A woman holds a "facts matter" sign during a demonstration against President Trump's immigration ban at Portland International Airport in Portland Ore., on January 29, 2017. Alex Milan Tracy SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.
People in the world beyond the US who live in authoritarian regimes – from the Middle East to Asia, Africa and South America are scratching their head is disbelief. A list of features of the US presidential campaign and the first days of Donald Trump’s presidency remind them of presidential or general election campaigns at home. Suggestions that the intelligence service is involved in the smearing one of the candidates, talk of foreign interference in the election, let alone conspiracy sound familiar in many Middle East countries but also in Turkey, Eastern Europe and Asia. The new president’s utter contempt for the traditional media is a familiar situation but less noticed is the talk of rural voting against urban bastions. Foreign correspondents resorted to the puzzled look they often have when reporting the Arab world, betraying their contempt for the ordinary people they were interviewing as would have been familiar to those who watch many Western channels coverage of the Middle East.
Sectarianism and tribe are new words being used to cover US elections although their reality has been there for anybody who wanted to see for some time. The bulk of the Western media seems to be discovering small town and rural America with the same bewilderment they discovered that a few hundred miles from the Tunisian coast and its hotels beloved of tourists areas of great poverty were there for all to see. When the deep state is evoked in the US, that hardly surprises seasoned observers. The existence of the deep state is a reality in the US and in most other major nations, be they democratic or not.
