By Raúl Capote Fernández on March 10, 2024, from Havana
They say it was the Spanish poet, novelist and philosopher, Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana, who coined the phrase: “The people who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it”; a maxim that seems to acquire an astonishing topicality these days in the USA.
For all practical purposes Donald Trump has just become the Republican Party’s candidate to challenge Joe Biden’s seat in the Oval Room of the White House in the next presidential election.
The “erasure of memory” seems to have worked very effectively in the land of Uncle Sam. Barely four years later, many people have forgotten the exploits of the man who set a record in falsehoods and manipulations during his administration.
One of the most serious was undoubtedly the claim that the COVID-19 virus was “totally under control”. One year after the crisis, more than 386,000 Americans had died of the pandemic, a figure that eventually reached a chilling death toll of more than one million.
Let us mention his “effective remedies” against the coronavirus, including injecting “disinfectant” into patients to “clear the lungs”.
In that line of conduct, in the style of the peddlers of the Wild West, he promised during his last campaign that, if elected, he would cure many diseases, including cancer and AIDS, and send American astronauts to Mars.
But perhaps the most dangerous of his lies was to assure himself the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
According to Noam Chomsky, Trump is a skilled politician, a demagogue who has been able to connect with the “legitimate fears” of a part of American society.
The Yankee reality show sells the image of a successful ruler, who achieved extraordinary successes, when in reality his administration was characterized by the failure of many of his projections.
In foreign policy, he distinguished himself for his erroneous evaluations of the Venezuelan reality, his war rhetoric against Iran, his threats against Mexico, his senseless economic war against China, and the intensification of his aggressive policy against Cuba.
As if that were not enough, he promoted anti-immigrant policies, racism, xenophobia and sexism like no one else in decades in the US.
Unfortunately, few remember the bunkers built for the rich to survive the AIDS-19 pandemic, while hospitals collapsed and the poor were “preserved” in refrigerated trucks, waiting for a place to be buried.
It is very simple to understand: the great actor plays his role in the great show, while, behind the scenes, the “owners of the world” manage the plot.
Thus, in absolute agreement, the big traditional and digital media, the social networks and the entertainment industry hide reality from the people, with the well-oiled machinery of the “Ministry of Truth”.
Source: Granma, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English