Prospect of election defeat forces Donald Trump to show his horrifying true intentions – Henry McLeish
Donald Trump has been engaging in political ‘pointillism’ that obscures his true objective to destroy American democracy. However, the big picture is increasingly clear
Since he first became US president a decade ago, and in particular over the last two years, Donald Trump has overwhelmed, exhausted, angered, amazed, irritated and entertained the media and the global public. Driven by an obsession with his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, Trump has claimed he lost only because of widespread electoral fraud – despite a lack of evidence to support this – blaming ‘mail-in’ or postal voting in particular.
He has launched a never-ending media blitzkrieg of the ridiculous, the menacing, and the disturbing, with a daily diet of post on his Truth Social platform. Even fellow Republicans who are unwilling to harness their souls to the president’s every wish have faced his wrath.
But have we misjudged or misunderstood the true role that Trump is playing? By giving too much credence to every controversial remark, have we allowed ourselves to be fooled by a smokescreen that obscures the president’s ultimate aim – to run America like one of his companies.
The death of American democracy
In a remarkably insightful article published by USA Today in 2019, headlined “Democracy in Trump era is dying tweet by tweet and we won't see the big picture for years”, Professor Brian L Ott argued that “Trump’s rhetoric is like a pointillist painting” – the innovative technique developed in the late 1800s by artists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. When viewed up close, all one can see are individual dots of paint and it is only when viewed from a distance that they form a cohesive image.
Ott wrote: “Each [Trump] tweet (along with the occasional TV sound bite) is an individual, brightly coloured dot of paint. Unfortunately, the dots themselves are so colourful (read: an affront to the rule of law and/or basic human decency), so numerous, and so frequent that it is often difficult to discern larger patterns and to make out the full picture, which paints the destruction of democracy by attacking our most cherished and fundamental norms, principles, and institutions.”
In essence, the president’s sometimes shocking behaviour is an elaborate distraction from his main agenda: a radical reshaping of the way America is governed. Evidence so far suggests that this strategy has been reasonably successful.
Trump forced to paint in bigger strokes
However, the tables may be turning, with some polls suggesting the Republicans could be heading for a bad result at the midterm elections in November. This prospect has forced a fearful Trump to start painting, not with dots, but with broad brush strokes that are increasingly obvious and have revealed his ambitions to bring about the end of free and fair elections in America.
His attempts to rig the US elections are now the focus of enormous controversy, even by the standards of the Trump presidency. His plan centres on the respected and effective United States Postal Service (USPS), which has long dealt with mail-in ballots, uncontroversially and without interference from either US states or the federal government, which has no constitutional responsibilities for elections.
Nearly a third of the US electorate, more than 48 million people, vote by post and, in two states, it is the only method. Trump is trying to turn the USPS into gatekeepers of democracy, by creating a new ‘Federal List of Voters’. This would destroy the independence of the USPS and transfer unimaginable powers to a sitting president, effectively allowing the president to decide who can vote by mail.
The Supreme Court, with its in-built Republican majority, is currently weighing up the legality of the president’s plans. But has the great disruptor overstepped himself? Voter suppression tactics have long been used in the US, but is the country truly ready for mass voter exclusion?
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President’s billionaire backers
Political pointillism has allowed the president to obscure his true intent. The attempted hijacking of mail-in voting may, however, prove to be a wake-up call to what is really happening, exposing the true purpose behind the endless dramas being foisted on unsuspecting voters – the destruction of democracy in America.
The American version of the autocrats handbook is nearing completion. The billionaire tech oligarchs are orchestrating the messaging and providing funds for the president, much of the mass media remains enthralled by his ridiculousness, and his executive orders provide multiple false political trails.
US Cabinet members have surrendered their departments so that they are merely branch offices of the White House, the Supreme Court remains largely loyal to the president, a once-great Republican party exists in name only, and Congress remains unwilling to question Trump’s excesses.
But all this is now being played out in full view, a canvas with the dots joined up, exposing Trump’s attempt to reintroduce the divine right of kings – for the first time since America threw off royal rule 250 years ago.
How democracy dies and autocracy thrives has become clear. The White House wishes to decide who can vote by mail. The eyes of the president are on possibly 46 million voters.
Whether the Supreme Court says no to Trump or the president wins, time is running out with just weeks before the midterms. Chaos within the Postal Service and the country seems almost certain, no matter what happens. This is already a political mess in which millions of American voters could end up losing the vote.
Rather than a sudden political coup, Trump’s pointillism has created numerous, polarising distractions that help explain the failure of many in America to recognise a whole way of politics that is alien to democracy. The question now is whether the midterm elections will provide a new canvas that joins the dots for all to see.
Henry McLeish is a former First Minister of Scotland and a visiting professor at the University of South Florida
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