What really happened in the US? Who is Trump really dependent on?
Transgender strawberries have become a marker of world politics. A man for the ban on abortion, a woman – vs. LGBT -The intelligence officer lost the internal backroom power struggle, having the best starting position. The adherent of artificial insemination became the main global media lobbyist for his opponents. The manwho has been accompanied all his life by scandals with women of difficult fate but easy virtue, is becoming a major icon of conservatives around the world. Sorryfor talking so much about strawberries at the beginning, but otherwise you wouldn’t have read on.
Behind the big victories and big defeats, there are no small defeats and small victories, no matter how important and revealing they may be. People usually just don’t pay attention to them, focusing their eyes and minds on global processes. However, history teaches us that tactics sometimes defeat strategy. Sorry for the boring digression, but otherwise you won’t understand what I’m talking about, and I promise it will be interesting.
So, what happened in the world’s main power. And the United States of America, let me remind you, still remains so. The largest economy (albeit weakened in recent years), the most powerful army (at least in terms of weapons), the most influential culture in the world (Bollywood in India and Nigerian Nollywood still cannot escape the grip of their large, but geographically limited audience), and, perhaps, the strongest faith. Faith in God, faith in yourself, faith in your country, faith in your mission in this world.
A global victory for radical Christianity as an ideology and a global victory for Donald J. Trump as a person. At the same time, it is a painful tactical defeat for radical Christians, to which Trump is indifferent – at least he does not comment on it. At the same time, Trump’s painful tactical defeat is not something that radical Christians are indifferent to, but perhaps they can gloat over it, because they have shown the world’s key politician that he is as dependent on them as they are on him. And probably more.
For the first time, a tactical defeat for radical Christians. The state of Missouri repealed the abortion ban during a referendum on the same day as the election. We must understand that Missouri is the heart of America. The heart of right-wing Redneck America and the heart of America as a whole. The birthplace of the first president, George Washington, the founding father of this political nation. The birthplace of Mark Twain, who for many Americans is something like Taras Shevchenko for us. A state in the middle of the continent that is the only one that borders as many as eight other states at the same time. It was originally a French colony sold to the Americans under the Louisiana Purchase. It was colonized by ethnic Germans, who even now mostly identify themselves as Germans rather than Americans (about 70% of the population). However, these are not Catholic Germans who fled persecution, but Protestant Lutherans who traveled halfway around the world in search of a better life. That is, adventurers by nature. They were mostly farmers, as this region is still agrarian. Missouri is the state where most of the battles of the Civil War took place. As we remember, the North won that war, but the Missouri farmers who stood on the right-wing positions of the South defended themselves so heroically that they were allowed to legally use the slave system for a long time to calm the situation. Missouri is also the birthplace of the extremely influential and popular Christian movement of charismatics. The concept of the Descent of the Holy Spirit and the corresponding energetic worship. By the way, it did not originate in the Pentecostal denomination, as is commonly believed, but first in the Lutheran Church. However, it spread throughout the world thanks to the Pentecostals. Nowadays, many Americans declare themselves Charismatic Catholics or even Orthodox Charismatics, but more on that another time. So, an ultra-Christian Republican state is lifting its abortion ban. To put it mildly, it is strange. Trump is silent. Obviously, it doesn’t hurt him. Moreover, his wife, Melania Trump, who is once again becoming the first lady, said in a recent interview that she is not actually against abortion.
Trump’s tactical defeat. North Carolina. A wealthy state on the Atlantic coast. One of several “swing” states, which is more often “swinging” towards the Democrats. It is also an ultra-Christian state. There is really nothing surprising about this. First, the personality factor. Probably the most influential preacher of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Billy Graham, was born, lived, died, and buried here after an honorable farewell at the Capitol in Washington (the first time in U.S. history that such a ceremony honoring a religious figure was held). He spent virtually all of his time here, except for his tours calling people to dedicate their lives to Jesus Christ, which Graham himself called nothing less than “crusades.” For most of his life until his death, Billy Graham was a member of the Democratic Party. However, he did not support its presidential candidates twice. He supported the Republican Richard Nixon, but even earlier he opposed the candidacy of John F. Kennedy, saying that he was a Catholic and that a Protestant country should have a Protestant as its president. After the victory, Kennedy did not take revenge on the authoritative opinion leader who prevented him from winning, but rather invited him to play golf together. Later, they became friends, Graham admitted his mistake, and for the rest of his life (he lived for 99 years) he was an ardent lobbyist for interfaith dialogue between different denominations of Christians. In other words, he was a fighter against schism.
Returning to the topic of right-wing Christianity and political culture in the United States of America – this is the name of this state in Ukrainian in the pre-Post-Soviet spelling that Iryna Farion hated so much, so I will call it that in her memory. And ZSA sounds almost like the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which is also nice. Initially, it was the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party, that stood on more right-wing positions. The first slogan of the Democratic Party was: slavery is the basis of democracy. However, nothing is permanent in the world, because, according to Anaximander, it dries up and is flooded with water… The Democratic Party of the United States has become completely left-wing only since Barack Obama won the 2008 primaries. So it is not surprising that Graham was a Democrat.
But Billy Graham deserves a separate conversation, so let’s go back to the long-suffering North Carolina. While the last election there was won by Joseph Biden, and this was one of the keys to his victory, this time it is the other way around – a brilliant victory for Trump and the Republicans in the Congressional and Senate elections. However, this is one of the 11 states where gubernatorial elections were held at the same time. And the Republican candidate, Mark Robinson, a longtime Trump ally for whom the new old president campaigned fervently, is losing this election in a landslide.
Why? Radical Christian groups not only in North Carolina, but across America, publicly called on Trump to withdraw his support for Robinson. First of all, because this candidate does not support a complete ban on abortion – he used to, by the way, but changed his position shortly before the election, apparently to please left-wing voters. In addition, on the eve of the national vote, Robinson was involved in a terrible sexual scandal. Strangely enough, in the world’s most powerful country, people are so old-fashioned that they still use forums to communicate with each other. On the most popular forum in North Carolina, the account @mlsoldr (I don’t know what it means, soldier is spelled differently) constantly promoted pornography with transsexuals, including writing that nature is not perfect, and the most beautiful people in the world, according to him, are men who have lost their genitals. All this rhetoric caused a sharp indignation on the part of the clergy and parental committees (everyone understands that it is impossible to restrict children from viewing 18+ content in the modern world). One of the parents noticed that the date of birth in the @mlsoldr account and the years of his service in the army (yes, not everyone in the army is a saint) coincide with the corresponding years in Mark Robinson’s biography, and told journalists about it. And the fact that it was him was actually proven. The gubernatorial candidate claimed that it was a fake, sued CNN, among others, but was unable to prove the opposite… Robinson was also reminded of how ten years ago he himself (!) called himself a “black Nazi” and in an interview this kind black man told how he dreamed of “buying a few white slaves.” And right-wing Americans are mostly white people, after all. Nevertheless, Trump did not disown his old ally. Radical Christians have shown that they are a force to be reckoned with: they demonstratively defeated this candidate, while voting for Republicans in both houses of parliament and for Trump as a presidential candidate in opposition to the leftist agenda of Kamala Harris.
If we look at all these processes more broadly, we should not forget that radical Christians at the stage of the Republican Party primaries were more sympathetic to first Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and then to the former governor of South Carolina (these are neighboring states with the aforementioned North Carolina, in case anyone does not know) Nikki Haley. Partly without hesitation, they made various statements about Trump regarding his adventures with prostitutes, his friendship with gay men who declare it (more on this later), etc. But the situation was such that radical Christians had no other candidate. Either the enemy or a situational friend would win. In the last election of 2020, the Republicans did not have primaries, because according to the political tradition of the United States, primaries are not held if the incumbent president of this party is running for a second term, which was Trump. And the year before last, in 2016, when he was first elected, radical Christians supported Ted Cruz, now re-elected senator from Texas, until he lost the primary and became the second. Ted Cruz is a radical Christian himself, who was later persuaded to support those who dropped out of the primaries, having taken fourth and third place in them – Jeb Bush (the younger brother of the same) and Marco Rubio.
Yes, the same Marco Rubio who will now head the State Department, a key structure in the US hierarchy (even the vice president has less power). And here again, sorry, we are talking about sex. Or rather, about its role in politics. Two days before Trump’s announcement that Rubio would head the State Department, the media, referring to the old president’s entourage, called Richard Grennell, Trump’s longtime and close ally, the head of the National Intelligence Agency during his first presidency, the main contender. But there is a nuance that radical Christians did not like. Grennell is gay. This is not about his personal life (it is not customary to look in bed there), but about the fact that he declares it and often talks about his civilian husband in interviews. And Trump is actually betraying his old comrade-in-arms, because he has the sad experience that he has nowhere to go from radical Christians. He clearly understands that he would not have won without them. He remembers the sad experience of the aforementioned North Carolina. And the parallel process: John Thune became the leader of the Republican majority in the upper house of parliament with the support of ultra-Christian communities, although Trump personally supported another candidate, John Corwin, another old ally.
Therefore, it is now clear that the president of the world’s main power is absolutely dependent on radical Christians and their worldview concept. And this will play a key role not only in American but also in world politics. This is probably a marriage of convenience. However, even such marriages can be surprisingly reliable and last for many years. But we don’t know how it will go further. Everything is God’s will. I forgot about artificial insemination, which is also a toxic topic for many radical Christians. Its ardent adherent and practitioner is the incredibly influential, at least at this stage, Elon Musk, a father of twelve children, one of whose sons recently made a transgender transition. Musk has condemned his son’s behavior, at least in public, because he realizes that without the support of radical Christians, it is no longer possible to be a real power in the GCA.
artist, writer, MP of the VIII convocation, member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (2015-17)
