It was an exhibition: of power and ambition. Donald Trump’s entire inauguration event turned out to be a liturgical exercise of new empire. “America’s golden age has just begun,” he announced presciently. And he then threatened: “Nothing will stand in our way, the future is ours.” It was not a takeover. It was a stage exercise of collective submission that mixed the other kings of the technological empires (Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Sundar Pichai, among other candidates) with the new global political aristocracy of those world leaders who wait, courteously, for a glance—even if it is furtive—from the new emperor. Signs that can be displayed as unequivocal confirmation of geopolitical complicity. We have entered the interpretive terrain of symbolic gestures.
The United States now lives between two realities. Its institutions, traditions and protocol formalities strive to send the message that a functional and healthy democracy still exists. Reliable. However, at least in what is less visible to the general public, the reality seems to be different. There are clues that we are at the beginning of a true change of era. This is not a healthy political alternation. Not even a radical alternative. This is a political Adamism that inspires fear and passion in equal measure. Trump is not facing a second term. For him, this is his first imperial mandate: without limits, without checks and balances, or concessions.
Yesterday, Joe Biden received Donald Trump before the inauguration ceremony. They went together to the Capitol, where the new president was sworn in before the outgoing president and all living former presidents. Traditions and formalities respected again, not like four years ago. A point for democracy. However, let’s return to what is visible to the large global audience. In the day’s central speech, the most watched, Trump made some radical announcements, but said he would not persecute anyone and focused on promising a bigger and better country. He spoke of hope and the future. Although, in the speech at Emancipation Hall, one much less heard and disseminated, the audience and also the tone varied, recovering the complaint about the fact that the 2020 elections were stolen from him. He attacked Nancy Pelosi and insulted the commission of investigation of the assault on the Capitol. Defiant and vengeful.
And, despite the fact that at times he tries to appear calmer to the general public (vestiges of the campaign and how his team managed to regulate him), now he seems to be a more intense, more polarizing, more combative, more determined and eager Trump. to demonstrate that he is a leader that history should remember. Trump and his advisors know that extreme speech is still scary, that it scares away moderates. That is why they appear calmer when they have the gaze of the general public on them. Later, when they speak only to their audiences, when they star in video clips that the algorithm will viralize among their followers, they appear more authentic. They don’t hide, the masks fall.
But the big moment of the day was not the speeches, the ceremonies, the protocols or the attendees. The big moment was the almost rude and obscene display of Trump signing the presidential decrees (without looking at the documents, in an exercise of total power, where the most relevant thing is his exaggerated, large and thick signature, not the content), while answering some questions from journalists. an exercise multitasking which showed a Trump with total stage control. The vice president became a protocol butler (he brought him the decrees one by one) and the president signed an avalanche of decrees. A few months ago, Trump joked that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to be dictator for a day, on the first day of his term. Prefers decrees to laws. Yesterday bordered on that scenario. Power is the scene. Elon Musk knows this well, who, at the rally at the Capital One Arena, stole the meme of the day from Trump with his equivocal gesture of space enthusiasm. A greeting in which many people saw a remake of the Nazi salute. A no small detail from a person who has declared his support for the German far-right party AfD.
Trump promotes a polarization that activates a kind of political tribalism where loyalty to the leader matters more than democratic values or respect for ideological differences. The rhetoric of “them against us” can take the United States to a point of no return, where Trump and his way of doing politics are what is important, even if he steps on rights, ignores realities or despises entire continents. “We don’t need them,” he responded yesterday when asked about the relationship with Latin America.
The emperor president has become a catalyst for polarization and an inspiration for leaders who see in his strategy a roadmap to consolidate power at any cost. It is changing democracy in the United States and perhaps also in the world. Trump dreams—and is almost making it a reality—that the trumpism be more relevant than himself. His mark, his inheritance and his legacy will not be politics or his economic or government program. His empire will be the beginning of a new era that will be historic, unprecedented, radical. That is his ambition and excess. That’s the danger.
