Fergus Finlay: US democracy faces its most dangerous test yet under Donald Trump

America is sliding towards political violence, Trump's second presidency could ignite unrest with global repercussions

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters, from right, as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll listen in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Monday. Trump has destroyed one of the most basic American values of decency. Photo: AP/Mark Schiefelbein

Is it possible that what is going on in America right now will end in national violence? And if it does, how will that affect the rest of the world? 

How would a civil war play out in the world’s largest economy, the world’s most powerful nuclear power? What would be the consequences, not just for them, but for us too?

If that sounds apocalyptic, I’m sorry. But I made a terrible mistake once before. When Joe Biden won the presidency I wrote here that a corrupt gangster had been replaced by a good man, and that Trumpism was over. It would be consigned to a footnote in history, I said. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

My basic assumption was that the American people had seen through him. I didn’t realise how profoundly successful he had already been in building a cult around him, and that there were powerful sinister forces at play determined to see him re-elected for their own reasons. 

Some of those reasons were financial and self-serving, some of them were racist, and some were ideological and theocratic. It doesn’t really matter – they came together in a spontaneous coalition that on the one hand completely corrupted the party of Abraham Lincoln, and on the other installed a despotic leader and a platform of hate in the White House.

A document handed out by White House staff before President Donald Trump spoke with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Monday. Photo: AP/Mark Schiefelbein

I saw him on television the other day announcing that his presidency had had the most successful six months in the history of the United States. In that time he has added trillions of dollars to his own country’s national debt. 

But in the process he has destroyed one of the most basic American values of decency. Through the deliberate and callous dismantling of the American international aid programme he has visited poverty, disease and neglect on some of the poorest people in the world.

Although it’s not much discussed, that may turn out to be the most consequential decision Trump has made so far, as disease epidemics re-appear and make their way to America. But he has already, and also, passed legislation that will inevitably rob millions of Americans of whatever health cover they have now and consign an entire generation to new levels of poverty.

The old cliché that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer has never been, and will never be, truer than it is in Trump’s America. He has now, through his crazy system of tariffs, imposed a large consumer tax on an enormous range of foodstuffs, medicine, and household goods that will bite into the incomes of ordinary Americans. 

We used to have a phrase for that kind of thing – a stealth tax we called it. And there is no doubt whatever that he will use the revenue from his stealth tax for yet more tax breaks for the already obscenely wealthy.

And then there is his foreign policy. The next two weeks will tell a tale, but all the signs are that the essence of Trump’s attitude to conflict and peace is fashioned by two men, neither of whom is American. One of them is Vladimir Putin, the other is Benjamin Netanyahu.

The world has wrung its hand in horror as Trump has cheer led the merciless, day by day, destruction of the Palestinian people by Netanyahu’s government. Trump could have stopped this or at least prevented its worst excesses. 

Independent experts quoted by the respected Economist magazine tell us that the death and demographic damage done in Gaza is already on a par with the Rwandan genocide, and Netanyahu is only getting started.

As for Putin, will Trump stand up to him when they meet? Will he come out of that meeting having restored Ukraine’s democratic sovereignty? 

Despite the highest ratings on mainstream American television, Stephen Colbert, one of Trump's most effective critics, has hadhis 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' axed. Photo: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

Or will he demonstrate yet again what he always has, that his sympathies, for whatever reason, are on the side of the man who started the cruel and illegal invasion of another country? And if he does – as I believe he will – will Europe finally stop rolling over in the face of his lies and his bullying?

I haven’t even mentioned the Epstein stuff yet. There seems little doubt that Trump believes he has something to hide, and that’s why, despite all his promises, the so-called Epstein file has yet to be released. 

In the process of hiding whatever it is he’s hiding, he has suborned the Justice Department and the FBI, turning them into a parody of what a law enforcement body should be (and that’s not to mention the US Supreme Court, which used to be a global beacon of rights-based jurisprudence).

Side by side with that he has bent a great deal of the media and many of the higher education institutions in the US to his will.

One of his most effective critics for years has been the satirist and comedian Stephen Colbert. He has now been told that despite the fact that his late night show has by far the highest ratings on mainstream American television, his ratings don’t justify his continued employment.

All of that is a description of a despot. But there is one more ingredient that points to the inevitability, unless something changes, of an uprising. That’s the absence of a meaningful and effective opposition.

I watched a long and friendly interview the other night between Kamala Harris, after her long period of hibernation, and the aforementioned Stephen Colbert. My heavens it was dispiriting. She clearly is still struggling to be her own person, and (I say this as someone who admired and supported her) whatever qualities of leadership she had seem to have evaporated.

Which leaves an enormous vacuum of leadership. The Democrats are watching their country rot before their eyes, and they have failed to lift a finger. 

Someone will emerge to lead, if not the opposition, then the resistance. 

Because there will have to be resistance, or every value on which the American ideal is based will disappear forever.

And that’s how it could start, not between North and South like the last time, but within states or within cities. Already non-violent protest at a certain level is a part of life in the US, but there could easily be instances of vandalism or violence – another George Floyd moment could spark it off. 

And the predictable thing that could lead to it getting entirely out of hand would be an over-the-top repressive reaction by the Trump regime. Just yesterday he announced a plan to place the Washington DC police department under federal control and deploy the National Guard to the nation’s capital.

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If in the course of this, American troops were to open fire on American citizens (and he is perfectly capable of ordering that), there’s no telling where it would end. Or how America could recover from the economic and political chaos that could result.

America’s allies would be fearful; America’s enemies would seek to exploit the moment. An internal battle for control of the future of America’s democracy could in that sense have global repercussions.

But there is a looming choice facing the people of America and almost certainly further afield. Fight for democracy or let it wither away. Sadly, the current absence of real political leadership in the fight to protect democracy is making that choice starker and more imminent by the day.