A wrong kind of unity

Shortly after it became known that Donald Trump had won the presidential election in spite of having lost the popular vote by 3 millions votes, almost immediately there were calls for a “healing process” to start, no doubt prompted by the fact that US society was left as a seriously divided nation.

After the defeat of Hillary Clinton, both her and Barack Obama made calls for unity. Hillary called for a “peaceful transition of power”, urging: “We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them. We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought but I sill believe in America and if you do then we must accept this result,” she added in an emotional concession speech. “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”

Likewise, House Speaker Paul Ryan called for unity following the election of Donald Trump, saying the Republican nominee “just earned a mandate” and adding: “Donald Trump will lead a unified Republican government,” Ryan said, noting that he believed Trump heard the voices of those who felt they were no longer being listened to. “This is the kind of unified Republican government that we set out to deliver. We all need to reeducate ourselves to making America great,” he added, echoing Donald Trump’s campaign slogan.

Trump himself on his victory speech that was delivered Wednesday November 8th 2016, one day after the election results became known, a victory stated that “Now it is time for Americans to bind the wounds of division. It is time for us to become together as one united people”.

Similar calls to unity were made throughout the USA, understood as calls to unity around Donald Trump as president of the USA.

There is just one catch to the unity that Donald Trump is asking from every single American.

The kind of unity that Trump is talking about is unity around him and the aggressive philosophy and ideology he displayed throughout his campaign. We all know what he stands for, and this applies equally well to those who are against him as those who are his unconditional followers and supporters. And if all the American people unite 100 per cent around him as Trump wants, embracing his radical agenda, this would bode ill for the future of the USA as a country.

It is not the first time in history that a prominent or even a controversial figure has asked the people of his country to unite around him and support him in all his actions. History has plenty of examples. Winston Churchill did so when he told his people with World War Two underway: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”. The people knew exactly the kind of sacrifices Prime Minister Churchill was asking from them, and the Brits united around him wholeheartedly throughout the war until victory was achieved at great cost and sacrifice.

But Donald Trump is no Winston Churchill, quite the contrary, perhaps he represents some of the more disgusting traits that can be expected from a leader.

When Adolf Hitler rose to power, there was a call to all Germans to set aside their differences and unite as one around the leadership of Hitler, which of course meant abiding and even condoning his plan of action. The call for unity was answered, but after what amounted to nothing less than a major catastrophe, it became clear that there should have been a stronger opposition in Germany during the thirties in order to act as a checks and balances against the abuse of power that would soon be displayed. In the end, since there were no checks and balances and thus no separation of powers, an entire generation had to pay a very heavy historical price for such “unity”.

Remember the Soviet Union? All soviets were expected to show unity around the cruel and brutal dictator Josef Stalin. Those not willing to unite around Stalin and show their unity with patriotic fervor were considered traitors. As a matter of fact, that is precisely the reason of why the Soviet Secret Police or KGB was created, to seek out and destroy all those traitors not willing to unite unconditionally around Stalin. The end result was a cult of personality intensified by a massive expenditure in official propaganda designed to place Stalin in the niche of a demi-god. Stalin ruled with an iron fist, hundreds of thousands were murdered without a trial under his orders, yet he was supposed to be the symbol of unity of all those ruled behind the Iron Curtain. Only when the Soviet Union crumbled and fell apart was the unity proved to be a farce, nothing more than a façade that hid gruesome state sponsored against the very same people whose unwavering loyalty was expected at all times.

Closer to home, we can learn something from the legacy left by Hugo Chavez, who as President of Venezuela enjoyed the boom of high oil prices and squandered away the incoming wealth coming from overseas in his socialistic program, commanding the unconditional unity and loyalty of many of his followers. But the oil bonanza went from boom to bust, and his hand-picked successor has established a de-facto dictatorship and has carried Venezuela toward the brink of a social and economic catastrophe. That’s what Venezuelans of today reaped from all the unconditional loyalty and unity they gave Hugo Chavez. And it might be added that Hugo Chavez did not seize power by a coup, he was elected President of Venezuela in 1998 in democratically free elections. And just like in the U.S. in 2016, Chávez’s promises of widespread social and economic reforms won the trust and favor of the primarily poor and working class. By May 1998, Chávez’s support had risen to 30% in polls, and by August he was registering 39%. All that is history, and Venezuela is suffering severe economic hardship, and what’s worse, they don’t have even the faintest idea on how they will be able to pull their country out of the hole, assuming that somehow they can get rid of Nicolas Maduro, the successor of Hugo Chavez.

Those who are followers of Judaeo-Christian spiritual literature should recall that Satan himself also wanted unity in Heaven from all the other angels, but this meant unity around him, around Satan. Clearly, this could not be so, and eventually those angels who did unite around Satan and joined in an open rebellion ended up paying a very heavy price, they all ended up in Hell at the hands of a very angry and defiant angel who has never showed any compassion or mercy to anyone.

So, should Americans heed all the calls to unite and support as one nation the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump? Considering that he lost the general vote and was beneficiary of a crooked electoral system that can give the presidency to someone who does not win by a majority vote, and also considering his fierce racist and populist rhetoric that places him at a par with Adolf Hitler himself, joining Trump and what he stands for could very well be a recipe for disaster.

But shouldn’t Americans consider the risk of the country coming apart in case they do not unite blindly around the 45th president, Donald Trump? Well, back in Germany 1945 the country became split anyway, splitting into East Germany and West Germany, and this was not even a decision left to the German peoples themselves, it was a splitting imposed upon Germany by the Allies who defeated Nazi Germany.

One of the charms of democracy is that it guarantees a peaceful transition of power. The only kind of unity worthy of consideration is around the tradition that offers an alternative to bloody coups and violent toppling of regimes that can only be ousted by no other means. But that’s as far as it has to go. With regards to embracing the entire agenda of a lunatic, that’s something else, no blank check should be given here, no unconditional support should be granted to things that in the long run will almost certainly bring irreparable damage. If those who ask the American people to gather around Donald Trump and unite with him are really calling for uniting around a loose cannon, that’s the wrong kind of unity.

By now it should be evident that Donald Trump will not engage in any moral considerations in taking his decisions. He is precisely what the great Athenian historian and general Thucydides defined as an immoral leader, a person of violent character who charms men by lying to them and deceiving them, exploiting their fears and rages. Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair magazine, wrote an article entitled Only In America. The article begins with the line: “Only in America could a man whose staff took away his Twitter account be given the nuclear codes”, adding “Only in America could a man who kept a volume of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside rule over the second-largest Jewish population in the world”.

The throngs of women who marched on January 21 2017 at the 2017 Women’s March that gathered at least half a million participants, with the support of hundreds of marches on the same day throughout the U.S. and other countries to the tune of 673 marches worldwide, with 20 in Mexico and 29 in Canada, have already made it clear that they will not unite blindly around a man who has spoken in no ambiguous terms of what he thinks of women as a whole and whose disrespect towards women is by now something impossible to hide. They have already made it clear that they will not be stooges of a man who has been branded by noted Mexican historian Enrique Krauze as being “A sociopath drunk on himself. His religion is hatred. His god is Donald Trump. He is also addicted to empty adjectives. He is not a man of his word or of words as markers of truth”, and who is convinced that Trump is a bully, a megalomaniac, a narcissist and even paranoid -much like the Fuhrer who saw enemies everywhere- craving for attention and not only 15 minutes of fame, willing to do anything to remain in the spotlight. There are many negative descriptions of Donald Trump that can be easily found throughout the net, I will not bother to reproduce them here. As a matter of fact, he may be by now one of the most reviled world leaders in U.S. history, and he has barely started to implement his crazy agenda!

In the 2001 American science fiction film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the turning point comes about when the ape Caesar yells NO! In the 2017 event of life imitating art, the 2017 Women’s March has already made it clear that many women in America will not stand by idly while the new American autocrat tears apart all of the women’s rights that women fought for so hard for decades. Many American women have united by yelling NO! But what about the other millions of women who gave Donald Trump their vote and who still support  him? Won’t they shield the freshly inaugurated autocrat from attacks coming from the other side? Perhaps. But as soon as those women begin to feel the heat and begin to suffer the dire consequences of the Trump presidency, it is very likely that sooner or later they will start changing their minds making it ever so difficult for the loose cannon in the White House to do his whim with no opposition.

This fight has barely started. Rejecting all those calls to unity that imply American unity around the sociophatic agenda of Donald Trump is a must, for that is the wrong kind of unity that can only carry the entire USA towards its doom. He has already started off with the lowest approval rating for any President in US history. But governmental agendas and policies are not set by opinion polls, and it is a given that Donald Trump really does not care a bit about his approval ratings. What can really worry him is the possibility that in the next elections that will take place for the renewal of Congress, the Republicans may end up losing the comfortable control they now have over both Houses of Congress. The big liar whose now cabinet members promised he would release his tax returns to the American public and so far hasn’t kept his word believes he will be able to dupe again the American people by resorting to the same antics and campaign-by-twitter that put him in the presidency in the first place. But if so, he misses out one very important point: the coming months and years there will be what we might call a learning curve, perhaps a very painful one, where the utopia he promised may very well end up being a dystopia, and during the painful trek it is possible that many of those who now follow him blindly will begin to jump off the bandwagon. The only true danger is that, if he feels he is being left alone, his persecutory delusions may end up catching up on him, and he could take some wild and spectacular decision to make his indelible mark in history but at the cost of carrying the entire nation down the drain with him. Indeed, is is all about a race against the clock. As to who wins and who loses, we cannot foresee such things, but eventually they will become known.

The March held on Saturday January 22 2017 was a good start, the right start, in order to show the beast at the White House that those who oppose him will not remain silent, and that they are willing to put up a fight, after considering that uniting around Trump equals the embracement of his xenophobic, racist, misogynist and ultraconservative extreme right wing philosophy. And when re-election times come for Congressmen and Senators, it will be the proper occasions to review their credentials and cast a vote either for them or against them, depending on who they chose to represent, either the madman at the White House, or the American people. And remove from office if need be all those who took sides against the American people.