Trump is the winner of ‘Like’ politics

Let’s get the obvious out of the way nice and early: Trump won, Biden lost. The format worked. The microphones muted at key moments, according to the agreed rules, and the candidates taking turns at the bat — as we like to say in these vulgar, ordinary and much despised “third world” countries that former president Donald Trump talks about with so much disdain and where we love baseball so much that we use it as a metaphor for anything — were effective in, at least, showing a tiny part of the (thoughts? ideas?) of this duo that no one really wanted to see debating, but whose exchange was more urgent than urgency itself. At least, we got a sense of what is buzzing inside the head of each of the two oldest presidential candidates in the history of the youngest American nation in history.

Baseball is the sport that looks at the sky the most, because it is the one that most seeks to make the ball go far, high, to the horizon, and so it is the most effective metaphor to deal with the experience of watching these two men for almost two hours as they attempted to demonstrate to their country and to the world that they are capable of presiding over the nation with the most influence on a global level. Although, in economic terms, innovation and one might even say in military matters, the nation has begun to falter, at least in concrete terms, although not entirely in its capacity to influence the future of world history.

It was evident that this debate belongs to the moment in which it took place: years after the advent of the term post-truth, and with the two least attractive candidates for the mass American electorate in decades. Not because they do not have a voter base and sympathizers, but because they reflect a side of the United States, a mirror in which very few want to look. On the one hand, there is the very tired Joe Biden, who took care to remind us that back in the day he was the second youngest congressman to serve his country and that he was used to being the youngest of the group but who, at his current age of 81 years, is evidencing the typical setbacks of age. And it is not about gerontophobia: every society and culture would be better off valuing the wisdom of its elders; but it is not unreasonable to say that a relatively young democracy requires a level of stamina that the figure of Biden is incapable of providing. He was occasionally erratic, it was difficult for him to complete some sentences, and he closed his eyes like someone searching for an idea or a thought. If the Democratic and undecided voters sought assurances of his cognitive ability to lead the nation, his performance was not particularly convincing.

On the other hand, the public saw a Donald Trump who was almost in his element but who was making a tremendous effort to contain the most outrageous aspects of his rhetoric. It was obvious that he was well aware that he was not at one of his notorious rallies and he knew how to take advantage of his verbal execution. He won. And he won not because we were watching a high-caliber debater. He won because it is very easy to win in the era of Likes, where the content does not matter, only the feeling it provokes. How do I feel when I hear that? It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, what’s important is the sensory aspect. In the post-post-truth era, the urgency to verify facts, to confirm statements, to establish that one or the other is lying, carries little or at least increasingly less weight with the voters who tuned in to what was going on on this stage (and everything is a stage) to feel things, rarely to think things.

Trump is a master of the emotional. His speech is always fueled by absolutes and all-encompassing euphemisms: “Horrible things” are happening. What things? Backed by what statistics? It does not matter. It is enough to mention horror, and everyone will have an image in their head. During the debate Trump insisted that everything he did under his presidency was “the best ever,” “never seen in history.” If you let yourself be carried away by his rhetoric, you would think that no one knows more about the history of the United States than that man. But history easily overthrows each, if not all, of his postulates.

What is happening is that in the era of emotions and Like politics, none of that matters in the feelings of the electorate. And it is fair to insist, people are not stupid. They are reading him correctly—except for his most intense fans—and can discern and confirm that he is a despicable figure in his moral foundations, but useful for breaking and putting an end to the standard bearers of democracy who have failed so many dispossessed people. It hurts to see it, to say it and to write it, but it is useless to insist on explaining a country that is impossible to understand, and understanding Trump is the most urgent issue right now in order to understand the status of American democracy.

The Like is a very powerful tool of the digital revolution (post-digital revolution) that social networks represented. It simplifies the human experience to the utmost: you either like something or you don’t. There are no nuances, there is no room for ambiguity or half-measures. Something deserves a Like or it doesn’t deserve it, and that’s it. Marriages—and much more dramatic human things—have been broken up because of a Like. And when Trump is on stage he uses this simplification of reasoning and emotions. In the post-post-truth era, facts are immaterial, what matters is how what he said makes you feel even if deep down you know—or at least suspect—that it is not true. With the creeds now dead, democracy as we know it will hardly survive. And that is the one takeaway from this debate.

Regarding migration and basically all topics except abortion, the script remained intact. “I did the best things in the world.” “He’s lying, I did them.” “We’re a seriously failing nation.” “We are the best”. “We are the worst.” At times I didn’t know if I was watching a presidential debate that, shamefully, already belongs to the now tainted but once honorable tradition of American presidential debates of the past, or whether I was listening to a reggaeton song. The kind in which roncar, as we call the act of mouthing off, of haranguing, of feeling joy in saying that I am better than you for whatever reason, prevails over any verifiable data or falsehood.

In this narrative record, information, data, the confirmation of the verifiable truth is of no consequence. Politics is based on how I feel when I read what I read, how I feel when I hear what I hear. Democracy is in danger when the blind, fluttering heart rules, which likes what it likes, without the possibility of reasoning. Democracy is in danger if I like more than I understand, demand or claim. American-style democracy is in danger, and ours, or our illusion of democracy, is irremediably endangered. Likes become a trend and it is contagious. Democracy is in danger. It has aged poorly.

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