The normalization
of Donald Trump
Donald Trump
is on a new campaign.
It's to make himself appear sane.
He's saying he's a sober person
with a very good demeanour
and the best temperament.
He's saying it in a very sedate and mild-mannered way,
he's sitting still and trying to look humble.
Sort of.
Since he's spent the last year
running the nastiest campaign in living memory
using racist appeals,
making promises
that he can't keep,
lying to our faces
and claiming he didn't say things
that we heard him say 10 minutes ago,
this is a very good idea.
For him.
Not for us.
We should remember
that he's got a track record
of conning people,
defrauding people,
bullying people,
groping women,
going bankrupt and sticking other people with the bill,
without ever showing shame, regret, or remorse.
So his new campaign to appear sane
is a good idea for him.
Not for us.
Especially since his opponent actually got more votes than he did
and he's going into the presidency with a disapproval rating of 61
percent.
Meaning that more than a few people who voted for him
know he's a bad person.
The media is largely,
bizarrely,
co-operating in this venture.
They see him as, and I am quoting,
"subdued," as the "enormity and gravity" is
sinking in.
They tell us he's changing from campaign mode to governing mode
"dealing with realities",
that "the office is transforming the man",
and "we should root for him to succeed."
Because "if he succeeds, the country succeeds."
They're normalising him.
Is it because he's becoming normal?
No. It's because now he's in power
and when you have a media
that is completely entwined with the elite,
whatever power says and does
well, it must be normal.
Let's keep our eyes, ears
and our minds
clear,
this guy wants to deport
two to three million people.
Right away.
He wants big, huge, tax cuts
in order to be "the greatest jobs president God ever
created".
George W Bush did exactly that a mere 15 years ago
and got a "jobless" recovery,
the biggest crash since 1929
and the Great Recession.
The American military now bases its plans
on the certainty that rising temperatures are making the seas
rise.
That's the Pentagon,
Not the Environmental Protection Agency. Not Greenpeace.
But Trump insists that's a hoax,
that it's Chinese disinformation intended to undermine the
American economy,
so he intends to withdraw, immediately,
from the Paris agreement on climate change.
So he's going to have a new, mild-mannered demeanour?
Maybe get a tweet watcher,
to hold down his thumbs
at three o'clock in the morning.
It's not his tweets you need to fear.
It's his policies
because they are mostly dangerous, bad, and frankly, mad.
If he succeeds, it will be the ultranationalists, racists,
fascists that will succeed
And, of course, as always, the super-rich, the world over...
Marwan
Bishara is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera. Follow him on Facebook.
The
views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily
reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Source: Al Jazeera
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