FWD: Amanda Sokolnicki: The identity crisis after Trump is enormous – what is even American anymore?
Cornelius Hamelberg
Editorial
Amanda Sokolnicki: The identity crisis after Trump is enormous – what is even American anymore?
The emperor is trudging around, orange and naked
Updated 09:35 Published 05:08
The lies themselves are not the worst thing, writes Amanda Sokolnicki. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/AFP
The scariest thing about personality cults isn't that there are men who see themselves as human gods. It's the environment – those who let the emperor strut around there, orange and naked.
This is a text published on the editorial pages of Dagens Nyheter. The editorial board's political stance is independent liberal.
Text
Save
Share
Newsletter
Wolodarski recommends
Subscribe
He was getting old, and his radical reforms had already been put into effect—with devastating results. CIA intelligence reports sent to the American president included words like “senile” and “out of the picture.” Rumors had it that Mao Zedong was ill, perhaps even dead.
But that turned out to be wrong: in the years that followed, he would torture, mutilate, and murder millions of people in his Cultural Revolution. And to prove that the rumors were not true, the chairman of the Communist Party wanted to demonstrate his power.
In 1966, he therefore swam across China's largest river, surrounded by red flags.
The result was later announced in the state media: 15 kilometers in 65 minutes. The 72-year-old had broken a world record! It was also the starting point for Mao's second revolution, where the personality cult around him was forcibly hammered into the people, the buildings and the land.
In the United States, people had a good laugh at the pathetic lie.
American outspokenness has been replaced by a subservience previously mostly seen around pop stars, in cults – and hardline dictatorships.
The other day, Donald Trump sat in front of a press briefing at the White House when he was asked how he was doing. He said he had taken cognitive and physical tests: “I got the highest score, and one of the doctors said, ‘Sir, I’ve never seen anyone get that… that was the highest score.’”
World record.
And not just in the medical records. No one has ever loved the Bible more. No one knows more about infrastructure, taxes, drones, uranium – or trade. Trump is “a very stable genius .” And his penis is a good size. Yes, these are all his own words.
Even the size of his audience has proven to be a sensitive issue: even when there have been no spectators present, he has described how overwhelmed they have been by his words.
As we in Europe now grope to find a new role after the capitulation of the United States, we are also close to the total identity crisis that many Americans must experience. Because it is not just democracy that is currently under attack, it is the country's very identity. There is no "again" in "Make America great again". The United States is on the verge of becoming something it has never been before.
And it's not primarily the vulgar blabbering that makes Trump's America feel so unfamiliar. But the reactions of those around him to the lies and madness – they are completely alien to what America used to be.
That so many people let the emperor walk around, orange and naked.
The outspokenness that Americans are often associated with has been replaced by a subservience previously seen mostly around pop stars, in cults – and hardline dictatorships. And his surroundings? They are downright servile. North Korean.
The administration plans to celebrate Trump's birthday with a military parade in the capital.
What's next? Should the Fox news anchors start crying in sympathy for their president?
Because it's not far off now: In clips from government meetings, you can see the word going around the table, and minister after minister thanking Trump for his magnificent work. His fantastic, incomparable, brilliant efforts.
The administration plans to celebrate Trump's next birthday with a military parade in the capital. Republicans in Congress are pushing back, saying the day should be made a holiday. And on the lapels of government officials, the American flag has now been replaced with a large gold brooch depicting Trump's face.
Flatteringly depicted, of course. Because recently, panic erupted when Trump discovered that on a wall in Colorado there was a portrait of him that he did not like . The Republicans, who paid for the six-year-old oil painting themselves, quickly and regretfully took it down.
Terrible that an artist who has depicted Barack Obama so beautifully could do something so grotesque, the president thought.
When he is criticized for going straight to a golf course for a weekend after dropping the tariff bomb on the world economy, his party colleagues say that no president has ever worked so hard. What courage the president is showing in tariff policy, says his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
And when the stock markets subsequently crash and the president is forced to reverse course, the minister explains that everything is happening according to Trump's grand plan.
Even when it turns out that the president deported an innocent father of a young child to El Salvador, they would rather compare the father to Osama bin Laden and call him a terrorist, than admit that Trump has made a mistake.
What the great leader says is right. If he says he swims the fastest, it is true.
Read more:
Amanda Sokolnicki: Anders Borg misjudged Donald Trump – now the billionaires are in shock
DN's editorial team: The world is bigger than Trump's USA - the EU must take the chance
Topics in the articleFollow
Text
Share
Correct
Related articlesLeader: The world is bigger than Trump's USA – the EU must take the chance
Amanda Sokolnicki: Anders Borg misjudged Donald Trump – now the billionaires are in shock
Editorial: The controversy over the grotesque portrait gives the true picture of Donald Trump
