Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Donald Trump declared that under his presidency if Vladimir Putin attacks a NATO member country that has not paid its dues in full, the United States would not respond in defense of the European pact. In essence, the Republican’s presidency would tolerate and allow any action by the Russians on European territory if a country does not have its “dues up to date”. He thus negated NATO’s sacred pledge that all will defend any member country suffering external aggression.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg responded that Trump’s statement puts the strategic security of Europe and the United States at grave risk. In essence, Trump’s statement puts the world in a pre-world war position.
A few days earlier, a U.S. journalist allied with the Republican, Tucker Carlson, interviewed Putin in an exclusive where the Russian leader suggested that it would be convenient that Trump wins the U.S. presidency again. It was an interview where the Russian lied about the reasons why he started the war against Ukraine and made allegations about Europe’s expansionist pretensions over “the central European plain” that Putin claims is an extension of the Russian empire. He showed that Putin is not a leader to be trusted by constructing a historical narrative that seeks to create a reinterpretation of the history of World War II based on what we now call “other data.”
More to the point, Trump’s position is a clear expression of rejection of the West’s continued military, strategic, and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine in its war of resistance against the Russian invasion of its territory. It is nothing new for Trump to side with an authoritarian leader with dictatorial tendencies. But he had not expressed it so clearly before.
With this statement, Trump sides with leaders who despise democracy, freedoms, and the values of societies based on tolerance of differences of opinion and sexual, racial, and religious diversity. The Republican’s admiration for the Russian is a clear sign that the democratic world is at a crossroads with severe consequences. It is a time of definitions about the course of global society for the next 100 years.
The dilemma between tolerant and intolerant societies lies at the heart of the crossroads. The authoritarian temptation is accompanied by a behavior of denunciation by leaders who denounce the fragilities of democratic processes, pointing them out as failed from the root. Their offer is simple: they offer simple solutions to complex problems. It is a wonderful option until it is discovered that the trick is to eliminate any dissent, criticism, or option that differs from the leader’s plan. In other words, you build a society without tolerance for differences and where uniformity is the rule.
Trump and Putin summon us to live in societies with a high level of vileness. They accompany this offer with very high degrees of social violence, whether in the form of internal persecution of dissidents or as the impulse for military adventures beyond their borders. Physical, verbal, and intellectual violence promised to be installed in the societies promised by both rulers. That is why they understand each other so well. They speak the same language, that of the authority that imposes itself with blood and fire on its own and then on others.
Trump promises to establish a violent, aggressive United States without the rule of law and with an imperial imperative against its own. An America that will engage in aggression against its own and others until it rules and dominates with no opposition, no dissent, no books, no intelligence except to dominate.
That offer can win the elections in November. In June, in Mexico, the option capable of intelligently subtracting Mexico from that same authoritarian dynamic and complementary to Trumpism in its most radical expressions must win.
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