The darkness without America
Viewed from today's Europe, the United States seems to be hostage to differing views and experiences, maturing within society and politics and demonizing each other in an increasingly extreme polarization that seems to stand in the way of any national reconciliation.
What made America fascinating was probably its system based on diversity and often contradictions, in which wealth and misery, seduction and harshness coexist. But what really made the United States of America great were two things: its ability to "make the difference" in all fields of knowledge and the talent for rebirth after complicated historical periods, as happened after the Great Depression and the Vietnam War. Viewed from today's Europe, the United States seems to be hostage to differing views and experiences, maturing within society and politics and demonizing each other in an increasingly extreme polarization that seems to stand in the way of any national reconciliation.
The nation is heading toward the November elections, which will be an even nastier repeat of those of 2016, in a crescendo of misinformation and mutual accusations. Regardless of who becomes president, a good portion of Americans will reject the results and believe that the elected Commander-in-Chief is illegitimate. COVID-19, the War in Iraq and Afghanistan, the subprime crisis itself are effects and not causes of a Globalization that has gone out of control, which has poured the very first consequences of its transformation on middle-class Americans. Hence, Trump's political success, which has been primarily about defending the working class as opposed to the so-called ruling class, as predicted by Angelo Maria Codevilla.
Polarization has spread in different forms and languages, to various latitudes, from Europe to the - latest case - of Javier Milei's Argentina. And the recent European elections also seem to confirm these claims.In some Western nations the decline of legal civilization has manifested itself with great speed, to the almost natural acceptance of undemocratic ideas, anti–Semitic behavior, in large sectors of society. All this paved the way for the acceptance of illiberal patterns and began to generate chaos, disorder, confusion.In the context of a world order where the new Cold War between the United States and China has already emerged, Edward Luttwak explained that "almost nobody in Europe is willing to recognize the reality of the return of war to the continent."
American political polarization harms the health of the global order, which is set in the direction of even more unexpected disorder because of the impending conflict over Taiwan, the Ukrainian situation and the premeditated encirclement campaign against Israel.On President Biden's desk are cogent dossiers involving Iran, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Russia, China and North Korea at a time when global instability has never been greater and the risk of world war is real.With Trump's victory we would see a foreign policy that, although not disengaged from NATO, will force European allies to sharply increase defense spending.In a post-modern political context, where opinions trump facts, Europe is like a kind of unruly child of the United States, refusing to face the problems of adulthood.
Europe will have to choose its own way between cutting some relevant parts of its budget dedicated to the welfare state, while increasing the military efforts - eventually levering and pivoting on a reduced welfare state to properly face Russia and China.But can America take on these anxieties? Will it be able to overcome its internal divisions in the face of imminent danger?In parentheses, as Pialuisa Bianco wrote: “The greatest flaw in Trump’s and Biden’s approaches to foreign policy – and ‘here the two do converge’, even Fareed Zakaria agrees – derives from their similarly dark outlooks. Both assume that the US has been the great victim of the international economic system that it created.”
And this is another key issue that will upset the global economic picture. One gets the feeling, in America but also in Europe, that some elites have taken over the public discourse to intoxicate it, far beyond the polarization on purely relevant and previously mentioned issues such as inequality or wealth redistribution. It is worth remembering that the vast majority of Americans do not think much about politics, do not have entrenched ideological views and may remain rather inconsistent or prone to change their answers for example when twisting the wording of a survey because opinions in general are very weak.
What is strongly supported instead is the sense of identity. However, it is political campaigns that trigger identity, making it difficult to disaggregate in the real world. Who funds the campaigns?There are forces outside the West, with the complicity of complacent Western financial sectors, that worked to exacerbate contrasts, divide and polarize public opinion, in America as well as in Europe and far beyond the actions of disinformation.Arguably, one systematic study that no one has yet done is that concerning Chinese, Russian and Iranian penetration into the Western political, journalistic and financial spheres. The United States also has a deterrence problem, caused by a recent past in which – as late John McCain said – “red lines in Syria were written in disappearing ink” and threats of reprisal for Putin’s aggression in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 were hollow.
The United States of America cannot abdicate to lead a reaction to this state of affairs, especially since today's Europe is in the grip of a convulsion, while the Sino-Russian alliance is structural, has no need for citizen-voters and is not afraid of their judgment.About the next conflict, the deterrence requires convincing China that it would lose in a military contest, a strategy known as deterrence by denial, but Washington won’t have to replicate the Ukrainian way.
