President Trump and the Other Crocodiles
Being on the right is easier. Saying, “I will save you,” is more effective than saying, “We must save ourselves.”
We keep asking ourselves why the right is winning in our time and in our world. We keep giving ourselves the same answers. Because the right does not offer a better world — that would be difficult. Rather, it pursues and consolidates a worse one, which is easy. Because being on the right is easier. Saying, “I will save you,” is more effective than saying, “We must save ourselves.” Because people are poor, tired and exhausted from believing in promises that have never been fulfilled, and they have now been placed in a position — economically and culturally — where they can no longer distinguish what is good for one person and what is good for everyone. Because sowing fear and ignorance breeds subservience and serves the ruler.
Fine, yes, we all know this. What is new is this kind of euphoria over mercilessness. The support generated by leaders’ cruelty. Of course, economic interests lie behind it. Control over resources — diesel fuel, certainly. The rulers’ personal fortunes, evidently. But look at what has happened over the past few weeks. Let’s line it all up as though it were part of a plan.
Donald Trump, at the head of the West’s largest democracy — geographically speaking — proposes the public execution of a death-row inmate as an instructive spectacle, reminiscent of the public beheadings of centuries past. At the same time, he attacks the International Criminal Court, an independent judicial body, calling it dangerous. Incensed by the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, a jurist who held a senior position at that court, he flies into a rage. Justice, apparently, is whatever he decides it is. Wherever he sits, he is at the head of the table. He and Benjamin Netanyahu, his unwavering ally.
He strikes deals with Vladimir Putin and tries to bring down gas prices ahead of the midterm elections, yet he attacks Putin’s victim, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Once again, he lies. He blames rising prices on Ukrainian attacks against Russian refineries, rather than on the war he himself unleashed in Iran — a war he no longer knows how to resolve.
But let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture before turning to Europe: the near future of France, Spain and our own country, Italy. Let’s look at the Americas. Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer who has represented figures from local criminal organizations, has recently become president of Colombia. During his campaign, he promised a return to order through a tough-on-crime approach. His rise to power is another piece of the new political landscape.
Ultraconservatives threaten to dismantle the gains made during the democratic transition and expanded over recent decades. In recent years, the Americas have become a global laboratory for the right: authoritarian regimes in a democratic guise, right-wing governments elected through democratic processes. The new reactionary leaders of the Americas, including Trump, project strength, promise authority and are propelled forward at breakneck speed by social media. They offer simple solutions to complex problems: a revamped form of caudillismo that exploits the frustrations caused by poverty, inequality, corruption and violence.
Caudillismo is a term for the personal rule of a charismatic leader, the “caudillo,” who relies on a strong bond with the masses. Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Javier Milei in Argentina, José Antonio Kast in Chile and now Espriella in Colombia all advocate a return to an authoritarian, hierarchical past with no room for diversity or rights, which they blame for bringing down the solid edifice of tradition. They want to go back to the way things used to be. Make America Great Again.
When the future is uncertain — threatened by a climate crisis fueled by human greed, by artificial intelligence that could suddenly come to regard all human beings as dead weight, and ultimately by the collapse of capitalism — the only option left is to take refuge in the past: back to the way things were. These are all governments allied with Israel and tied to Trump’s United States: a far-flung family of reactionaries.
Take Bukele, 45, for example. He calls himself “the coolest dictator in the world,” and is very much to Trump’s liking. He built CECOT, a maximum-security facility for detaining suspected terrorists, one of the harshest prisons in the world. Trump is so enthusiastic about it that he ordered 238 prisoners under his government’s control to be transferred there. A medal for the good, young Bukele.
Of course, the Americas are also home to the humanism of Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum: prosperity must be shared “for the good of all, the poor come first.” The poor first, because the market already takes care of the rich. If the state doesn’t take care of the poor, then who will? Sheinbaum is the minority on the map.
Let’s turn to another continent, and another ally. An Israeli court recently halted the government’s plan to build moats around prisons holding large numbers of Palestinian prisoners. The medieval engineering of the moats would have been enhanced by the presence of Nile crocodiles: an average specimen is 4 meters long (about 13 feet) and weighs 200 kilograms (about 441 pounds). Excavation had already begun at Ketziot Prison, in the Negev Desert, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection was moving to reclassify Nile crocodiles for “security purposes.” It was the animal rights group, Let the Animals Live, that secured a temporary injunction by taking legal action over the possible mistreatment of the reptiles. We are at the mercy of crocodile rights.
In Europe, too, the right is advancing across a divided and uncertain continent. Spain will vote in November, while France and Italy will go to the polls next year. Pedro Sanchez is taking a big risk. Support for Giorgia Meloni’s close friend, the leader of Vox, is indeed growing. No one can predict what the crowds will demand in the streets of Spain and France. In Italy, the streets are silent. The sprawling opposition coalition fails to set hearts aflame. “You don’t win from the center,” Elly Schlein says. Perhaps. In the meantime, it might be worth trying a different approach: doing something visible and forceful, recognizable and simple. An attempt, at least.
John Berger, one of the great visionary thinkers of this century — and there are fewer and fewer of them — used to say that “the great movements of history have always begun in those small parentheses that we call ‘in the meantime.’” While something enormous is happening, something like an execution broadcast live on television, something else is quietly stirring beneath the surface. Let’s hope so.
We keep asking ourselves why the right is winning in our time and in our world. We keep giving ourselves the same answers. Because the right does not offer a better world — that would be difficult. Rather, it pursues and consolidates a worse one, which is easy. Because being on the right is easier. Saying, “I will save you,” is more effective than saying, “We must save ourselves.” Because people are poor, tired and exhausted from believing in promises that have never been fulfilled, and they have now been placed in a position — economically and culturally — where they can no longer distinguish what is good for one person and what is good for everyone. Because sowing fear and ignorance breeds subservience and serves the ruler.
Fine, yes, we all know this. What is new is this kind of euphoria over mercilessness. The support generated by leaders’ cruelty. Of course, economic interests lie behind it. Control over resources — diesel fuel, certainly. The rulers’ personal fortunes, evidently. But look at what has happened over the past few weeks. Let’s line it all up as though it were part of a plan.
Donald Trump, at the head of the West’s largest democracy — geographically speaking — proposes the public execution of a death-row inmate as an instructive spectacle, reminiscent of the public beheadings of centuries past. At the same time, he attacks the International Criminal Court, an independent judicial body, calling it dangerous. Incensed by the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, a jurist who held a senior position at that court, he flies into a rage. Justice, apparently, is whatever he decides it is. Wherever he sits, he is at the head of the table. He and Benjamin Netanyahu, his unwavering ally.
He strikes deals with Vladimir Putin and tries to bring down gas prices ahead of the midterm elections, yet he attacks Putin’s victim, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Once again, he lies. He blames rising prices on Ukrainian attacks against Russian refineries, rather than on the war he himself unleashed in Iran — a war he no longer knows how to resolve.
But let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture before turning to Europe: the near future of France, Spain and our own country, Italy. Let’s look at the Americas. Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer who has represented figures from local criminal organizations, has recently become president of Colombia. During his campaign, he promised a return to order through a tough-on-crime approach. His rise to power is another piece of the new political landscape.
Ultraconservatives threaten to dismantle the gains made during the democratic transition and expanded over recent decades. In recent years, the Americas have become a global laboratory for the right: authoritarian regimes in a democratic guise, right-wing governments elected through democratic processes. The new reactionary leaders of the Americas, including Trump, project strength, promise authority and are propelled forward at breakneck speed by social media. They offer simple solutions to complex problems: a revamped form of caudillismo that exploits the frustrations caused by poverty, inequality, corruption and violence.
Caudillismo is a term for the personal rule of a charismatic leader, the “caudillo,” who relies on a strong bond with the masses. Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Javier Milei in Argentina, José Antonio Kast in Chile and now Espriella in Colombia all advocate a return to an authoritarian, hierarchical past with no room for diversity or rights, which they blame for bringing down the solid edifice of tradition. They want to go back to the way things used to be. Make America Great Again.
When the future is uncertain — threatened by a climate crisis fueled by human greed, by artificial intelligence that could suddenly come to regard all human beings as dead weight, and ultimately by the collapse of capitalism — the only option left is to take refuge in the past: back to the way things were. These are all governments allied with Israel and tied to Trump’s United States: a far-flung family of reactionaries.
Take Bukele, 45, for example. He calls himself “the coolest dictator in the world,” and is very much to Trump’s liking. He built CECOT, a maximum-security facility for detaining suspected terrorists, one of the harshest prisons in the world. Trump is so enthusiastic about it that he ordered 238 prisoners under his government’s control to be transferred there. A medal for the good, young Bukele.
Of course, the Americas are also home to the humanism of Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum: prosperity must be shared “for the good of all, the poor come first.” The poor first, because the market already takes care of the rich. If the state doesn’t take care of the poor, then who will? Sheinbaum is the minority on the map.
Let’s turn to another continent, and another ally. An Israeli court recently halted the government’s plan to build moats around prisons holding large numbers of Palestinian prisoners. The medieval engineering of the moats would have been enhanced by the presence of Nile crocodiles: an average specimen is 4 meters long (about 13 feet) and weighs 200 kilograms (about 441 pounds). Excavation had already begun at Ketziot Prison, in the Negev Desert, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection was moving to reclassify Nile crocodiles for “security purposes.” It was the animal rights group, Let the Animals Live, that secured a temporary injunction by taking legal action over the possible mistreatment of the reptiles. We are at the mercy of crocodile rights.
In Europe, too, the right is advancing across a divided and uncertain continent. Spain will vote in November, while France and Italy will go to the polls next year. Pedro Sanchez is taking a big risk. Support for Giorgia Meloni’s close friend, the leader of Vox, is indeed growing. No one can predict what the crowds will demand in the streets of Spain and France. In Italy, the streets are silent. The sprawling opposition coalition fails to set hearts aflame. “You don’t win from the center,” Elly Schlein says. Perhaps. In the meantime, it might be worth trying a different approach: doing something visible and forceful, recognizable and simple. An attempt, at least.
John Berger, one of the great visionary thinkers of this century — and there are fewer and fewer of them — used to say that “the great movements of history have always begun in those small parentheses that we call ‘in the meantime.’” While something enormous is happening, something like an execution broadcast live on television, something else is quietly stirring beneath the surface. Let’s hope so.
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