Some have attempted to posit Trump’s election to the highest political office in the US as confirmation of the unyielding magic of the American Dream, the power it has to make the seemingly impossible eminently possible, carrying with it the source of America’s promise. However, those of us who refuse to succumb to such illusions understand Trump’s election as evidence not of America’s greatness, but of its weakness and decline. To put it another way, one friend of mine posted on Facebook that if Obama was viewed as Emperor Augustus, a president who managed to succeed in cloaking the snarling beast of US imperialism and hegemony with the patina of peace and stability, Trump is Emperor Nero, a leader whose departure from reality knows no bounds.
In truth, what the world is dealing with is a juggernaut of chaos and destruction which, during the Obama years, was led by a president who perfected the art of speaking the language of conciliation while following the agenda of State long imbued with the ethos of might is right. In Trump’s case, the world is dealing with a President who foregoes the language of conciliation, opting instead for the kind of violent rhetoric and bombast commonly associated with what Petras calls the “head of a New York crime family”, a gangster in all but name.
