Дональд Трамп: фашизм у добу метамодерну

Abstract

Статтю присвячено чинному президенту Сполучених Штатів Америки Дональду Трампу. Здійснено спробу показати елементи тоталітарного дискурсу у його публічній політичній діяльності і проаналізувати правомірність прямих порівнянь із вождями тоталітарних режимів XX ст., зокрема з Гітлером. Показано тло політичної та культурної історії Америки, на якому стала можливою перемога Дональда Трампа, відзначено ключові моменти, найбільш важливі для розуміння поточної ситуації. Приділено увагу основній виборчій базі та соціальним медіа, а також запропоновано перспективу для боротьби проти тоталітарних тенденцій.

The article is devoted to the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, who made the issue of totalitarianism newsworthy for the Western world. With low ratings and doubtful reputation, the US President holds totalitarian, in fact fascist rhetoric, while our feeling of helplessness is only increasing. The history of fascism is a good map of what to look for if we do not want to allow even more radical (and especially more active) politicians to be elected, since Trump is more of a populist than a practitioner, so now the situation requires preventive measures aimed at the future. Elements of a totalitarian discourse in the public political activity of Trump appear in metaphors in which people are compared with objects (“We will put millions of our people to work”), and the country is compared with a mechanism that can be repaired only by one person (“Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it”). Indeed, it does resemble fascism, where people are a mass and the leader is the one who forms it. However, Trump, regardless of the legitimate to some degree comparisons with Hitler or Mussolini, is neither a racist nor an anti-Semite, he is rather a politician who almost accidentally plays with these concepts, since they provide the movement and drive his political discourse. We should be aware of this fact because it is an important element of any totalitarianism. How should we resist? More intensively than ever. We need to analyze the reasons why Trump still holds a certain rating among his electoral base. Given that this rating was obtained, along with traditional channels, by means of social platforms, the struggle can and must continue there too. This perspective for fighting totalitarian tendencies may vary, but its importance remains undeniable to everyone.