POLITICS

The Absurdity of American Politics Can Not Be Exaggerated

A strange time to be an American citizen

Ever since the 2016 election of Donald Trump to the highest office in the land, many Americans have been in a perpetual state of disbelief. What seemed impossible for many when the former Apprentice host took office only grew more and more difficult to believe as the years went by.

His tenure in office saw an insurrection, an unprecedented two impeachment trials for attempts to interfere with democracy, a pandemic in which America quickly became the epicenter, and more blundering moments of utter incompetence than any one person could hope to keep track of. According to the Washington Post, he told over 30,000 lies in his time in office, mustering an average of 21 falsehoods per day for four entire years.

To look back on his term in office for many still feels like a fever dream. To consider the continuous stream of craziness that came with that administration is something that would need to be lived to be believed. Even those who survived those four years glued to MSNBC still find themselves struggling to grapple with the extent of it. It’s hard to envision any movie doing justice to his presidency. I’m not even sure a 10-season show could fully address each and every moment of staggering ineptitude and bumbling authoritarianism that defined his single-term tenure as president.

The sheer quantity of things he was caught saying and filmed doing is simply confounding. His pre-presidential life had already detailed an extensive career of sexual harassment, failed business pursuits, and lengthy legal entanglements. Video footage exists of him stalking women alongside the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

There’s audio footage out there of him saying “When you’re a star, they’ll let you do it. You can do anything… Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything,” and he was elected only weeks after the tape went public. You’re probably aware of the statement, but it’s one that never quite loses its sting; it exposed such a colossal failure of character that he should never have politically recovered.

The mere four years spent in office saw such an undying shitstorm of pandemonium that it will take decades for American politics to rebound. That it can at all is no certainty. Prior to the 2020 election, for which Trump was already impeached following his scheme to recruit Ukraine’s interference, he did nearly everything he could manage to retain power. He fired dissenters and replaced them with loyalists. He attacked the postal service in an effort to hamper mail-in voting during the first pandemic in a century.

He downplayed the severity of Covid-19 to the point where we found ourselves as the world’s capital of both coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations. He relentlessly sowed doubt in democracy.

He’s attacked journalists. He’s floated additional terms. He incited a violent riot on the capital and spent hours refusing to quell it. The events of the day have been explored in harrowing detail. “Take the F-ing [magnetometers away,” Trump reportedly said when he learned that his supporters were armed. When members of his staff objected, Trump casually explained that “They’re not there to hurt me.”

In the years since Trump’s loss, his lies about the election have reached a fever pitch. His frontrunner status stands as a grave threat to democracy, and those running against him in the Republican party offer little more hope for the years ahead. Our divisions are enormous.

Many had hoped that Biden’s inauguration would bring with it a return to normalcy. Doubters warned well before he took office, though, that the schisms that arose during Trump’s presidency wouldn’t be likely to die just because he’d left office.

Years later, falsehoods and conspiracy theories continue to swirl around that contentious 2020 election. According to NBC, as of October 2022, 65% of Republicans still don’t believe Biden won his election. These figures have hardly changed since January 2021. Back then, it was a mere 21% of Republicans who believed in Biden’s legitimacy as president. By October 2022, that number rose only 1%.

The notion that support for the president who incited the January 6th insurrection has hardly waned in his time since leaving office is difficult to grasp, not only for many Americans but for the world abroad. For so long, the idea of a man like Donald Trump taking office was a laughable fiction. America has spent so long wearing the title of democracy defender on the global stage that Trump’s persevering popularity remains confusing for many.

Not only did Trump leave office with the lowest approval rating of any president in history — a jaw-dropping 29%, but Pew Research Center found that in the 13 countries polled, a median of only 16% had confidence in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs.

But in the months since leaving office, launching a flailing social media platform, unveiling a line of Trump-brand NFT cards, and being indicted for paying hush money to a porn star, his support has only grown. He received a second indictment only just today. For stealing, lying about, and refusing to return top secret government documents, it marks his first federal indictment. The charges could amount to treason or espionage but have yet to be officially announced.

And yet, the nearly-eighty, aspiring autocrat remains the leading candidate in the Republican race for presidential nominee.

It’s strange that the realities of our politics have turned the age of our leaders into an almost secondary topic of conversation; it’s unlikely right now that the next presidential inauguration won’t be of the oldest president in history. Unnervingly, it would mark the third consecutive term in which the record is set.

Trump broke the record for oldest inaugurated president set by Reagan back in 2016, which Biden in turn broke again in 2020. With Biden running for reelection, and Trump remaining the obvious Republican front-runner in 2024, Americans might live three consecutive elections of a president who more than doubles the average age of American citizens. In a country of over 330,000,000 people, it’s difficult to overstate what an abject failure it is that the two candidates we’re likely to be deciding between are a philandering felon and a vaguely disoriented octogenarian.

But Trump isn’t the only presidential hopeful facing potential indictment. According to Newsweek, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, already in hot water for his trivial disputes with the beloved entertainment conglomerate, Disney, could run into serious legal trouble for one of his 2022 controversies.

“The sheriff’s department in Texas is recommending criminal charges [against governor Ron DeSantis] in connection to its investigation into flights that carried dozens of migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in the fall under the direction of the Florida Governor…”

California governor Gavin Newsom took the allegations against DeSantis a level further. Taking to Twitter, he accused the presidential hopeful of outright kidnapping and endangerment. Newsom stated that DeSantis violated California’s penal code and, in an interview, didn’t rule out arresting the governor as more facts come to fruition.

“[DeSantis] lied to [the migrants], took them into another state by bus, and then took them on a charter flight to Sacramento, lying to them that they had help on the other side… And they left the migrants there… what kind of human being does that? The [migrants] were used as pawns for [his] political career… I take this very seriously,” Newsom stated in an MSNBC interview.

On the other side of the aisle, Biden and his congressional supporters have had a slew of criminal charges leveled against them in recent months. The complaints are decidedly less founded, but they exemplify the widening gaps in ideology at play within our country. The accusations range from treason and nepotism to outright illegitimacy in office. The prospect of the third presidential impeachment within only a few years has been routinely floated by his political opponents. It’s clear that as a country we stand in a divided place.

The advent of artificial intelligence has hardly softened the blows that American politics have been dealt. Where bot farms, nefarious social media algorithms, and foreign ‘trolls’ have been influencing our politics in profound ways since even before Trump was elected, the last few months have brought with them a variety of innovations that have further blurred the line between fact and fiction. How it will affect global politics in years to come is a great unknown.

We’re an impressionable, manipulable public. We aren’t equipped to handle the likes of deep fake technology pervading our election cycles. As 2024 nears, we’re likely to fall victim to computer-generated misinformation and propaganda. As audio and video fakes grow more convincing, discerning between what’s real and what isn’t will be a trying test of our institutions.

Our two-party system is flawed and by some measures, we’re nearly as divided as we were during the civil war. According to a 2020 Pew Research Poll, 89% of Donald Trump supporters believed that the election of Joe Biden would lead to “lasting harm” to the United States. 90% of Joe Biden supporters believed precisely the same about Trump’s potential reelection. The political center is slowly disintegrating, and CNN’s fumbling attempt to speak to that shrinking demographic is further proof of it.

By attempting to tow a line between parties by promoting a televised Trump town hall, the network managed to incense both liberals and conservatives alike with its handling of the event. As a result, CNN achieved its worst ratings since 2015 in the process. The network’s CEO departed only weeks later following a short-lived and tumultuous tenure.

The 2024 election is shaping into something worrisome. As we rapidly lose our ability to understand and even converse with our opponents, we’re entering into dire straits. How it will all unfold is unclear, but what’s difficult to deny is that our democracy is in peril.

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