On a demigod – Matthias Gebauer, Roland Nelles, René Pfister, Ralf Neukirch und Alexander Sarovic in Der Spiegel:
‘In this nerve-wracking, at times chaotic election, Trump received 5 million more votes than he did in 2016, with around 48 percent of the American electorate casting their ballots for him - and many of them are loyal fans who worship him as a demigod.’
(…)
‘Trump has almost 90 million followers on Twitter. There are conservative media outlets that will continually invite him in for interviews and commentary. He has a following that is more loyal than that of any of his predecessors. Leading Republicans, to be sure, have begun jumping ship, with both of his sons, Donald Junior and Eric complaining on Twitter of insufficient support from the GOP. And even Fox News, the president's personal propaganda outlet, is carefully moving away from him. But his core voters remain largely devoted to him and his ideas, with his approval ratings among Republicans still extremely high. Even if loses this election, he will be able to continue playing an outsized role in American politics – as the leader of a furious opposition that doesn't recognize his successor. A squatter who settles into the people's consciousness. It can't even be ruled out that he will run again in 2024 at the age of 78.’
(…)
‘Should Biden emerge victorious, he will have managed to drive Donald Trump out of office after just a single term. He will have managed to free the U.S. and the entire world from this president, one that Biden has frequently referred to as an "aberration."
That is no small achievement. The last president to only serve a single term was George H. W. Bush, the 41st president. He was defeated by Bill Clinton in 1992.’
(…)
‘Indeed, even a Biden presidency wouldn't be particularly comfortable for Germany, that much already appears to be clear. Should he move into the White House, he wouldn't sow doubts about the U.S. commitment to NATO, but he would also have little patience for European allies trying to shirk responsibility. His adviser Michèle Flournoy reacted with significant anger when Rolf Mützenich, floor leader for the Social Democrats (SPD), which is Merkel's junior government coalition partner, demanded that Germany withdraw from NATO's nuclear sharing, a system that could, in the worst-case scenario, see U.S. nuclear weapons being dropped by German warplanes.
A former undersecretary of defense in the Obama administration, Flournoy's voice carries weight. If the Democrats win, the 59-year-old could become the first female secretary of defense in U.S. history. In that position, she would likely seek to pursue a more resolute course against Russia and China and invest more money in deterrence. She has little patience for the fact that Germany still doesn't spend 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense and she will insist on Berlin fulfilling that promise just as much as Trump has. That is a goal that we have all agreed to, Flournoy told DER SPIEGEL, and it's not going to change.’
(…)
‘In the history of the U.S., no president has ever moved from the White House into prison. But after four years of Trump, that scenario is not completely implausible.
"The possibility that Trump will face criminal prosecution is quite high," says Bennett Gershman, a legal professor at Pace University and a former New York state prosecutor.’
(…)
‘Joe Biden's team has apparently prepared for the eventuality that the transfer of power may not adhere to past norms. According to media reports, his advisers believe that the normal meetings between the outgoing White House team and the incoming administration won't take place this time around. It would likely be his final effort at taking revenge against the man who forced him out.’
Read the article here.
Der Spiegel loves the worst-case-scenario, which makes sense, the worst-case-scenario is a good definition of what spectacle is.
But I’m not convinced at all that the worst-case-scenario will materialize anytime soon in the US.
Yes, the post-war order will crumble, eventually all orders and empires will come to an end. But we can delay the end of this order a bit.
Big problem is that the desire to return to normalcy is fairly dim. The normalcy became too boring, not secure enough, not rightful enough, not green enough, not free enough, not protecting the own identity enough, no fighting religious zealots enough, not finding hedonistic monsters enough, not fighting big companies enough et cetera.
The good old bourgeois loves to drink his red wine and lament the power of Amazon and Google and Apple.
It’s a minority longing for the ancien régime. I’m not a conservative, but I do long sometimes for the ancien régime, all other options seem to me far worse. And one must admit that the Americans appear to have voted for the ancien régime, some of them might have hold their noses, but they did vote for the ancien régime.