the respective time periods were shifting, and that tis was related to the warming, climate change. The man apparently did not know the newest decrees of the government which deletes the term «climate change» from all official texts and bans its use.
Even the Environmental Protection Agency is not allowed to use the word any longer, for according to Trumpism climate change does not exist. The idea that it is man-made by the use of fossil energy is considered an ideological aberration and indoctrination. Hence the language rule. It is possible that the plasticized cardboard piece of the Ranger in Petrified Forest will be modified as well. Christian fundamentalists believe «evolution» is heresy. Based on passages of the bible they think the world started with an act of God – «creationism». Creationists say that such creation happened only a few thousand years ago. Two-hundred-million-year-old crocodile bones do not fit.
Honing the brand in the Hudson valley
A conversation with the authority on Trumpism in the Hudson Valley. Idyl in an old farmhouse without heat, but wonderful porch, cow on pasture, chickens cackling, huge garden. The owner is a dropped-out university professor, Harvard PhD, brilliant mind, adamant enemy of everything state and society, first-hour Trump follower. An eccentric, likeable.
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We begin with the Epstein case, a little crack in the armor of Trumpism. New York billionaire Jeffrey Epstein had his way with minors, made them available to friends in the global elite, was arrested and died in unclear circumstances («suicide») in custody. The world of Trump went ape, the suspicion was of human trafficking among the hated upper crust, the call for full publication of all investigative material arose, candidate Trump joining. The Trump administration however plays coy, because the president was a friend of Epstein, and now his opponents call for transparency. In a classic application of guilt by association it is insinuated that the Caudillo knew of Epstein’s offerings of young flesh or perhaps even availed himself. The conspiracy-minded part of his following does not let go.
- What do you think about the Epstein case?
I don’t know, we have to see. - We know some things.
- Epstein was a collector of people. He wanted to meet interesting and powerful people, and he used young girls as bait, in order to make his parties attractive. This happens all the time.
- I don’t know anybody who acts like this, and I don’t know anybody who would know anybody who does this.
- You have no idea. You come from a village in Switzerland, you don’t know what’s going on in the world.
The conversation moves from Epstein to Trump.
- What about the pressure for uniformity in the government and in the Republican party. If you don’t toe the line, you have got to go.
- The party is asserting power after winning the election. This is normal.
- How about the behavior of the president? He exaggerates, clearly says things that are not true, does not live up to agreements. That’s a crook.
- Trump is a brand. This belongs to his brand.
The upshot
Donald Trump a «brand», something like the Levi Strauss or Coca-Cola of politics. A brand owner cannot but abide by the image of his brand in the market. Levi Strauss comes with rivets, Donald Trump with disgust. And a brand needs to be honed and polished. You cannot deviate from corporate identity. Whoever votes for Trump, must take the whole Trump, as is. And Trumpists do take him, warts and all. As long as they like the course.
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If that’s so, allies don’t matter. «Great again» America relies on itself. The ranks must be closed. Peanuts like overpriced milk or a not yet halved gas price won’t justify any deviation. Even less so as the darker prophecies of the opponents have not materialized. The American economy has not collapsed. Inflation is not rising to unsupportable levels, neither is unemployment even though the numbers signal less of a morning glow than advertised. And on the world stage Trump is on a roll. American peacemaking has happened, maybe less promising than heralded, but weapons are silent between India and Pakistan, Thailand and Cambodia, Rwanda and Congo, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. The bombing of Iran has not provoked the wildfire that the Cassandras warned of for years. And in Ukraine, things appear to be moving. Right-wing talk on the radio incessantly puts these achievements up front. The Nobel prize for peace is shoved in front of the audience like a sausage in front of a dog.
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The caudillo is on the verge of becoming imperator. Not quite an Augustus – but an Augustulus for sure.