By Peter Vamvakas
One week after the attack on Capitol Hill, the «temple of democracy», the US political and economic elite continues to turn a blind eye. It is better for many analysts to accept that the attack was a move by a paranoid narcissist who does not want to part with power, than to assess this development as a sign of indignation by a large part of the population, which is gradually growing and taking on increasingly radical characteristics, based partly, even if only marginally, on constitutional rights, such as the right to bear arms, but also on historical revolutionary traditions.
No one can now deny that the outgoing President suffers from narcissistic syndrome, but Trump is not the root of the problem. His election in 2016 was the result of a socio-political transformation, due to the rising technological and economic inequality, now visible in all social strata. While we derided the Capitol invaders as caricatures that sprang from the pages of an illustrated book from our childhood, I am afraid we have lost and are losing the proper measure of analysis.
For the past two decades, an extreme radical mentality has been developing in America that stems from and embodies tendencies of an anarchist liberalism or «orthodox liberalism» that evaluates any kind of exercise of state power as an attack on basic freedoms, especially that of private property.
From the revolutionary proclamation of 1776, leading to the American Revolution, to the correspondence of Jefferson to his son-in-law, Adams, in 1787, and the phrase that the «tree of Liberty is watered by the blood of patriots and tyrants», but also his political opposition to Henry David Thoreau in the war with Mexico in 1846-47 which leads him to the theory of «civil disobedience», examples of popular resistance and rebellion based on the values of political liberalism are found and justified.
Even Gadsten's yellow flag, which we can still see today, with the dismembered rattlesnake and the caption «Don’t Τread on Me» («Don't step on me»), has historical symbolism within the context of the American historical narrative itself. A part of American history that is not part of the historical memory of all of society, but marks dividing lines today. Since 9/11 and the war in Iraq, the contestation of political power has become more intense and socially violent. Attacks on schools and more general violence in society are on the rise.
During the 2004 presidential elections and while the discontent of society was growing against the merciless and endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, more and more the voices of questioning political and economic power became more and more numerous. The re-election of the President Bush, that year against the Democratic John Kerry, built on a successful campaign that characterized Kerry as systemic and President Bush as anti-systemic and «popular". cowboy from Texas.». Four years later the then Senator Obama, in a campaign speech in San Francisco, referred to residents of western Pennsylvania asfrustrated seeking refuge in the Bible and their guns, while four years later, in May 2012, Republican Mitt Romney referred to the 47% of the American people as «defeatist parasitic victims waiting for government benefits». The highlight, of course, was in 2016 when Hillary Clinton referred to Trump supporters as deplorables (deplorables).
In 2016 the chosen one of the «deplorables» came to power, with a political discourse that was clearly inflammatory and «American» and whose main argument was the «draining of the swamp» of power. Trump's political discourse, though outside of political correctness, was within the context of a radical and «anti-authoritarian» vein of American political history.
Today, it doesn't really matter whether Trump's political discourse in 2016-2020 is ideologically identical to that of Jefferson (1776 or 1787) or Thoreau in 1846, what is of particular political importance is that it is symbolically significant, Trump brought to power the forces that had been resented on the margins since 2004. Social strata that embraced the symbolism and the idea of continuous resistance against state power and civil disobedience, against the «dictatorship» of reason.
I am afraid that in this last moment of Trump's administration, the American political elite is trying to get him removed as a kind of «exorcism» of the whole four years, not wanting to believe that the Trump presidency was the result of the neglect of a large part of the electorate.
That's why, which move to impeach President Trump will provide temporary relief and pleasure to a large share of voters. However, what is certain is that what we saw on January 6 is not transitory, and if we don't see it through the right lens, we will see much worse in the near future.
Petros Vamvakas is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Cyprus Emmanuel College Boston at the ENA Institute for Policy Alternatives.
