US vs. US

The United States is living through a decisive moment in its political history. After decades of unrivaled development and near-complete dominance over the world, thanks to the harmony of its hard and soft power, the U.S. now faces unprecedented challenges and is shifting from a stable state of institutions to a savage state whose behavior is difficult to predict at home or abroad. The rule of law has weakened, and for the first time an unfamiliar weakness has emerged in the judiciary's capacity to withstand interference and pressure from the executive branch.

Federal authorities have also begun intervening to steer the internal policies of major multinational corporations, which have become tools in President Donald Trump's hands for punishing his opponents. Political and social polarization has reached levels that threaten to tear apart the fabric of American society, as political rhetoric has become a weapon for bullying and demeaning Americans who oppose White House policies.

Observers note that for the first time in U.S. history, the federal government is working to deepen divisions rather than narrow them, to encourage racial and religious discord instead of containing it, and to promote subgroup identities while abandoning policies that support a unifying identity.

It is also deploying digital technology to attack its opponents, transforming what should be a shared resource serving all segments of society into an instrument for advancing far-right agendas while punishing companies that refuse to facilitate the surveillance of Americans. All of this unfolds amid deepening diplomatic disarray and growing regional and international isolation, driven by unjustified attacks on allies and partners, sanctions imposed on them and assaults on their national sovereignty and security — on top of a volatile foreign policy that lacks a clearly defined strategy.

America's hostility toward itself is visible across a range of issues. Pope Leo XIV, an American, has voiced his rejection of the Trump administration’s violent foreign policy on several high-profile fronts, among them the war on Iran, Washington's policy toward Ukraine and the risks artificial intelligence poses to the future of humanity.

The second most prominent front in this internal conflict concerns immigration and human rights, after the Trump administration recorded levels of human rights violations not seen in America since the repeal of the discriminatory laws against Black people. Statistics show that private prison companies in various U.S. states racked up staggering profits immediately after Trump's re-election, with revenues reaching $4.8 billion, the largest share tied to the sweeping arrest campaign U.S. security forces have carried out against immigrants. Some of the arrests involved abuses and errors that ignited a massive wave of protests among a broad swath of American society.

All of this has also coincided with an unacceptable attack by the presidency on the judiciary, with the president describing judges he himself appointed as a disgrace to their families. The administration has dismantled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, brazenly encroached on the Federal Reserve's independence and tied funding for American universities to how closely they adhere to the political line embraced by the White House — a step that exposes scientific research in America to dangers that threaten its preeminence from within, not from outside. Trump has also inflicted a grave insult on the symbolism of the presidency, posting an image of himself in a king's crown, piloting a plane that dumps a brown liquid resembling excrement on protesters — people who oppose his policies and are expressing their position in a democratic manner.

One can speak of a form of state self-destruction in America through the lens of what is known as biopolitics. What is happening in Washington is an attempt to turn the tools of democratic control, welfare, care and the provision of security into mechanisms of excessive control and exclusion, in the sense Michel Foucault intended. That pushes the state into conflict with the very society that granted it sovereign authority. In such a case, the state loses its human dimension and progressively erodes the fundamental balance that once existed among the branches of government, above all between the executive and the judiciary. The greatest danger now threatening American society is the possibility that digital systems and the technology companies behind them could destroy the foundations of national identity and the collective memory of the American people.

The growing grip of the financial and technological oligarchy over the institutional structure of the American state is delivering a fatal blow to the country's political and moral legitimacy, especially as financial and economic elites continually insulate themselves from the aspirations of a broad swath of the American people and feel no qualms about belittling their legitimate dreams and ambitions. The symbolic body of the American state has been subjected to a degree of vulgarity that stunned the world and saddened America's friends and allies, as the presidency of the greatest country in the world was systematically demeaned, not only in words but also in deeds — deeds that have often been haphazard and improvised and that have destroyed the Five Eyes alliance that its founding nations spent decades building.