Don’t feel down

There’s a lot to feel down about these days. USAID being forced to stop its humanitarian programs across the world, Trump suggesting Gaza become a giant resort (with a Trump tower on it to make it feel special), the US discussing peace in Ukraine without Ukraine being involved, billionaire Elon Musk having access to the US federal payment system as well as agencies whose role it is to control how his companies operate, the Argentinian president promoting a shitcoin ponzi scheme (just to make it clear it’s not only the US, although they are the worst)… All in all, great start of the year.

If all of this gets you down, it can only mean one thing: you are not a sociopath, and that’s a good thing. But you shouldn’t, because that’s how they really win…

Promising the world, and then some

Let’s recap the populist masterplan, currently being read by Trump (or some of his minions) after having been perfected by centuries of dictators and demagogues: the first step in seizing control of a population, always, no matter how democratic its institutions are, is by making wild, unrealistic, simplistic yet seductive promises. That will allow you to get your foot in the door, in this case get (re)elected. Again, it doesn’t have to be all that realistic, simply extremely appealing, by providing a blanket solution to a complex problem, especially if the overall situation is dire. When you have rising inflation, questions on the future of work with AI or (lack of) education as a topic, just make it about immigrants. It is largely untrue, overwhelmingly simplistic, but if you say it enough times to people in need, they will start to want to believe it. Until they start believing it period.

Chaos and popcorn

Once you’re inside, then the fun really begins. Because you can’t fulfil your campaign promises — reducing inflation would require more regulations, which you don’t want because you’re here to protect your various business interests, which constitute blatant conflict of interest but no one even cares anymore at this point — you come up with all sorts of diversions aimed at causing fear, chaos and disarray. And the more a population has a democratic culture, the more fear is useful in making it forget about the rule of law long enough to pass whatever the leader has in mind. Say, tax breaks for golf clubs. Random example. Right now, Trump, Musk, Vance and their friends are hard at work fostering as much fear and uncertainty as is possible: upending schooling programs, firing public servants, launching (then stopping) tariff policies that would inevitably bump prices, as well as the few examples we listed up top: mention Ukraine, Gaza and USAID in the same sentence and you got yourself a winner.

Getting the bag

The next step, obviously, is to take advantage of all that mess. While Democrats are reportedly choosing their battles (“not going to swing at every pitch”, as Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries eloquently puts it), Republicans are hard at work pushing tax cuts that are bound to overwhelmingly benefit large corporations and the wealthiest citizens. How surprising. While some of those cuts are outrageous and will not pass, and others against the wealthy are mostly for show (a clause against tax breaks for sports teams owners, which you will find is a pretty specific group of people), enough cuts will come through that Trump and his friends save up billions in the next few years, all the while establishing new businesses with little to no oversight. One of the reasons Musk is said to be so involved in DOGE is that the repeal of federal financial regulations could allow him to turn X into a payment provider without having to go through the hoops typically set for financial institutions. Conspiracy theory? We’ll just have to find out, although I’d say it sounds fairly realistic, given that X was the name of Musk’s second company way back in 1999 — an online bank.

Then what?

Then who cares, says Trump: he knows he might very well only have a few months or years to get what he wants from the presidency. Mid-terms should hopefully clean up the most egregious aspects of this nonsense we’re currently facing, although it will probably take years to properly fix things — if ever. Trump can’t get reelected and will be turning 80 soon: what he wants is to ensure that his empire gets big enough for his kids not be able to f*ck it up. And he might very well get his wish.

But what about the rest of us? Actually, a lot remains to be seen, if not most of it. This presidency will definitely do damage in the US and beyond, that part is already obvious. But it is also not the end of the story: if anything, this chaos will call for change. The real kind, the kind that equates progress. It is a known fact that humanity only truly reacts once something awful has happened. Well, it’s happening. So we need to take stock and get moving.

No time to feel down.