Trump: Revolution or Simulacrum?
Part 1: The People’s Revolt

2,107 words

Translated by Guillaume Durocher

Part 1 of 3 (Part 2 here)

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States could be an American and global earthquake, something unprecedented. Or a huge flop and an enormous disappointment for the groups that elected him. An analysis in three parts, of which this is the first.

The Victory of Populism

Trump’s election was a global surprise, just like the Brexit referendum. A fanciful New York billionaire, defending the people, the lower middle class[1] of the isolated rural areas and small towns who victoriously voted for him, this is an inexplicable paradox for official political scientists and intellectuals. It is however explainable. The rebellion of native people against the cosmopolitan oligarchy and the politicians, the defeat of “political correctness” caught up in its lies, the declining effectiveness of the propaganda of the dominant ideology (though held only by a minority) — notably thanks to social media — in the face of a stark reality, for example the lived harmfulness of mass immigration, explains in part Donald Trump’s unexpected victory. Is there not a certain similarity with the French situation? The real against ideology.

Ivan Rioufol writes:

The American people sent packing Washington’s mandarins. [. . .] The caste thought it reigned over an anesthetized country. It had the media, show business, the Vatican, the European Union, and all the cloned minds produced by the guilty West. [. . .] Most of the media behaved like the valet of a System which is on its last legs. [. . .] The denial of the challenge posed by the Islamization of France showed the frivolousness of the [French mainstream] parties, united in denouncing “populism.” But now it is victorious in the name of the people against the celebrities.[2] [. . .] Trump, by denouncing political correctness, self-hatred, and the tyranny of minorities, made himself the first enemy of this media world which had embraced the flagellation of the free world and the promotion of Muslim culture. [. . .] Putin in Russia. Trump in the United States: what is emerging goes against academic orthodoxies, is the product of the people’s frustration. The French Right can answer this if it commits to asking the right questions on immigration, Islam, communitarianism, and offshoring. (Le Figaro, 11/11/2016)

The People Against the Celebrities

This expression of Ivan Rioufol is particularly pertinent. This election is part of the same tidal wave as Brexit, the National Front’s breakthrough in France, and the rise of “populist” parties in all Europe. Namely, the revolt of middle and lower class indigenous populations against globalist oligarchies and forced immigration.

Trump has unsurprisingly won a majority of votes among whites, men, the rural areas and small cities, and even among white women; and Hillary Clinton among racial minorities (who are less and less in the minority), Latina and black women, the urban bourgeoisie of the East and West coasts, and college graduates. Political scientists have observed an unheard of electoral shake-up: the Republican Party has become the party of the majority of the white working class and proletariat, which previously voted Democrat. The same electoral sociology as in France where the National Front is the leading workers’ party.

Trump is considered by the political, cultural, intellectual, etc., oligarchies of the entire West — the U.S.A. and Europe — as incarnating Evil, “populism,” the far-Right, the expression of the uneducated, racist, sexist, and Islamophobic petit blancs,[3] They crystallized in him a powerful capital of hatred which was manifested in the vicious attacks of the American cultural sphere. Hollywood in the lead — with the exception of Clint Eastwood, pro-Trump and therefore now hated — but also Silicon Valley. Thousands of paranoid “cultural professionals,”[4] intellectuals, artists, writers (including Stephen King), and show-biz members, declared their plan to live in Canada, not the “Trumpized,” and therefore fascist United States . . .

Pope Francis declared to journalists, just before the election, targeting American Catholics, that Donald Trump “was not Christian,” notably because of his plan to expel millions of illegals. Like Hollywood and the East Coast bourgeoisie, the Vatican demonized the populist billionaire. But these people, charitable, humanitarian, protected in their palaces or their secured domiciles in their quiet neighborhoods, do they experience the anxiety, the insecurity, of this people which is voting wrongly, incorrectly?

Rejection of Politicians, Hostility Towards Silicon Valley

It is the first time in 228 years of American independence that the 45th president of the world’s leading power is coming into office without any political experience. It is not necessarily a disadvantage! Rather, it is part of the reason he was elected: because of the disgusted rejection of the professional political class, exactly as in Europe. And, to implement good policies, it is not necessary to be a professional politician: well-advised, brave, hard-working, and determined non-politicians can be much more effective than “experienced” dinosaurs.

Hillary Clinton, the establishment’s arrogant candidate, has suffered a superlative slap in the face — as have the Obamas who supported her emphatically and aggressively during the campaign. The elite underestimated the people’s hatred towards her. Hillary Clinton had eight times the means as Trump, in terms of financing and campaign staff. And she lost! Here again, all the predictions were shown up, despite the insistence of 95 percent of the media on the impossibility of Brexit and of Trump’s victory.

Hillary Clinton raised 15 million dollars in Silicon Valley. Trump $706,000. He rightly wants to regulate digital issues, especially the Internet — of which he wants to shut down entire segments — which has become an anarchic network hosting countless delinquent or criminal websites. According to the Silicon Valley gurus, who published an anti-Trump open letter signed by 150 personalities, it would be “a disaster for tech and innovation.” They also panicked over Trump’s anti-immigrationism, recalling that the sector of the new digital economy is 40 percent reliant on foreign immigrant creators. A specious argument: it is not these people, these foreign white-collar workers, who are not very numerous and are very often European, whom Trump was to forbid entry or to expel!

Trump and the French Right

After having held Trump in contempt and preferred Madame Clinton, the professional fraud and opportunist Sarkozy, since the election of the billionaire, as rejoiced at “his victory over the pensée unique”[5] and dreams of being a surprise little French Trump . . . He is trying to benefit from the “Trump effect” to defeat Juppé whom he presented — correctly, incidentally — as a soft centrist who had supported Hillary Clinton.

Marine Le Pen, for her part, seeing Trump’s election as a prelude of her own, an additional proof of the popular dynamic against globalist elites, as “the end of a world,” asked Ludovic de Danne, her advisor on European affairs, to transmit her congratulations directly to the future president. For now, Marine Le Pen’s electoral credibility is strengthened by this seismic event. However, on illegal immigration, Marine Le Pen’s plans are distinctly less audacious than Trump’s: she does not propose a massive expulsion — though legal — of illegals. On the whole, her program is very moderate compared to that of the new American president.

She has welcomed his desire to have a rapprochement with Russia, his rejection of warlike interventions in the name of morality, and his will to stop the migratory waves. She sees in the Trump effect a similarity with her slogan: “for the people and in the name of the people.” For her, Trump’s election is the proof that the glass ceiling maintained by an arrogant oligarchy can be broken by the mobilization and revolt of the people. Yes but . . . will Trump set an example? If he disappoints, this “Trump effect” will turn against all his supporters in Europe.

Trump and European Governments

The French government and the Left are devastated by this “worst-case scenario.” Trump makes Hollande “sick to his stomach.” It has to be said the French president does not, by issuing this irresponsible insult, put French diplomacy in danger in the face of the world’s leading power, because he is internationally discredited (a vain, incompetent, and ridiculous little Narcissus, who reveals state secrets) and will enter the ash heap of history in May 2017. Valls, an incorrigible demagogue, says he “understands” those who voted for Trump, all the while condemning the latter. He is trying to build a future voting base. One can always dream.

Elected against all the polls and denying the waking dreams of virtually all Europe leaders, Trump the devil (or, rather, the demonized), when he moves into the Oval Office, will ask questions: the European governments (especially the French, German, and Polish) will look around nervously and bite their nails, having almost insulted him during his campaign, because they did not believe one second in his chances. If I were in Trump’s shoes, I would refuse all diplomatic contact with France, any negotiation so long as François Hollande, unworthy and irresponsible, has not been replaced by another head of State.

The Trump Election’s Influence on European Populisms

In any case, with the unexpected, supposedly impossible election of Donald Trump, America is, once more, setting the tune. It shows the way to be followed to the Europeans, it unshames[6] them and influences them in many other areas. For better or for worse. The American election strengthens — so much the better — populism in Europe and the movement of revolt against the contemptuous, immigrationist, and multiculturalist elites. This election will reinforce the rage of anti-system European voters, four months after the unexpected “no” of the British against the EU. We have noted the enthusiastic support of Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders (Dutch PVV), Beatrix von Storch (German AfD), Beppe Grillo (Italian Five Stars), and Heinz-Christian Strache (Austrian FPÖ) for Trump’s victory. The latter can push all these populist organizations even higher and break the System’s glass ceiling.

But watch out: in Europe elections will take place after Trump moves into the White House. There will be a great shock of disappointment if he does not keep his promises, which would deprive the popular vote to the forces which support him in Europe. As there is an imitative fascination for all that is American, the populist swing in the U.S.A. can only reverberate in Europe. Donald Trump’s election can have an encouraging effect on the populist electorate in Europe but also a depressing one if Trump renounces his program or fails.

The System Admits to Only a Temporary Setback

After Brexit and Trump’s election, the System will do everything to neutralize one and the other. But one must say that Trump, by the excesses of his campaign, has provided the rods with which to beat him and caused many to detest his program. No one said he would win two weeks before the election. He would have achieved an even better result without his gaffes and his buffoonery. Incidentally, that he was elected despite the latter says a great deal about the people’s exasperation towards the System. Even the middle class female white voters of the Midwest forgave him for his particularly vulgar statements, of a macho and sexist seducer.

Hillary Clinton embodied the System to the point of caricature: a representative of the immigrationist bourgeoisie, of pontificating imperialism, an arrogant promoter of politically correct dogmas (antiracism, gender theory, positive discrimination, antipopulism, multiculturalism, hostility towards the deep America of the “petits Blancs”), the politician considered her defeat as an affront, an injustice, a scandal. So much so that (as in the case of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s qualification in the first round of the presidential election in 2002) we have wave after wave of demonstrations of “democrats” claiming that Trump is illegitimate and protesting against his election. It is to be expected, as soon as Trump takes office, that the electorally defeated System will try to teach him that they are always the masters and that he must retreat.

The Whites’ Swan Song?

Trump’s election can be interpreted as the swan song of lower and middle class whites who — as in Western Europe — are declining in numbers, due to lack of births and to the continuous immigration of more fertile non-whites. If the trends continue, whites, descendants of the Europeans who created the United States, will become a minority before the middle of this century. This election can unfortunately be a “reaction” with no follow-up actions. It would be catastrophic.

This is why this is perhaps the last-chance election. Donald Trump’s responsibility in enormous: he must now not only expel millions of illegals (whom Hillary Clinton would have obviously amnestied) but ban all immigration, except for a minority of foreigners of a high scientific and technological level. Common sense.

Notes

1. In English in the original.

2. “People” in English in the original, which the French use to refer to vapid celebrity culture.

3. “Small white.”

4. “Cultureux,” a pejorative.

5. “There is no alternative” type thinking, whether concerning neoliberalism or multiculturalism.

6. “Les décomplexe.”