94Ha Viewpoint
The United States has always been a “two-faced” country, with one side moving forward towards the ideal of progressivism and the other side looking back to the reality of conservatism. In the intersection of ideals and reality, the political game of the United States has always been “America against America” since its founding. The more confused the United States is, the more prominent this self-struggle game pattern becomes.
Under the leadership of Republican candidate Trump, the conservative wave swept across the United States. Except for the deep blue vote bank of the Democratic Party, the whole United States presented a situation of “the whole country is red”. As a country that pursues the separation of powers and checks and balances, this kind of comprehensive swing to conservatism is still rare. To a certain extent, it is similar to the New Deal coalition formed by Roosevelt in the 1930s, which was composed of northern urban workers (including blacks), Midwestern farmers and poor white people in the South, and opened the 50-year progressive era in the United States.
How similar history is! The current United States has also seen the America First Alliance under Trump’s leadership to a certain extent, and it is likely to usher in a long conservative era. In fact, perhaps the rise of conservatism in the United States is fundamentally a reaction to the New Deal coalition and progressive thought of the year. American conservatism has been accumulating energy since the late 1970s, through Reagan’s conservatism, Bush’s neoconservatism, and Trump’s alternative conservatism. From the trickles of the ideological world, it eventually converged into a majestic energy covering the entire United States, which is likely to drive a profound conservative revolution in the United States.
Overthrow the “deep government” in power
At present, many media are speculating where Trump will fire the first shot after he is sworn in. Many speculations are local issues, not what Trump wants to do most in his heart.
Trump is a president who won the support of voters to enter the White House and was driven out of the White House by votes. He must have experienced deep pain and has a lot of bloody lessons to summarize. As an outsider in the power game circle of Washington, Trump’s biggest opponent in his first term was not other major powers or the Democratic Party, but the “deep government” swamp from Washington, DC.
In the power game ecology within the DC ring, the biggest threat to him comes from the politicians pushed to him by the Republican establishment and the administrative bureaucrats entrenched in various departments. Whether it was the highly lethal “Russiagate” or the very secretive personal life involved, Trump’s four years in power almost made him fall to the point of “serving jail for life”. The 34 felony charges he eventually faced are probably directly related to the deep government in his eyes.
Now that he has made a comeback, the most terrified people are probably the people in power who once took advantage of him. The first fire Trump fired after taking the oath of office will be those who participated in persecuting him and their institutions, especially the Ministry of Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other administrative departments, and may even affect politicians in both houses of Congress.
The results of the 2024 US election will create an “imperial president”. He may mobilize all power resources and lead a group of political outsiders such as Musk to launch a power war against the deep government.
From the war of power to the cultural revolution
If Trump’s action to clear out the deep government in Washington is just to win power, his more important goal is to launch a “cultural revolution” to change the United States, and to condense the “Trump Party” integrated in the election into a “Trump New Deal Alliance” with ideas, programs, organization and energy, and become a political force that will influence the political situation in the United States for a long time.
Obviously, the Republican Party has been reborn in this election, and the former establishment leaders have disappeared. The old men such as McConnell, who have deep roots in the Senate and whose students and friends are all over the government and the opposition, have disappeared; the leaders who have long been in the Republican Party can’t keep up with the pace of Trump’s followers in the digital age; Vance and Musk and other fresh faces have emerged, first triggering a revolution in the Republican ecology. All these changes show that Trump will definitely start a new business, relying on the president’s super nomination power to recruit followers who have made great contributions in the election. The “Cultural Revolution” in the United States will first start from the Republican Party.
The “Cultural Revolution” promoted by Trump will inevitably face resistance from the Democratic and Republican establishment. These people will use the US Constitution and constitutional system to compete with Trump’s New Deal coalition, which will not only release energy in the form of “House of Cards”, but also drive supporters of both sides into the hall of cultural debate, onto the streets of momentum confrontation, and even permeate all areas of American society. Accompanied by Trump’s “Agenda 47”, each agenda will stir up ripples in the United States, and even stir up a storm-like uproar.
“America against America”
Faced with the upcoming American cultural revolution, only by understanding the American political code and making correct judgments can we ensure safety in this storm.
The United States has always been a “two-faced god” country, with one head forward towards the ideal of progressivism and the other head backwards attached to the reality of conservatism. In the intersection of ideals and reality, the political game of the United States has always been “America against America” since its founding. The more confused the United States is, the more prominent this self-struggle game pattern becomes.
Judging from the history of the rapid development of progressivism under Roosevelt’s New Deal, the conservative wave that Trump may launch will roughly follow the same logic. In the short term, whether in domestic affairs or in foreign affairs, people will witness an arrogant America full of conservative tones.
Whether it is the Democrats inside or the globalists outside, it is probably difficult to tame this monster of American conservatism. However, in the long run, wherever the positive power of the United States is found, the negative power of the United States will inevitably appear. A conservative America will automatically call out a progressive America, and the game of “America against America” will continue.
Facing the United States, which is in the dual vortex of power war and cultural revolution, the best way for other countries and people is to let the United States be quiet for a while. The current United States is like falling into menopause, and all rational dialogues cannot control the release of irrational emotions.
Faced with this situation, the people of the world may not be able to afford to provoke, but they can still hide. However, the world has principles and bottom lines. The United States can make whatever trouble it wants at home, but it must set up guardrails and clarify bottom lines internationally, and cannot give up the struggle when necessary. This is also something that must be highly vigilant.
(The author is a professor at the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University)
