From Biden to Trump: A transition with 10 new features.

By: Ricardo Israel - 23/12/2024

The political system and institutions are the same, but we are witnessing changes that will modify the internal politics of the United States and could have a striking influence on the world, although we are not sure of their depth or how long they will last.

However, there are new developments in the relationship between the outgoing and incoming White House occupants, where a real transfer of power is visible, not just in terms of communication, inside and outside the US, as emissaries are going directly to the president-elect, who has not yet assumed office. In the past, it was usual to wait for the first 100 days to witness surprises and news, but now these have come earlier, and not only because of Syria, but an alliance could very well be building so that as soon as the opportunity arises, Iran receives an ultimatum, presented by a new alliance of Trump with Israel and the Sunni Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia, in itself, a possible update of what was done in the 1990s by ending the atomic programs of several countries that were part of the USSR, such as Ukraine, but also the less advanced projects of South Africa and Argentina.

For decades I have followed the American elections in detail, both for communication analysis and for university teaching. Since I was a visiting researcher at the University of Pittsburgh in 1978-79, where it was already clear that Ronald Reagan would defeat Jimmy Carter in November 1980, giving rise to a new political cycle in the US and also in the world, due to its impact on the disappearance of the former USSR.

Are we witnessing something similar? Is it more? Less? We don't know yet, but we are already witnessing changes that allow us to speak of a transition underway, where I have selected 10 characteristics that I had not seen, at least not in the same form, and where something negative is represented by the number of obstacles that have been installed to make it difficult for the incoming government, what I call the Latin Americanization of American politics, part of a cultural war that came and has not gone away. In fact, is there any precedent in the US of a government making decisions only to make the foreign policy of its successor difficult, as has happened in Ukraine and the Middle East? Was there a precedent for its electoral system a few years ago?

Here are the new developments. I will mention them without going into detail, since the length of a column does not allow it. The order is not indicative of anything, it is only the sequence in which they were manifested in my head, perhaps only the consequence of observation, commentary and teaching, before broad audiences as well as before specialized audiences of professional analysts.

What is happening also shows and demonstrates that the post-election deadlines established by the Constitution made a lot of sense in an agricultural society such as the United States of the 18th century, but are not justified in today's world, since the prominence of Trump, who has not yet been sworn in, convinces that the period between the election and the swearing-in is not only excessively long, but also allows for unnecessary political games and obstacles that contribute to polarization and harm the status of the United States as a power.

In this regard, let's look at what's new.

1) The first characteristic is that Trump is making decisions that have made him the de facto president and Mar-a-Lago the place where this transition is taking place, where dignitaries from other countries and also billionaires, once critics, travel to days that are very reminiscent of the kiss of the rings of the cardinals. This excessive period made sense in times where cooperation predominated, where there was more consensus than disagreement, but it is very damaging in times like the present, since it contributes to polarization and encourages obstacles between those who leave and those who arrive.

2) It also coincides with a second characteristic, where President Biden has had a diminished presence with many significant absences, perhaps a consequence of his known physical and health limitations. Were decisions made by people who were acting on instructions delegated by President Biden himself, but who did not have the appropriate track record?

3) Third, to properly understand what is happening, Donald Trump must be analyzed as the second term of a re-elected president, rather than as a new president. In that sense, his 47th administration, which will be sworn in on January 20, 2025, must be seen as the one that will define not only his legacy, but his place in history. This is why his government undoubtedly appears to be much better organized, even before formally assuming office, than the previous one, where the 45th administration erred in improvisation, which is not evident today or has been corrected.

4) This is how between 2016 and 2020 there were thousands of positions in the federal government that were simply not filled or failed to complete the appointment process. Now, it is evident that these shortcomings were corrected and that one arrives in Washington with a much more accurate and better organized vision of what is desired and expected to be achieved. The above is so true that more than in any other appointment process, the main criterion, sometimes the only one, seems to be loyalty to the president and the MAGA project, a fact that should not be surprising, since all governments try to bring their supporters and reward loyalty, but it is not always achieved, since Democrats and Republicans are more movements than parties, in the sense that they are given in other countries. That is why what we witness is so striking, where the president-elect has not minded taking risks, and has made, as far as possible, the effort to maintain his proposals, often people who come from other environments or backgrounds, but who guarantee that they will not stray from the main objective. In this regard, there is no doubt that this was the result of the behavior of those who wrote books that were highly critical not only of the policies of his previous government, but also of Donald Trump as a person, as is the case of those generals who were Chief of Staff or former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

5) Without a doubt, the above is the reason why some of the candidates most resisted by the opposition and by traditional media, have to do with what they fear could be a settling of scores, due to the accusations and judicial proceedings against Trump, which in number exceeded those that brought Al Capone to court and to jail, a matter of judicialization of politics, which perhaps should not have occurred at that level. That is why some of the most important appointments for Trump have to do with this area and the question is whether or not there will be a settling of scores, and it is the reason why appointments are feared in the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Intelligence Directorate and others like it. Will there be revenge? Or will there be a need to clarify something that should not have happened to prevent it from happening again? Perhaps the exception could be what is witnessed in the Pentagon, where there is a rejection of the influence of what is perceived, with or without reason, as wokism, more than anything else.

6) This transition coincides with a situation where political parties have lost their role as negotiators and carriers of citizen concerns. Particularly striking is the case of the Democratic Party, which has still not recovered from the magnitude of its defeat, being defeated in the general vote as well as in the so-called “swing” states, where the result of the election is usually decided. This is how they lost the White House, the legislative power with the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as having a poor result in governors, municipal governments or the multitude of other positions that are elected alongside the president, and which include sheriffs or some prosecutors, in addition to the results of plebiscites that show a country that has turned towards more conservative positions, not to mention the strong blow represented by the loss of Latino, working class and African-American votes. The result is a confused party at every level, arguing and wondering where it went wrong, as well as questioning the influence of woke, in short, an organization that also wonders if this will mark the end of the dominance over the party machine of the alliance of factions represented by former presidents Clinton and Obama plus Senator Sanders. Will the party once again be an expression of more centrist social-democratic positions? We don't know, but it is certain that it will be a difficult debate, full of disqualifications, one from which the Republicans seem to be coming back. The bottom line is that for some time it will hardly be a strong opposition, unless the very forces that supported President-elect Trump allow them to recover quickly.

7) This is what could happen if the Republican Party fails to discipline itself internally, since, although they are enjoying a political dominance that they have not had in many decades, some of the worst problems for Trump could come from within his own ranks, as has already happened in the past. In fact, Trump prevailed in the 2016 primaries over many rivals, some of whom are now his supporters. This was followed by a strong internal debate and division, as shown by the case of the state of Georgia, where the division between Trumpists and non-Trumpists ended in the loss of both senators, allowing the Democrats to snatch the majority in the Senate in 2019. Subsequently, the disagreements were transferred to the party primaries, almost all of which were won by Trump. Today, the Republicans are performing at their best in decades, but without total unity, and Trump has not yet achieved control without a hitch, as demonstrated by the defeat of his candidate for the leadership of the Senate, as well as the recent internal conflict over support for a budget agreement with the Democrats, without Trump's approval. In other words, the Republicans have not yet demonstrated the unity that the Democrats had in power, and if these internal problems are not resolved, the task of a president who cannot seek reelection may become more complicated today than the Democratic opposition, precisely because they are in the majority in both Chambers, but due to very narrow differences between the deputies.

8) The losers of this last election process also include traditional media, known in the US as “legacy media”, which were generally ardent opponents of Trump, who surpassed them by reaching large audiences thanks to non-traditional media on the internet, influencers, podcasts, and platforms such as X or Tik-Tok, that is, media linked to the pre-information society stage, which proved to be in crisis of audience and credibility. It is a profound change, expressed in the crisis of well-known media such as CNN and MSNBC, now for sale, and in newspapers such as the Washington Post, which has been able to survive the last few years only thanks to the injection of money by Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon. In other words, the support of sectors that were decisive in previous elections, such as monetary contributions and traditional media such as newspapers and television, proved to be of little relevance in the last election. Particularly striking was the case of billionaires, where support for Kamala Harris, as in the media, showed that it did not help her, despite clearly outperforming Trump in those contributions, despite Musk. There is undoubtedly an impact on the way politics is conducted in the country, and the adjustment is just beginning.

9) On the positive side, it is noteworthy that after eight years of total polarization and differentiation, where the choice of an alternative meant the distancing of any possibility of consensus, a striking element has turned out to be that for the purposes of a position on Syria and the fall of the dictatorship of Bashir Al-Assad, everything indicates that for the rare time, there was now dialogue between the White House and Trump's foreign relations teams, and apparently also with Russia, which helps explain the outcome with the dictator living in Moscow.

10) And just as we pay attention to the internal debates between Democrats and Republicans, we should also pay attention to the billionaires' club, where Elon Musk's support for Trump, contrary to what is thought, has been more of an exception than the rule, since the majority of them, especially in the new technologies and the Internet, have been supporting the Democrats. That is why the trip of many of them, such as Zuckerberg and his visit to Trump at his residence in Florida, is striking, saying that the censorship of his person of previous years will not be repeated, representing a strong change in relation to what has been seen, which makes it worth asking if there is some negotiation of great impact on the way, since everything seemed to indicate before the election that there was going to be a collision, since the attitude of these companies made them risk the application of the antitrust law against them, just as the US did in the past with oil and telephone monopolies, which opened the way for smartphones. With so much US dominance in this field, such involvement is essential to beat China in the fight for supremacy in the 21st century. If there is any talk, it would probably be in terms of antitrust enforcement, a possible link to the Musk-Ramaswamy market modernization project, as well as invitation into areas where there is a lot of money but Big Tech does not have a strong presence, such as defense or education.

In other words, perhaps this is a sign that the world may remain unstable, with sudden changes like what just happened in Syria, but that the US is seeking to regain its lost deterrence, starting where it should, by looking in the mirror, asking to end the questioning of its own country by its elite, by regaining the will to remain the main superpower in the 21st century, which also includes timely doubts that not all change is necessarily for the better, as it could be if Syria transforms into the chaos that followed the death of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.

The novelty of the current transition is that, unlike other negotiations in the recent or distant past, negotiations between Ukraine and Russia for a ceasefire are already underway, with a high probability of being prolonged over time, as occurred in 1953 until today with the two Koreas, and where those who do not participate will be seen as not very relevant in the future, which applies not only to Latin America or Africa, but also to Europe, including the French and Germans, who are currently in crisis. However, it is possible that the US will be surprised to find that, except for Crimea, Russia is not so interested in territorial gains as in Ukraine not joining NATO and that they will re-discuss what they say has been pending since the end of the USSR, an agreement with Russia as a successor, since it was also the end of an empire, where the Soviet Union continued the territorial expansion of Tsarism, only under conditions of the Cold War and under Communism.

Where new developments are also on the horizon is in the Middle East, as Iran has lost power, and where many of the changes are made possible by Israel's military victories against Iran itself and also in Gaza and Lebanon, and where as of January 20, the US could be returning to its historical policy of basing its regional presence on convergence and not difference with two of its main allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

From the recent presidential campaign, it can be said that no clear mandate or shared foreign policy proposal emerged from it. However, there was a shared foreign policy proposal at home, with the question of whether there will be a fight for executive orders between the incoming and outgoing presidents, as occurred in 2016 and 2020.

Although he does not refrain from collecting outstanding debts such as the humiliation of the Canadian Trudeau, Trump is demonstrating superior political management than in 2016, but does this mean that he will forget his criticism of the de facto alliance between large technology companies and the FBI to silence alarmist voices, predominantly conservative ones, that the Department of Justice appoints a special prosecutor to investigate the Biden family or continues the detailed investigation into who and how the so-called "Russian plot" was organized?

I don't think Trump will forget it or allow it to be forgotten, since it is something personal. I don't think so, just as I don't think that The Art of the Deal is sufficient in itself for the challenges that the US faces in international politics, since, above all, to understand them properly, the US should start by introducing geopolitics and history. And a lot of it.

And whether at home or abroad, the advice Shakespeare gives in his tragedies remains appropriate. First, Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet advises the young lover to “Go wisely and calmly (for) those who rush, stumble and fall,” while in Hamlet, the royal advisor Polonius instructs his own son Laertes by telling him something that remains valid: “Lend your ear to all, but your voice to few.”

@israelzipper

-Master and PhD in Political Science (University of Essex, England), Bachelor of Law (University of Barcelona), Lawyer (University of Chile), former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».