THE DISASTROUS AND ANTIDEMOCRATIC DONALD TRUMP GOVERNMENT

Fernando Alcoforado*

This article aims to present the disastrous and antidemocratic trajectory of the Donald Trump administration that during his tenure as President of the United States caused fascism to grow enormously, attacked the global environment, weakened the role of the United States on the world stage, made most unstable the international system with its anti-globalization, anti-UN, anti-WHO, anti-NATO policy, has failed to fight the new Coronavirus and is taking a coup position by not recognizing Joe Biden's victory and intending to remain in power despite defeat in the electoral college and be rejected by the vast majority of the American population.

In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump presented his campaign for the presidency of the United States stating that he was the voice "of those who work hard while no one speaks for them" and that these victims of a "manipulated system" benefit only the "elites" as if he himself was not a member of the elite. Trump introduced himself as the "people's champion", the only one capable of changing everything. He said that "sadly, the American dream was dead" and that only he could restore it. It was based on this fact that the 2016 Trump campaign coined the idea that he was “a new morning in America”, that is, he was the solution to America's problems. Donald Trump said that when he took his presidential oath, he would restore the law and order in which his authoritarian, neo-fascist personality traits were highlighted. In saying "America First", Trump showed the most visible face of a worldwide phenomenon: the rise of nationalist and xenophobic populism.

All messages from Donald Trump in 2016 pointed in the direction that, if he were elected President of the United States, he could make fascism in the United States revive as he did. It should be noted that fascism is a form of political behavior marked by an obsessive concern with the decline of the community, with the humiliation and victimization of the country that seeks through redemptive violence and without ethical or legal controls to achieve the objectives of internal cleansing and external expansion as the Nazifascism. Fascism arises to restore a broken social order, as always using themes such as unity, order and purity. Fascism is rooted in restoring national pride lost by the resurrection of traditional culture myths and values and in purifying society from the toxic influences of foreigners and intellectuals, who would be blamed for the misery in which the nation lives. This is the case of the United States in the face of an insurmountable economic crisis such as the current one, the compromise of the American way of life and the loss of its global hegemony to China.

The revival of fascism under the command of Donald Trump in the United States results, fundamentally, from his economic decline and the loss of his hegemony on the world stage in a very short time. All world relations in the United States have changed profoundly in recent times, being obliged to share power on a world scale with other countries. The era when the United States sought to impose its will on the international scene in the economic and military fields is over. It happened after the Barack Obama administration. The ongoing global crisis of the world capitalist system is accelerating long-term geopolitical change, heralding the decline of American power and European influence. Donald Trump represented a reaction in the United States to reverse this trend. In practice, his performance led to the growth of neo-fascism in the United States.

Robert Paxton claims that the success of fascism depends on the weakness of the liberal state that condemns the nation to disorder, decline or humiliation and the lack of political consensus. Paxton adds that the depth of the political and economic crisis induces the elite to cooperate with fascists (PAXTON, Robert. The anatomy of fascism. New York: Vintage Books, 2005). This situation happened in fascist Italy in the 1920s, in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and it is happening today in the United States. Paxton says the fascists are rooted in the Republican Party, which represents big corporate interests with wide influence on the political scene in the United States. Donald Trump showed his fascist or neofascist character with his ultranationalist stance defending a principle, "America, first" and his brutality in political relations at the domestic and international levels.

Against all odds, Trump became the 45th president of the United States, in the indirect election by the electoral college, despite having 3 million fewer votes than his competitor Hillary Clinton. The Americans chose the anti-system, anti-elite and anti-administration candidate and champion of change. Its economic program had only one motto: protectionism. He promised and conducted a trade war against China, including in particular American companies that were in the United States and moved to China. Trump scored points with hateful slogans against the so-called political establishment and the media. He conquered a white middle class that was impoverished and destabilized by globalization. "Only I can fix this," was Trump's campaign motto.

In power, Donald Trump harassed the hostile media, attacked women who accused him of sexual harassment, insulted foreigners, women and people with disabilities, preached hatred, encouraged racism by supporting white supremacists, snubbed the world's most important partners in states United, abolished the program of its predecessor and its most symbolic measure, Obamacare, abolished the health reform promoted by Obama leaving 24 million people without medical coverage who are at the mercy of the pandemic of the new Coronavirus, reduced taxes, especially for the super - rich, threw down all environmental regulations, relaunched the coal industry, deported illegal immigrants by the millions, and filled the Supreme Court with ideological conservatives as vacancies arose. Trump launched his attack on liberal democracy during his government.

In the United States government, Donald Trump created a dangerous phase of international political instability. Donald Trump promised and canceled the climate agreement signed by the United States in Paris and the hard-negotiated nuclear pact with Iran, as well as various trade agreements, as well as failing to pay billions of dollars for the UN to develop programs to combat climate change. Trump worked to endow Saudi Arabia and Japan with nuclear weapons, weakened the "obsolete" NATO by forcing European allies to pay for US military protection, thereby creating the risk of a Russian incursion into the Baltic countries, started a trade war with China through protectionism, began the construction of a 3,200-kilometer-long wall along the Mexican border, barred Muslims from entering the country, renegotiated all major trade deals, and raised military spending dramatically. This sparked significant conflicts, sparked new rivalries and sparked new international crises.

Throughout his presidential term, Trump tried to establish his own brand in international relations by engaging in a trade war with China, trying to promote denuclearization and an end to missile launch tests with North Korea, overhaul the deal free trade with Mexico and Canada and to undo the nuclear agreement with Iran. Except for the reformulation of the free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, the other actions have not been successful. The United States is not winning the trade war with China, has failed to impose its will on North Korea and has not succeeded in imposing its conditions regarding the nuclear deal with Iran. All of this failure described above adds up to the participation fiasco of the United States in the fight against the Islamic State. In addition to all these negative foreign policy results, Trump responded to the impeachment process in Congress in which he was accused of having used the American diplomatic apparatus for personal and political benefit.

Trump's irresponsibility became evident when he decided not to respect the nuclear agreement signed by the Obama administration and European powers with Iran, in addition to making the decision to carry out an air attack on the Baghdad International Airport in Iraq, which led to the assassination by drones of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Quds intelligence force on 2/1/2020, a fact that could trigger a military conflict in the region. Trump's irresponsible attitude has helped the Iranian government to become convinced that only the true possession of nuclear weapons can free it from an external attack, either by the United States or Israel. Rather than appease the situation in the Middle East, Trump made Iran state in a statement on 5/1/2020 that its uranium enrichment work will no longer respect the 2015 nuclear agreement, which limited the level of enrichment to 3,6%, and that its production will no longer be restricted. For Iran to produce a nuclear weapon, uranium would have to be enriched to more than 90%. The Tehran government said in the note that it would return to the nuclear deal if sanctions imposed by the United States against the country by Donald Trump were removed and Iran's interests were guaranteed.

One fact is evident: the United States has expanded its empire too much, to the point where it is no longer able to manage it, as happened with Spain in the 17th century and the United Kingdom in the 20th century. The great power in relative decline, like the United States, reacts instinctively, spending more than it can with “security”. The first two decades of the 21st century showed the limits of American power on the world stage. The power of the United States is great, but it is no longer as decisive as it was after the Second World War and, mainly, with the end of the former Soviet Union in 1989. The world has become more hostile to the United States due to its imperialist policy in the past and the present, and also because other powers have grown faster, economically and militarily, and are becoming stronger, as is the case with China and Russia. The Trump administration has contributed to further increasing hostility towards the United States. United States is experiencing its decline as a great power.

In addition to acting disastrously domestically and internationally, Donald Trump has largely failed to deal with the new Coronavirus pandemic. The weakness of the American healthcare system, the most expensive in the world, has indirectly contributed to the further expansion of Covid-19 in the United States. The country's health care system failed to respond to the new Covid-19 cases. Trump appointed his vice president, Mike Pence, who had no experience in health matters to lead a "riot squad" who would carry out tasks to combat the virus in the country. The incompetence of the Trump administration is so great that it has not come up with any concrete government plans to try to deal with the virus. This explains the fact that the United States has the largest number of infected and dead people in the world. The failure to fight Covid 19 was instrumental in Donald Trump's defeat to Joe Biden in the last presidential election.

Joe Biden's victory is an auspicious event because he defeated the greatest expression of neo-fascism in the world represented by Donald Trump to make democracy and the highest values of civilization in the United States prevail. Despite the election results, Donald Trump acts irresponsibly not recognizing Joe Biden's victory by insisting that he be the true winner of the elections and accusing, without providing evidence, that the Democrats rigged the elections. Trump is trying to reverse the election results with court battles, vote recounts and media campaigns. Many lawsuits have already been rejected by several judges around the United States for lack of evidence of these alleged frauds.

An official statement released on 12/11/2020, by senior officials of the United States Cyber Security and Infrastructure Agency, stated that "the 2020 presidential election was the safest in American history". Right now, across the country, electoral authorities are reviewing and verifying the entire election process before finalizing the result, says an excerpt from the document: the body responsible for the communiqué is linked to the Department of Homeland Security, which is part of the United States government itself. "There is no evidence that any voting system excluded or lost votes, altered votes or was compromised in any way". The statement contradicts President Donald Trump's claims that he does not accept defeat and insists that there has been fraud in the country. Democrat Joe Biden was declared the winner of the contest according to projections of institutes that have been working in the American elections for decades. By not accepting the election results Donald Trump irresponsibly puts American democracy itself in doubt. By encouraging and supporting demonstrations by the neofascist horde that supports him against the election results as he did on 11/14/2020, Donald Trump contributes to creating in the United States an environment of political upheaval unprecedented in the country's history.

* Fernando Alcoforado, 80, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic  planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globaliza??o (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,https://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globaliza??o e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, S?o Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporanea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, S?o Paulo, 2010), Amaz?nia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, S?o Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econ?mico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudan?a Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revolu??es Científicas, Econ?micas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Inven??o de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017),  Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associa??o Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).