The Slow but Steady Vulgar Degradation of American Politics.
Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam, September 4th, 2024.
Salaroche

The vulgar bully, the amoral lout, the convicted felon, the sex offender, the indicted insurrectionist, the standard-bearer of the Republican Party, one of the two major candidates for President of the United States, all of it incarnated in the form of one single pernicious individual, as if encapsuled in a bitter, hideous pill that whether we like it or not we Americans have been swallowing on a daily basis for close to a decade.

Until when? We may ask. When will the constant disgusting performance of such unsavory individual come to an end? How unfit for the circumstances can the American Justice system be that allows for such domestic enemies of the nation to go undeterred, year after year, in their efforts to destroy it? Where is the love of country of those who support him?

Where are the American leaders who should step up and once and for all put a stop to such disgusting desecration of American ideals? When will those millions of enthralled Republican idol-worshipers finally awaken from the nation-soiling nightmare they are casting over the rest of us? In the absence of any concrete, satisfactory answer to those questions, we can only resort to the intangible, fluid, feeling of hope. But hope for what?

A couple of American ladies from Florida that I met the other night were telling me that once Trump is discarded from the presidential race in November everything will go back to normal in the US. I replied that if the problem was only him, their assumption might be plausible, but there are people already holding powerful positions in the US Government who have equal or worse anti-Democracy ideas than Trump does and those people won’t recant their Fascist obsession whether Trump is around or not.

And, what about the millions of Americans who in supporting Trump have basically subscribed to the idea of having a dictatorial regime in the country? Nothing is worthy of respect for those millions of Trumpers anymore, neither the American Democratic and Judicial Systems, nor the memory of any fallen American soldiers, not even the US Constitution. Their vulgar bully of a Führer has time and again trampled over all of it and they haven’t given one single damn about it.

And those millions of Trumpers are not going anywhere whether Trump loses in November or not. As mistaken as they may be, they are Americans too. We have no choice but to admit it: The vulgar bully has succeeded in degrading American morals. In giving currency to the idea that election results are acceptable only if he wins and in openly promising harsh retribution against his political opponents if elected, he has succeeded in third-worldizing American politics.

The Fascist vulgar bully caught the whole American system of government unawares. It may be hard to accept it, but he has banana-republicanized the American Republic. He has almost succeeded in bringing the whole Democratic and Judicial Systems down to wade in the amoral sludge where he usually thrives. And there still aren’t enough constitutional and judicial guardrails in place against any such domestic enemies of the United States, quite the contrary. The authoritarian members of the Supreme Court have now made it easier for any corrupt, Trump-like, unprincipled future presidents to literally get away with murder while in office and beyond.

But not everything is lost yet. There is still a silver lining around these dark clouds. The first step is to put Kamala Harris in the White House. Then, and most importantly, her administration will have to implement legislations clearly designed to improve the lot of the American working and middle classes, for that would be the only way to bring back into the Democracy-fold all those frustrated, disenchanted Americans who, in rightfully feeling neglected and forgotten by their own government, have joined by the millions the Republican authoritarian ranks.

The road ahead won’t be easy, but national redemption is still visible on the horizon.

Salaroche