Donald Trump 2.0 – isn’t it all that bad? Unfortunately, yes

My guess is that this sentence will make it to the top list of most-spoken sentences in the US and elsewhere today: “It won’t be that bad.” Followed by: “We’ve been through it all before.”

Today, convicted felon Donald J. Trump will place his hand on the Bible and swear an oath to the Constitution he seeks to destroy.

He already did that once in 2016. I remember the outcry and the resistance in the streets after he took office; that was what had me back then star just sent to the USA as a correspondent. I remember at the time it seemed as if he had set a time trap for the United States and me from which there was no escape. And the trumpet animal greets you every day.

No matter what he did, whether he threatened on Twitter, as it was said at the time, to start a nuclear war with the North Korean dictator, or had hamburgers from McDonald’s delivered to the White House for dinner – he determined my thoughts and those of the American people around me.

But I also remember how people in the big cities ran into the streets and cheered when the election results were finally known in November 2020, democratic America seemed to have won, the Constitution seemed to be saved, Donald Trump’s presidency was nothing more than a minor one Industrial accident in the success story of American democracy.

So won’t everything be so bad today?

I’m afraid so. “Trump 2.0,” as Americans call the second term in a time-saving manner, will get worse. Far worse.

I know, nothing is more tiring and trite than warning about Trump. But this time we are dealing with a different, fundamental threat to the condition of America and the world. Because America is facing a regime change, not just in power. But before a change in the political system.

Before I went to the USA, I had worked through standard works on the US political system – “Checks and Balances”, “Bill of Rights”, “Abraham Lincoln” – I thought I was prepared. I thought that American politics still revolved around parties and their agenda. About coalitions based on common interests and goals. Those who seek agreements by consensus and who make decisions that go beyond the wishes of a political leader. And these parties rely on a large pool of elites, employees and officials who know how to make compromises in the spirit of the democratic community.

That was an illusion back then – today no one has such illusions anymore.

There is no longer a Republican Party in this sense. Donald Trump has it completely under his control. The Republicans today have become a movement that subordinates itself to one person, it is reminiscent of a royal court. We have seen such parties more and more frequently in recent years, including Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz. And when they emerge in democracies, they can lead to a relapse into authoritarianism.

That is the crucial difference between Donald Trump’s first and second terms in office: eight years ago, Trump led a party with a program. He governed in a tense coalition with a Republican party whose establishment often put him in his place.

Today things look completely different. A vaccination conspiracy theorist as health minister? Will be waved through by the party. A former “Fox & Friends” host with a sleazy sexual past as defense secretary? No opposition in the Senate. An unqualified political Rambo who vowed to use the state to hunt down Trump’s enemies should run the FBI? Only the slightest criticism. One billionaire after another traveling to the president’s private club in Florida to ingratiate himself with him and hatch deals? The party applauds.

In personalist regimes like those of Putin, Erdoğan and Orbán, business is done directly and in secret with the leader. That’s why so many billionaires and elites have rushed to Mar-a-Lago in recent weeks, even Bill Gates, who supported Kamala Harris with $50 million during the election campaign. They all got used to the new rules surprisingly quickly: you win Trump’s favor by being useful to him. The Art of the Deal: You get money. You get power. If you resist, it will be difficult for you in Trump America.

That’s why Mark Zuckerberg threw himself in the dust before Trump and declared that he would abolish the fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram that the new president hated so much. That’s probably why Zuckerberg even appointed Trump ally and President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship Dana White to Meta’s board.

Politics in the USA has been reduced to deals with Donald Trump. And this is also a difference from his first term in office: the most powerful power centers in American business and politics are already prepared to abide by Trump’s rules. In personalist regimes, all politics is a transaction with the leader.

Again, I know how tiring warnings about Donald Trump are. I would also like to write that everything won’t be that bad. But I no longer have to imagine what happens when a president has so much unchallenged influence over his party and the majority of its representatives, and what danger this democracy is then exposed to.

When I look at America, I see all of this.