Without Shades: The Realities of a Black and White America

The coronavirus pandemic is gradually moving to the periphery, giving way to clearer and, at the same time, more complex political processes in individual countries.

The United States has entered the next phase of a deep political and historical identity crisis. Russia is moving toward finalizing the institutionalization of the concept of sovereign democracy. The European Union is trying to find new fundamental meanings for its existence after its official parting with Great Britain. China is preparing for a decisive round of confrontation with the Americans.

In other words, we are witness to serious geopolitical transformations that, with a high likelihood, will change the current unipolar system of international relations.

Considering the importance of understanding these system processes precisely, it is logical to start with an analysis of the U.S. Although most experts did not expect it, Donald Trump’s victory during the last election triggered the destruction of the system which determined the domestic political rules of the game after the end of the Cold War.

For a long time, the core of America’s nationhood lay in the balance of power in the relations between the organized minority and the unorganized majority.

James Madison, the main architect of this philosophy, thought that government should strictly limit its interference into the lives of its people, but it was nevertheless necessary to create filters to minimize the majority’s participation in the process of strategic management. He explained that a nation’s people mostly make decisions by succumbing to emotions (including in the context of voting), not by basing their decisions on concrete knowledge and analysis of the situation.

In general, the Founding Fathers, though having different points of view about the models of governance, shared Madison’s opinion. Political filters were configured in this way so that candidates for key leadership positions developed within the minority, and the majority got the opportunity to choose one of them.

This system of balance was relatively safe because any winner was part of an elite minority, and that person’s opponent became the opposition.

In this way, the system was about the opposition of separate parties vying for influence among the organized political elite. To become part of that elite, one needs to belong to an existing political dynasty or have access to vast finances. (An ordinary teacher or firefighter is simply unable to finance a campaign.)

Without the support of the Kennedy family, it is extremely difficult to become a congressman or senator from Massachusetts; without the Bushes, one cannot reach a serious level of politics in Texas. The same can be said of the Huntsmans in Utah or the Cuomos in New York. Within the organized minority, there is only one universal idea that all members believe in: the constant struggle for the right to be part of the elite.

It is difficult to believe that billionaire Mike Bloomberg is seriously concerned with the needs of the most socially vulnerable segments of the population, or that millionaires Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are prepared to sacrifice themselves on the field of battle defending the interests of immigrants and achieving a final solution to the problem of health care. It is also doubtful that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has been continuously elected to Congress since 1987 thanks to the financial support of large corporations, was concerned with the threat of Trump’s usurpation of power. The problem from the very beginning was of another character; Trump decided to break the established rules of the game from within the system itself.

Rich people like Trump traditionally financed the campaigns of members of the political class, they did not take their places.

At one point, even giants of the American business aristocracy like Nelson Rockefeller, Steve Forbes and Ross Perot, were unable to take the White House. The question then emerges: how did this upstart, who is more of a showman than a serious businessman, manage to do this?

This is why it is not surprising that the most influential Republican elite (e.g., the Bushes) openly speak against Trump, who officially belongs to the ranks of the same party. Biden is closer to the Republican elite because he is from that same system involving an elite minority (albeit from an opposing group of influence, the Democratic Party). Nobody expected a Jacksonian revolt of the dissatisfied, passive majority, and few could guess that Trump would lead it. (He himself was probably not fully prepared for this.) As a result, the lion’s share of his first term was spent repelling attacks from the opposition: from “Russiagate” and articles of impeachment to sex and racism scandals. Somewhere along the line he had to make concessions, somewhere he got the upper hand over his opponents, but the struggle has still not ended.

Authoritative pro-Democratic media artfully transformed the unlawful actions of one white police officer in relation to one specific African American criminal into the struggle of progressive America led by the Democrats against racist America, led by the current president and his Republican supporters. It is quite unimportant that it was once the Republican Party and its leader Abraham Lincoln that abolished slavery and paved the way for reforms that led to the social integration of people of color into American society.

According to statistics, 4% of the Trump administration is African American and 9% are of Asian ancestry, while the number of white officials constitutes 86% of Trump’s administration, which is 2% less than it was before George Herbert Walker Bush, and 4% less than before Ronald Reagan. But nobody accused them of racism.

Moreover, record unemployment lows are being registered among African Americans and Latino Americans during the Trump administration. These and other data will show that racism, social injustice and the lawlessness of white officials in the White House are unrelated to current events. It is much simpler: Trump should not be reelected for a second term, the revolt of the realists should be suppressed, and Jacksonian democracy should be torn down to the ground.

The accelerated rate of domestic transformation in Russia is connected in part with what happens on the American front.

If Trump is defeated in the presidential election in November, it could significantly complicate the already critical state of affairs between Moscow and Washington.

Vladimir Putin says there is no possibility of dialogue with the American Democratic elite, and he sees them as a permanent source of domestic threat (e.g., the organization of the color revolution) and external threat (e.g., the struggle for post-Soviet space). For Putin, a Biden victory means configuring for a state of permanent mobilization. Of course, Trump’s reelection will not radically transform the nature of intergovernmental relations, but his actions in the international arena are more predictable, and, more importantly, his administration does not care about the internal affairs of Russia.

Sanctions are a new norm for Moscow, and nobody is expecting them to end in the near future. The main thing is to continue strategic restraint and not cross any red lines. In any case, President Putin – one of the last world leaders from the school of realpolitik (hard power) – seeks to strengthen Russia’s internal border and prepare for multiple scenarios.

Ultimately, Putin views the improvement of the socioeconomic situation in the country and the formation of an institutionalized system of checks and balances exclusively through the return of Russia’s status as a superpower, with the need for Russia to participate in building a post-unipolar system of international relations on equal terms with the United States and China. In my opinion, he sees this as his mission and political legacy, and the revised constitution is considered to be an ideological road map and instructions for his successors.

It is difficult to say just how effective the chosen path of a renewed sovereign democracy focused on the majority of Russian citizens (as opposed to an elite political minority) will be, but the process has begun, and there is no turning back. This may sound paradoxical, but the success of the Putin-Surkov model of sovereign democracy in Russia depends in some sense on the viability of Jacksonianism in America as reimagined by Trump and Steve Bannon (the ideologist behind Trump’s campaign).*

*Editor’s note: The author’s reference to Surkov is a reference to Vladislav Surkov, a Russian businessman and politician and former aide to the president of the Russian Federation.