By Raúl Antonio Capote, on April 21, 2020
“Free Minnesota!”, “Free Michigan!”, “Free Virginia!”, these unusual tweets, launched on Friday to the digital network, were not written by members of extreme right-wing groups, many of them armed, who were demonstrating in the streets of these and other American cities against the social isolation orders to combat the spread of covid-19 in the country most affected by the pandemic. They were written by President Donald Trump himself.
The support expressed by the president to the white supremacist and anti-government groups, was not limited to this “call”, he also called for the protection of the constitutional right to bear arms, a right that, according to him, “is under siege”. On March 30 Trump ordered that gun stores be allowed to stay open during the isolation period because he considers them “essential businesses” just like food stores and pharmacies.
According to CNN, in Oklahoma a state co-chairman of the 2016 Trump campaign selfishly declared, “We are not New York. Their problems are not our problems.”
The media machine, the bots, the pages and digital network accounts of far-right celebrities, have been spreading huge amounts of false news, xenophobia and conspiracy theories about the virus.
Donald Trump has been actively retweeting and sharing false information about covid-19, mocking, in his peculiar style, politicians, scientists and medical health figures in his country and the world.
Beyond his electoral strategy of presenting himself as an “opponent” of the establishment before his base, the position of the occupant of the White House is extremely dangerous in a society where discontent is polarizing and growing in the face of the collapse of the American dream and the supposed world hegemonic predestination. The pandemic has exposed their deep weaknesses that already existed while emerging powers like Russia and China, are maintaining multilateral positions of international cooperation and solidarity, contrary to unilateralism made in USA.
What does all this lead to? We will see but we could be in the process of building a “common sense” of the US extreme.
Source: Granma, translation, Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau