Watching American politics today feels like attending a grotesque pantomime of democracy—a performance where the machinery of governance has been repurposed as a weapon against the very principles it is supposed to defend. In this second act of the Trump administration, a masterclass in the aestheticization of authoritarianism takes shape, where executive orders replace dialogue, deregulation is presented as liberation, and the suffering of both humans and ecosystems is reframed as collateral damage in the pursuit of “greatness.”
The Theatre of Executive Action
In the Oval Office, Elon Musk smirks as the President signs The Executive Order with the mandate to eliminate ten regulations for every new one. (Note: It was two for every new one during the first Trump administration). In this theatre that operate as both farce and tragedy—there’s a numerical fetishism that reduces governance to spreadsheet cells while ignoring the human factor of societal protection. Susan Sontag could recognise this as the ultimate triumph of camp sensibility over substance: the bureaucratic purge as performance art, where the destruction of environmental safeguards and worker protections is framed as a heroic slaying of “the blob.”
Language, too, has been repurposed as a weapon. On his first day back in office, January 20th, Trump declared a national energy emergency, blaming Biden for what he described as an 'inadequate' energy supply. With slogans like 'Drill, baby, drill' and in line with Project 2025’s demand to 'stop the war on oil and natural gas,' the Trump administration has already undone fossil fuel protections from Alaska to coastal waters. Under the banner of “unleashing American energy,” climate initiatives have been scrapped and dozens of climate-related programs have been revoked.
By erasing climate action, the Trump administration performs a linguistic vanishing act worthy of totalitarian regimes—erasure as both metaphor and material reality. The disappearing Arctic ice, the vanishing species, the evaporating Clean Air Act protections: all become casualties of a regime that treats words as weapons and facts as inconveniences.
Not that this will change anything. Eliminating funding for research, scrubbing environmental websites —or even trying to forbid the word “climate” from the vocabulary—is a futile act. Nature is indifferent to our semantic games. Climate change is an undeniable reality whose effects will be felt by everyone, including in the United States, regardless of any attempt at censorship. Essentially, this administration leaves its citizens blind to the unfolding catastrophes.
The Morality of Myopia
This performance isn’t confined to domestic policy. Trade agreements, tariff schemes, and immigration policies are all reimagined as elements of a grand nationalist drama. For example, the imposition of high tariffs on neighbours like Mexico and Canada is sold as an act of patriotic defence. Yet behind these policies lie significant economic and social costs that are frequently reduced to a simplified, patriotic, and marketable narrative that leaves little room for the messy, inconvenient truths of international relations.
The administration’s approach to Ukraine reveals a similar moral myopia. When Trump declares that Putin “wants to stop fighting”, he engages in a double negation: he denies both Russia’s imperial ambitions and Ukraine’s sovereign right to resist. As for the proposed peace negotiations, they are nothing more than a spectacle of capitulation, where geopolitical realities are airbrushed into a sanitised display of “ending the war”— a phrase that loses its meaning when stripped of justice.
The Paradox of Populist Elitism
Beneath the surface of this spectacle lies a contradiction. The administration’s attack on federal agencies—framed as a rally against “elites”—is, in fact, a consolidation of power within an unelected inner circle. By creating an “anti-bureaucratic bureaucracy,” like the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Trump administration tries to dismantle existing agencies while simultaneously replicating – and often amplifying – the very mechanisms it sees to destroy. Marketed as liberation from red tape, the 10-to-1 regulation introduces a new authoritarian order— where numerical ratios replace reason and accountability is sacrificed on the altar of efficiency.
Witness in the Age of Unknowing
The historian Timothy Snyder wrote on Bluesky a couple of days ago:
“Something is shifting. They are still breaking things and stealing things—and they will keep trying. But the propaganda magic around the oligarchical coup is fading. Nervous Musk, Trump, Vance have all been outclassed in public arguments these last few days. Government failure, a stock market crash, and dictatorial alliances aren’t popular. People are beginning to see that beyond the pursuit of personal wealth and power, there is no truth.”
While I’d like to embrace this optimistic shift, I remain sceptical. Yet, regardless of the uncertainty, Americans must resist despair. Whether you’re a Democrat, an intellectual, or simply a concerned citizen, now it’s the time to confront the grotesqueness normalised by the Trumpian spectacle —where deregulation is equated with freedom, tariffs with patriotism, and peace negotiations with surrender.
In an era when our attention span lasts as much as a TikTok clip and even the government seems determined to keep us disengaged, staying alert and paying attention is a radical act. It means refusing to be blinded when those in power try to turn out the lights.
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