The last few days we saw an unbelievable event: the assault by a mob to the Capitol animated by the president of the United States himself. The attitude of Trump is not completely unforeseeable since he is, in my opinion, a madman. I think that he is clinically so. He is not the mean crooked man that knows well the difference between facts and fantasy and just manipulates his followers with lies. I think that Trump really believes in that alternative reality, and that is one of the factors why he so bound to be followed with such a faith. It is quite informative of what kind of sick personality could the prophets and saints of the different religions might have had to make his followers believe in miracles and all sorts of alternative realities. A clear example of his madness is Trump's belief that he could change the course of the election that inexorably sends him out of the White House on the 20th of January by all kinds of methods including the Supreme court, the GOP senators not certifying the results or the mob of rioters assaulting the Capitol. That was simply not going to happen, and only a madman pursues a path which is bound to fail and which has left him with even less supporters within the list of politicians of his own party. He has also blasted much of his possibilities of returning to the presidency in four years time. For many, even those who have officially supported him, he has shown that he is indeed very dangerous, to the level of being unappropriate for position of responsability. I think that there are many chances that as a result of his own reaction to the loss of the election there will be a move into inhabilitating him, impeaching him, prosecuting him or any other method of sending him out of the way. The majority of politicians of the Republican party are certainly not mad. Some might fit better to the 'mean crooked crooked man that knows well the difference between facts and fantasy and just manipulates his followers with lies'. Some of the politicians are proxies of big companies that aim at maximizing their profit by intervening in politics. These politicians will never speak out the truth, but just fill the heads of their possible voters with many ideas, simple to be grasped and excite the primitive feelings that are well implanted within our animal nature. Religion promises the alternative reality of an after life in which facts will be reversed and the poor and good will be rewarded. It is nice to believe in this alternative reality in which justice is done. Politicians cannot appeal to that since they have to promise rewards within this life. That is impossible and even contradictory with their daily political acts. Hence, a classic is to appeal to tribal indentitary feelings and put the blame on 'others'. These are the principles of the xenophobic politics that are inherent to the extreme right. How else could a political branch whose actions favour the very rich have so many supporters among the poor? Unfortunately these poor are also in many cases badly informed and sometimes very stupid too.
So fiction is very much imprinted in politics. We hear some of the liberals in american politics talk about Democracy and America being a leader in the world. I guess some high profile people belief that. But it is still fiction. Of course, things are much worse in other countries in which people cannot vote or their no independent press or legal system. But that does not mean that the US is a fully-fledged democracy . The way it works, it guarantees that the economic powers controls much of the process and who will be elected and with what program. As Chomsky refers to it, is the 'manufactoring of consent', a method by which the powerful ensure that their privileges are not threatened by the fact that nominally the population determine the politics to be followed through their votes. Much more obvious is the fact that the foreign policy of the United States is more driven by strategic control and dominance than by good-willed ideas of spreading democracy or justice around the world. Just look at facts: it is not about dictators or non-dictators, it is about our dictators or the others. If you negate this reality you are simply badly informed. You are also living in an alternative reality, perhaps not as imaginative as those of Trump supporters but also fictional.
How nice it is to think that your country (or any other identitarian condition) is the best, that it is spreading the good, that the problems that you experience are due to 'others', or that there will be an afterlife in which Justice will prevail. Good for you. I do not even rationally think that eventually, perhaps after I die, Justice and Goodness will drive politics.
