Understanding America
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It is election day in the USA and the madness gripping this nation is on full display for all to see. Understanding America is no simple task for those looking on from afar and those living the dream – the American dream. Young folk globally are influenced by a cultural juggernaut reaching out digitally declaiming U-S-A. Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the video game industry, American sports, music, and celebrity all of these export their entertainments loudly, especially to the youth market. I remember growing up and wishing I lived in a America. At the time, I was largely ignorant of the real history of the United States of America. I suspect, as most people are disinterested in history, that this state of affairs remains the same today.
How To Understand America?
Understanding America involves more than consuming its vibrant cultural exports and entertainments. To give credit where credit is due America has long been a ‘can do’ nation brimming with creativity and self confidence at its best. 333 million people means a lot of different folk living and breathing under that stars and stripes banner. The last 8 years have seen a celebrity TV star ascend to the highest office in the land. Donald Trump has defined the United States for better or worse during this period. Democracy has taken a beating via the demagoguery of Trump and his MAGA faithful. January 6, 2021, culminated with an attack on the Capital threatening insurrection and disrupting the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden. Before and after that fateful day, the world has witnessed a whole lot of craziness, where you would not normally expect to do so. Non-stop social media posts from a president and former president of the US, the character of which can only be described as ill thought of and lacking any respect for the office. Talking shit, lying, and threatening violence are not the kind of communication Americans and the world are accustomed to coming from the leader of the free world.
Comprehending Recent Crazy America
There has been an initial public fascination with this spectacle, which has kept Trump on top in the political stakes on the Republican side. He won in 2016, lost in 2020 but told everyone that election was stolen, and is trying again in 2024. Trump is a one man sideshow replete with ever more shocking statements, threats, and failed assassination attempts. His political rallies are like a travelling circus or those evangelical revival gatherings. I call his strategy the politics of grievance. Trump declaims on stage a laundry list of demonised villains for the MAGA cult members to boo and hiss at together. Illegal immigrants, the labelling of which paint broadly all folk with darker skin, LGBTQI folk, especially trans people are evil incarnate apparently, liberals and progressives, Democrats, and women who want reproductive rights over their own bodies. Political violence is hinted at and celebrated as just desserts for the ‘enemies within’ the United States. Not so united anymore, it seems.
Trump is a deeply divisive force undermining the unity of the nation.
Voting Democratically In America
Now, there are around some 100 million eligible Americans who never bother voting in the Presidential elections. Voting is not compulsory in the land of the free. Many people in democracies around the place feel disinclined to vote because they consider their vote to be meaningless. Cynically, some reckon not much really changes whoever is in office. This is, obviously, a failure to reach these folk and impart the importance of voting to ongoing democracies. It is a fact, in the US that of the 50 states only 7 are considered to be swing states – those capable of changing from red to blue, Republican to Democrat and vice versa. The electoral college system in America is not a simple popular vote for the president, rather it distorts the results of voting through state based electors.
“In the United States, the presidency is decided not by the national popular vote but by the Electoral College — an outdated and convoluted system that sometimes yields results contrary to the choice of the majority of American voters. On five occasions, including in two of the last six elections, candidates have won the Electoral College, and thus the presidency, despite losing the nationwide popular vote.
The Electoral College is a group of intermediaries designated by the Constitution to select the president and vice president of the United States. Each of the 50 states is allocated presidential electors equal to the number of its representatives and senators. The ratification of the 23rd Amendment in 1961 allowed citizens in the District of Columbia to participate in presidential elections as well; they have consistently had three electors.”
The American National Identity
The interesting thing about America is that most of the folk that live there identify, quite prominently, as Americans. Despite this, the mechanisms which run their democratic institutions are mired in state based affiliations and are heavily partisan in pollical terms. It is like everyone believes the national messaging but hasn’t bothered to examine how the nuts and bolts of the system actually work in their part of the country. The rules, which govern voting in presidential elections are different in every state – there is no national independent body running the show every 4 years. This is a terrible situation and why all this fake news about voter fraud gets air time. There is no evidence of any serious levels of voter fraud happening and those doing the counting are committed to free and fair elections. However, there are too many partisan state officials and politicians involved in the system to maintain a completely transparent process, as is the case in Australia. America reminds me of a sports mad town where everyone wants to be on one team or the other and few want to be the umpire. The competitive ethos is so strong that they don’t realise that you have to have a strong non-partisan body of referees if you want to have a fair game. The Republican party is so caught up in winning they have thrown the baby out with the bath water. Hundreds of legal challenges to changes to voting rules have taken place in the courts over the last few months. Republican state legislatures have disenfranchised millions of Americans from voting rolls and made voting harder via reducing availability and increasing ID demands. Strangely, in a country all about convenience as a major marketing strategy, the GOP want to make voting as inconvenient as legally possible to Americans in certain counties.
“If you’ve grown up thinking that Situation Normal is something like the Australian Electoral Commission — an independent electoral authority which operates our voter roll to standard and transparent rules across the country — prepare to be shocked by the Wild West that is voting in America.
Even a highlights package of these seven states reveals a changeable, confusing set of contested electoral guidelines that look like Xi Jinping’s search result from “Hey ChatGPT, design me a system to destroy America’s faith in the democratic system”. “
A Deep Dive Into American Race History
Understanding America is impossible if you don’t dig a little deeper into race and skin colour. This takes you back to slavery pre- 1865 and the Civil War. Half of the United States of America were slave states, where Black people were whipped into working hard for white Americans. You cannot just flick a switch and turn off the effects of slavery on a people and a nation, even after a bloody Civil War, which conservatively cost the lives of more than 600, 000 Americans. Hundreds of years of slavery and an economy grown fat on the backs of 12 million enslaved dark skinned Africans captured and sold into misery. Baby farms, where human beings were bred into slavery to be sold for profit. Sexual abuse of Black slaves of all ages and sexes by white masters and mistresses for their ill gotten pleasure. The stain of this kind of thing on an industrial scale, with 4 million slaves annually being forcibly worked at its peak, does not just disappear culturally. The end of chattel slavery morphed into peonage slavery from 1870 right up to 1941 in the southern states. Plantation owners, mining concerns and factories made sure that they had access to the African American labour pool they required. Corrupt state legislators post re-construction via President Andrew Johnson’s influence in assisting them to gain power facilitated the Black Codes. These saw freed ex-slaves captured by sheriffs and police on trumped up charges like vagrancy, physical contact with a white woman, leaving the employment of a white owner, drunkenness and such like. Corrupt judges would impose harsh sentences and the prisoners would be offered the chance to work off their penalties in exchange for their labour over years at terrible rates of renumeration. Many of these peonage slaves died whilst working under horrendous conditions. The demise of the chattel system meant they no longer had any value as an asset and were, thus treated far worse than under the previous system.
This is the economics of white supremacy and what is at the root of what once made America great. Hollywood rarely tells this story and never goes into any detail as to how the whole thing worked and the many white skinned beneficiaries of it.
America’s Rise To Global Power
FDR ended the peonage system finally in 1941 because he needed to differentiate the United States from what Japan and Germany were up to in their empires and fascist regimes prior to entering the second world war. Nazi Germany famously was inspired by apartheid America and their eugenics policies operating in the 1930s’ in states and federally. There was a huge America First movement aligned with the Nazis, which tried to keep the US out of the war for as long as possible. Great Britain under Churchill bore the brunt for years in western Europe when Germany was at its most powerful militarily. The Soviet Union under Stalin actually prevented Hitler’s ultimate success at the cost of 33 million lives. The United States lost less than a million people in WW2. America did, for a price, supply arms via lend lease to the Brits and supplied the Soviets for important periods during the war. These financial deals would see the US ascend to superpower status economically and militarily on the world stage post- WW2.
“Even before the United States entered World War II in December 1941, America sent arms and equipment to the Soviet Union to help it defeat the Nazi invasion. Totaling $11.3 billion, or $180 billion in today’s currency, the Lend-Lease Act of the United States supplied needed goods to the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945 in support of what Stalin described to Roosevelt as the “enormous and difficult fight against the common enemy — bloodthirsty Hitlerism.” “
“The United Kingdom still has amounts outstanding from World War II and its immediate aftermath which it continues to repay on a regular basis. World War II-era claims on Iran have been incorporated into the claims being adjudicated by the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, established after the 1979 Iranian revolution. Lend Lease claims against the former Soviet Union arising from World War II were settled in a 1972 agreement between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. In the 1972 agreement, the U.S.S.R. pledged to make three initial payments totaling $48 million and to repay the remaining Lend Lease debt once the United States had granted Most Favored Nations (MFN) trade status. The Soviet Union made the three initial downpayments, but because it did not obtain MFN status at that time — because of conditions set forth in the 1974 Trade Act — its obligation to make the remaining payments toward its Lend Lease debt was not triggered before the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. However, MFN status was extended to the Russian Federation in 1992, and accordingly, in 1993, Russia signed an agreement with the U.S. in which it acknowledged its liability and agreed to a repayment schedule for the former U.S.S.R.’s Lend Lease debt. Finally, the U.S. continues to work for a resolution with Taiwan of the issue of debts arising from World War II-era loans extended to China.”
American Hegemonic Global Status
It is important to understand how the global power hierarchy has evolved over the last century. The superpower status of the US and its hegemony over all other nations is built on an economic edifice which has its foundations interwoven with military power. America spends $1.94 trillion annually on defence, according to the latest estimation. https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-defense?fy=2024
World wide defence spending was $2.4 trillion in 2023. You can imagine how coming to the aid of so many countries during both world wars puts a strong nation in an enviable situation. It establishes a power relationship, which has defined how things work economically for decades. The US$ has been preeminent ever since and this greatly assists America in staying at the top of the global tree. The most recent BRICS summit attracted the participation of more than 20 nations in Russia. This organisation would like to break the US global hegemony, especially over financial markets.
“This week in the city of Kazan President Putin will greet more than 20 heads of state at the Brics summit of emerging economies. Among the leaders invited are China’s Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The Brics nations account for 45% of the global population. Added together, members’ economies are worth more than $28.5tn (£22tn). That’s around 28% of the global economy.”
American Self-Esteem
Americans, more generally, are inclined to perceive themselves as citizens of the most powerful nation on earth. Many could be accused of thinking that their world entirely revolves around what happens within the borders of their North American home – maybe they are correct. Donald Trump consistently talks America down in his bid to tell folk he can make America great again. The politics of grievance works this way. It is like poking a sore with something sharp. Whatever the problem he tells us that he can fix it. Of course, Donald J Trump is a compulsive liar and you would have to have been stubbornly indifferent to reality if you did not know this in 2024. The Trump vs Harris presidential contest is being fought along gendered lines with more men intending to vote for Trump. In my experience, men lie much more often than women. Guys are far more comfortable supporting someone who wildly exaggerates and tells porkies because they do this themselves. Telling the truth and abiding strictly by the facts comes second to getting ahead in life for a large number of blokes. Sure, straight shooters are all very well but cutting corners and getting paid trumps inconvenient details. I remember when I went to America a bunch of times I was surprised at the casual dishonesty of American men in their presentations. I am older now and see this as a more universal trait of men more generally, wherever they hail from. Donald Trump is a blow hard, old white guy, and is, in my opinion, an embarrassment. I loath individuals who talk shit all the time and pollute the air with their ridiculous unfounded vanity. The last 8 years have been excoriating if you were once a West Wing watcher. Witnessing power being abused by such an unworthy waste of space for a prolonged period has been shameful for humanity, in my view.
Understanding Trump
Why have we seen the rise of Trump? The malefic manifestation of this son of a New York property developer accompanied the turning of politics into a subjective emotive contest. Election campaign strategists actively promoted content designed to arouse feelings at the expense of the actual facts. Negative ads ramp up the outrage factor via emotive music and outlandish disinformation. Yes, these things have been around for ages but not at the level we now see. Social media platforms can spread misinformation to tens of millions in a heartbeat. America has been in the grip of this stuff for more than a decade and its just getting worse. Videos tell little stories with no grounding in truth or reality. False narratives are penned by script writers with little to no shame.
Trump lies and lies with no mea culpa, tactics he learned from Roy Cohn.
Voting For A Vile Human Being
How can half of the half of the American population that votes consciously vote for a guy like Donald Trump. A grifter, con man, sexual predator, and all round nasty piece of work – is it because they wanna be just like him? Is he the culmination of the white American dream? Plenty of Black and Latino men want to pretend that race doesn’t exist and so vote for the rich white guy. Christian Americans from the bible belt vote for Trump, making a mockery of their beliefs. The southern church is steeped in its slavery roots, as the church of the enslavers. Mister Jesus didn’t have blue eyes and white skin; but don’t let the facts get in the way of telling a good story. America as a Christian nation is way out of line in any biblical or historical sense – hell, people just make shit up anyway, when it comes to religion.
The American Rural Vs Urban Divide
There is a rural vs city divide in America, the red states vs the blue states are produced on the back of this. Its funny how people who live in small towns and sparsely populated zones are so parochial, even in the Digital Age. The origin of this word relates to the church parish, which used to define places. ‘Small minded’ is another interpretation in that they do not understand the concerns of those outside of their experience. Therefore, in large urban areas in America even in red states they tend to vote blue. People have to get along in big cities and cannot afford to be small minded about stuff. Racism thrives in white only small towns and rural areas. It’s like they live in a different America and make no account for the fact that plenty of others not like them populate America too. The polarizing political parties feed on this and emphasise it to drum up support. Christian Nationalists are never content to live by their own creed, no, they seek to impose their rules upon all those who live in their territory.
Reproductive freedom in America has become a lightning rod because of these authoritarian tendencies of the Republican party.
To Conclude
The view from afar via the lens of exported American culture most commonly encounters New York and California, as stereotypical ideas of what America is. Both of these states are heavily Democratic and blue states. This is obviously not a true reflection of who and what America is. Understanding America demands a more nuanced survey of a much more complex box of chocolates. America is a nation undergoing a demographic shift from mostly white to a multiracial democracy. Not everyone is happy about that fact and would like to pretend it is not happening, especially those living in rural areas. Trump is the incarnation of the Godfather of this white supremacist vision of America. He is, however, an old white guy on the cusp of being an octogenarian. I conclude this article with Donald Trump in front of the race for the White House (interesting choice of names) and it is just after midnight. Is this the red mirage or something more substantial? Kamala Harris seeks to become the first ever female President of the United States.
The fact that in the 21C, America has still not elected a woman to the top job says something about Americans.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
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