Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks Saturday, May 7, 2016, in Lynden, Wash. Elaine Thompson / Press Association. All rights reserved.No military coup has taken place in recent weeks. No elected prime minister has been beheaded. No nation has suspended its constitution. And yet a debate rages on the dangers facing the democratic order. The irresistible rise of one Donald Trump in US politics has made a commentator call the ongoing presidential election campaign, “dystopian”.
It is not the Chinese or Russian journals that are out to malign American democracy. The mainstream American media is full of damning opinion pieces. Take just two latest headlines. America Has Never Been So Ripe for Tyranny. Donald Trump and the Authoritarian Temptation.
What did Trump do? He gathered incredible support in his race for the Republican nomination by fuelling popular passion against liberal values. He demonised the Mexicans and Muslims and projected himself as a leader who could ignore laws and wield unrestricted power to propel America towards its manifest destiny – a process, according to him, subverted by the “liberal elite”. This billionaire businessman promises to undo the damage done by the previous occupants of the White House!
