“Turnaround for the ages”

From Trump’s State of the Union address to his declaration of war

On Tuesday 24 Feb Trump delivered his grotesque State of the Union address, declaring:

... we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before and a turnaround for the ages

Four days later, 28th of February, he was at war with Iran, following months of attack preparations. It was a move from attacking the enemy within to attacking a selected enemy without.

Four years earlier Germany’s Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, told us that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had brought about a Zeitenwende — literally, “a turn of the times” or “a turnaround of the times”. As Europeans we can now see in this a European leader warning of the threat from the dictator in the East and an aspiring American dictator in the West. Both of fabricated wars that complement their war against their own people. This is historically what dictators.

Trump’s grotesque State of the Union address can be dismissed as more of MAGA, and has been so dismissed by many commentators — Republican mantras, just Trump being Trump.... But there is a lot more to it than that, and his State of the Union rant is worth a second look.

With his usual egocentric bragging Trump expropriates Scholz’s prophetic phrase and turns it to his own fact-denying ambitions, though one may wonder if he’d ever heard the original phrase or even heard of Chancellor Scholz himself:

... we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before and a turnaround for the ages. It is indeed a turnaround for the ages. And we will never go back to where we were just a very short time ago. We’re not going back today

In Trump’s vamped up State of the Union script, alongside the baseless attacks on domestic political opponents, there were also the threat posed by “alien immigrants” facilitated by the Democrats’ “open borders”, and the perennial “border invasions”. For dictators, creating an external threat to the homeland serves to stimulate fear reactions that are then exploited for their own ends — including the suspension of elections, the rule of law, and the demolition of democratic institutions.

As European outsiders watching Trump’s performance through the lens of European history, what is seen is a tyrant driven by a white-supremacist ideology mixed up with preposterous yet dangerous delusions. Trump’s tone of voice and bodily gestures point to an anger that comes from personal frustration. There is a sense of looming failure there. As Tim Snyder has written, Trump “is failing at fascism”. Snyder’s point is that to be a fascist leader Trump needs a war. This does not mean Trump has abandoned his fascistic aims. It would be rash to believe in TACO. It should have been clear that Trump was already preparing the ground for pursuing an armed conflict with Iran. His behaviour was already consistent with historical patterns of a rising fascist. He had already tried a kind of Anschluss with his failed attempt to annex Greenland. That was not essential, however, and could be postponed. His fall-back strategy was obvious. At this particular political juncture, to survive the upcoming mid-term elections, a foreign war and state of emergency would do the job.

In Trump’s State of the Union address there is a long passage about Iran’s threat to the United State. It begins

:

As President, I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must.

And the passage finishes thus:

But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far to have a nuclear weapon, can’t let that happen. And no nation should ever doubt America’s resolve. We have the most powerful military on earth I rebuilt the military in my first term

In the wider conjunctural conte, these words foreshadow what was to come. They come very close to enacting a threat and a warning of intent. Along with the build-up of US military preparations, it surely would have been perceived as such by Iran’s leaders. This seems obvious — with hindsight but deserved more comment in the media than it received. When it came to Trump’s declaration of war on Iran on 28 February, it brought out the signals implicit in his State of the Union tirade, buttressed by explanation and justification of the intended devastation.

Iran’s leaders are brutal in the extreme but this does not mean that Trump’s war is justifiable or even makes sense militarily. No evidence shows that Iran currently has a nuclear weapon. True, its nuclear development programme, claimed by the Iranians to be purely for civilian purposes, is capable, if it has survived, of being militarized. None of this, however, justifies a self-serving war that will undoubtedly produce regional chaos. Under both the American constitution and international law unilateral declaration of war is illegal, unless there is a clear external threat. Trump’s declaration includes from the start (second sentence) a weakly presented argument to that effect:

Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.

The objective is defence of American people against an “imminent” and “menacing” threat. The United States is “endangered”. That might have been grounds for claiming presidential privilege to declare war. Nonetheless, it is illegal for the President to declare war by executive decision only.

In addition to the act of declaring war, Trump made a portentous call to the Iranian people:

When we are finished, take over your government... No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.

This sounds like confabulation, Trump following some idealised fantasy narrative. It is impossible to tell if he is using an official text or divagating as usual. Whatever the case, the wording is irresponsible. Furthermore, it’s not up to the President of the US to tell the people of Iran what to do in this hectoring tone. It is the right of the Iranian people, with guaranteed security, to decide democratically as soon as that becomes possible.

Following Trump’s call for insurrection would be a course fraught with danger for Iranians. There be a new “Supreme Leader”, chosen by the surviving clerics and well-armed backers still under the spell of religious ideology. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard remains dominant and is already prepared for the martyred Supreme Leader’s successor — immediately after the killing of Khamenei and his top officials a three-person transition council was announced. Trump has given no sign that has any serious strategy for how any civilian uprising would be supported or whether the United States would promote a society based on human rights. That is not surprising given Trump’s disdain for democratic norms. The ensuing disorder would be exploited for political ends favoured by MAGA ideologues.

Trump’s destructive illegal intervention is not going to achieve just peace and security for the Iranian people. It is a shameful cover-up to distract from his domestic political predicament. Its purpose is to prevent his defeat at the midterm elections. There is no doubt also an underlying psychological factor — the need to protect his insecure his ego, a need that central to his pathological personality.

Trump is already seeking to restrict voting procedures, effectively voters’ rights. A Florida lawyer and his associates have drafted an executive order Trump could use to declare a national emergency and suspend the elections on grounds of foreign influence. To claim such executive powers may be constitutional nonsense. The timing and management of elections is the province of Congress. But Trump’s behaviour suggests he has no scruples against ignoring the constitution. We are dealing with a man who is entirely capable of this kind of move. He is pulling out all the stops to block the elections. To Trump’s disordered mind, declaring a national emergency in a time of war will sound lawful and totally justified. Presidents do have constitutional power to declare a national emergency by executive order. Trump is not beyond ignoring the fact that his declaration of war is unconstitutional and declaring a state of emergency regardless. This aspiring dictator could then block the midterm elections that he fears — unless he can be blocked by American democrats.