America Is Ready To Risk It*

*Editor’s note: On March 4, 2022, Russia enacted a law that criminalizes public opposition to, or independent news reporting about, the war in Ukraine. The law makes it a crime to call the war a “war” rather than a “special military operation” on social media or in a news article or broadcast. The law is understood to penalize any language that “discredits” Russia’s use of its military in Ukraine, calls for sanctions or protests Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It punishes anyone found to spread “false information” about the invasion with up to 15 years in prison.

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An expert of the Valdai Discussion Club, Andrey Kortunov, on the reasons why the U.S. elected Trump and what it means for the rest of the world.

As we know, Donald Trump is a more than controversial figure. A great number of people in America actively dislike his demonstrative narcissism, unbridled impulsiveness, political inconsistency, and the unpredictability of his decisions. Many Americans do not have great memories about Trump’s first presidential term, associated with the coronavirus pandemic, squabbles with European allies, and the beginning of a trade war with China. A lot of questions have been raised about his not-so-politically-correct statements of recent months and about the knowingly unrealistic promises that he generously shared with the American people during the election campaign.

The many American ethnic and racial minorities have grounds for fearing the return of the 45th president of the U.S. to the White House — as well as large businesses from New York’s Wall Street to California’s Silicon Valley, liberal universities and media, the representatives of the almighty “deep state,” and many civil society institutions. Even among the Republican Party leadership, Trump has always had both secret ill-wishers and open opponents.

And yet, America has chosen him. Against all odds. Despite monstrous financial injections into the Democratic Party election campaign, despite the desperate resistance of many liberal foundations, social movements, and analytical centers. Despite the obvious split of the Republican faction in Congress. Despite the mobilization of the most popular figures of American pop culture — from George Clooney to Taylor Swift. Despite the many court cases designed, if not knock Trump out of the presidential race, then to at least finally crush his political reputation. Despite tons of vitriol and simply dug-up dirt splashed over TV screens, popular newspapers, and leading social media.

Today no one truly knows what Trump’s second term will be. What is clear is that this term will differ significantly from his first one. Trump returns to the White House as a much more experienced and wise politician, having tasted not just the sweet triumphant victories but also the bitter crushing defeats. He, of course, hasn’t forgotten all the humiliation he had to go through over the last four years, and he craves not just revenge but also reckoning over his numerous enemies and persecutors. Apparently, today he leads a much stronger team than back in 2016. Aside from that, Trump’s second term will also be his last, so he doesn’t need to worry about the upcoming reelection and can allow himself to finally be himself.

Naturally, the hope that Trump, during his second presidency, will turn out to be more consistent, decisive, and wise than the 2017-20201 Trump, can live in the public consciousness. But these hopes fail to explain why, after all, America chose him over Kamala Harris. Perhaps political analysts will be brooding over this for a long time — and, after them, historians across the globe. But we can suppose that, by preferring Trump, the American voter hasn’t simply been guided by primitive binary views (man vs. woman, former successful businessman vs. former state prosecutor, a New Yorker vs. a Californian, a white man vs. an Indian-African-American woman). Most likely, America just grew tired of the intrusive neoliberal agenda of the Democrats and is ready to risk it, betting on the alternative program of Trump, albeit not entirely consistent and sometimes not entirely clear.

This choice bears a great deal of risk both for America and the rest of the world. Trump’s recent statements about the U.S. economy, about core social programs, about public finances and public institutions, climate problems and immigration are guilty of an apparent declarative nature and can barely be perceived as a convincing presentation of detailed and well-designed strategies. The same, naturally, goes for many principled issues of foreign policy — from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, from the future of international trade to the fate of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

But it would probably be wrong to suspect Americans of excessive naivete and of being ready to once more blindly believe election promises of yet another charismatic leader. After all, America had the time to properly study Trump during his first presidency and separate political rhetoric from political practice. As it appears, this choice is not based on the gullibility and short memory of an American voter; this voter is far from being as naive and gullible as it might seem from the outside. The matter is likely based in the fact that the majority of Americans realize the dead-end nature of the path the Democrats have thrown the country down over the last four years, both in domestic and foreign affairs.

The result of the election showed that the neoliberal agenda in its old wrapper from the time of the Barack Obama and Bill Clinton presidencies isn’t selling well today in the U.S. — even when it’s being peddled not by the geriatric Joe Biden, but by a quite capable and generously funded woman from ethnic minorities. America is ready to risk betting on the only alternative present on the political market.

In no case should we underestimate the risks of Trump’s second term. Ill-considered impulsive decisions in the field of economics are capable of crashing the U.S. stock market, spurring inflation, or dragging the country into a new cyclical recession. Hasty and unexpected steps in foreign policy are fraught with the threats of new disagreements and open conflicts with neoliberal allies, the further decline of international organizations, and even a large military conflict with U.S. participation. Trump-2 is unlikely to turn out to be an ardent supporter of multilateralism, the expanded reproduction of global public goods, arms control in all its forms, or a sharp increase in American help to the needy states of the Global South.

All of this means that a bumpy road with sharp turns, forks that were not on the map, steep declines and rises awaits America and the rest of the world. There will be more than enough risks on this road. But, as it seems, the majority of Americans view these risks as lesser ones compared to the ones that would inevitably come from the prospects of keeping the current political status quo around for four more years. And, probably, we can understand the American choice from this point of view.