Trump tests positive to Covid-19: No one is safe from the virus

04 Oct, 2020 - 00:10 0 Views
Trump tests positive to Covid-19: No one is safe from the virus

The Sunday News

Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena

THAT the President of the United States of American has contracted the Coronavirus is being received like some macabre poetry. First it shows that actually no one is safe from the virus and second that denialism and arrogance may not be the best responses to a threat to humanity. Trump has used his political constructions as the most powerful man in the world to display some of the most spectacular and tragic displays of power and privilege.

He has not only played down the virus that has killed multitudes of Americans but has said such grotesque things as that people may inject themselves with disinfectants to remedy the virus. Fundamentally, the economy, business and profit-making have to Trump been more important than the lives of common people, much tragically. With a sleight of the left hand itself, the President has dismissed the pandemic as the “China Virus,” in what is racist and xenophobic in essence. The news of his infection and sickness is also working to complicate what is already a confused and terrifying political and electoral landscape in a country that has sold itself as the owner of democracy in the world. In his political presentation and representation Trump has been a spokesperson for big money, political power and privilege.

In the Presidential Candidates Debate of 29 September 2020 he was cornered to condemn Right Wing movements and white supremacists political and economic outfits such as the Proud Boys group. The Proud Boys in particular are a far-right wing unit that has been described as a threat not only to American but world peace and security. Asked to openly condemn them Trump spoke truly like their General or Commander in Chief : “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by, but I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the Left, because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing.” ‘Stand back and stand by’ are words that do not question or condemn right-wing hate and violence but justify them as a necessary political resource that must exist and be available for deployment by the President.

In that statement Trump took his place as a dark force in the world. He positioned himself as a personification and embodiment of a worldwide malady and indeed pandemic of hate and political violence. The true meaning and total consequences of Trump’s refusal to condemn right-wing movements might be a world problem that is yet to be fully understood. Thanks to him what was supposed to be an exemplary and presidential debate on weighty subjects of healthcare, the justice system, economy and the Coronavirus pandemic became other things including majoring on minor but also very dangerous issues.

The Post-ideological world that is not
It is from the United States of America in 1992 that Francis Fukuyama circulated a political and intellectual fantasy of a post-ideological world. The ‘end’ of the Cold War was understood as the end of ideological conflicts between the Left and the Right and the beginning of new neoliberal paradise in the whole planet. In short the muscular political and intellectual conclusion of the Right, the politicians and intellectuals, was that the Left was dead and the Right had won with the decline of the spectre of communism and its regimes worldwide.

That envisaged post-ideological world was actually a post-political fantasy and mistake of the Right that read the ‘end’ of the Cold War to mean its victory and conquest of the world. The presidential contest between former Vice-President Joe Biden and Donald Trump that was dramatised in the recent public debate showed that not only America itself but the whole world still lives in a deeply ideological moment and location.

The debate has been called names: a “low point” in the political life of the US, “a hot mess,” “mud-wrestling,” and a true “disgrace.” To start with, Trump who was told to at least try and be a “lot smarter” by Biden made an interesting allegation before the debate. The President alleged that his rival was supposed to have his ears carefully examined because he concealed an electronic hearing device that would allow him to digitally receive help with his debate from some members of his team in a remote location somewhere. Biden refused to be bodily examined. He was to tell Trump to “shut up” amongst other telling sentiments that referred to the President as a “liar,” a “clown” and one that can be ignored “to continue yapping man!”

Biden’s offensive came in the background of large scale accusations against Trump of being a Russian puppet in international relations and a tax fraudster and cheat in American affairs. Scoring the now typical political own-goals, the President a few weeks back hinted that he might refuse to hand over power if he loses while also encouraging his supporters to each “vote twice,” in what was correctly understood as ‘executive lawlessness’ and political hooliganism of a new low even by the most trumpy standards.

The debate itself was not an open debate. It was totally closed. So closed and coming from a country that claims to represent the world of the free, the open and the just. The interruptions from Trump constituted psychological stonewalling and a total prohibition of an open exchange. A respected analyst described it thus: “a disorienting, exasperating medley of half-thoughts, interjections, raised voices, and simultaneous monologues broken up occasionally by brief periods of uninterrupted speech.

Instead of a dignified discussion of matters of national import and an opportunity to get some reassurance about the future during a deeply destabilizing year, the country was subjected to what felt like a toxic, drawn-out family dispute gone off the rails.” The debate can be understood by bystanders in another way as a real family political dispute in that both Trump and Biden are true Americans and Americanists, ideologically separated between the Left and the Right, but still inside the heart and soul of America. Two American boys are battling it out, one from the Right and another from the Left, for the heart and soul of America. Sadly, thanks to the world-system, the whole world is in this. It is less of an American national affair and most of world issue, we are all not protected from whatever outcome American politics and history will issue in the next few weeks.

The colour of the future
The United States of America is a country in decline in the observation of key analysts in the western media. The very foundations of democracy are being shaken and the global economy is under threat as Trump signals a conflictual electoral and post-electoral moment in the US. An Indian newspaper raised alarm that Trump’s behaviour stands to give confidence to his world-wide supporters and right-wingers that might create a real rightist moment in the globe. White supremacy, its power and privilege, that Trump embodies in many ways are gaining untold confidence. The right-wingers and white-supremacists are no longer shy about where they stand, there is neither regret nor restraint, in the manner in which supremacist and right wing political passions are being discharged.

The colour of the future of the world as indicated by political realities and developments in America is dark, disturbed and disturbing. Political passions and sensibilities will grow more militant, fundamentalist and violent. The American political scene, in the present, is encouraging for tyrannical regimes and political movements the world over. Trump is representing, in a forceful way, the true pornography of power where tyranny and its arrogance are no longer concealed but are displayed in public with some truly arrogant, ignorant and dangerous impunity.

As Mao monumentally and proverbially said, “there is great disorder under the heavens, the situation is excellent.” The darkness and the disorder that the American political scene exhibits, in all its disaster, might be an excellent opportunity to imagine another world, a post-american world, and a different world. Times of darkness are also times of invention and courage. Clearly, the Coronavirus that Trump presently suffers from is not the only pandemic that bedevils the world. There are a lot more threats to humanity that include growing in equalities, the ecological crisis, dying economies and polities, hate and violence, and the toxicity of power for the powerless.

If anyone thought there were great ideals and examples that will come from great countries above then this is the moment to re-think and understand that true liberation will come from below; from the wretched of the earth themselves. In actuality Trumps and their Bidens are appearing everywhere in the world and are performing all sorts of dangerous political experiments with political and economic might. The future is uncertain for all those that are in the receiving ends of power and the privilege that goes with them.

Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from Gezina, in Pretoria: [email protected].

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