By Anjan Roy
TORONTO: America under Donald Trump has moved, to use a sub-continental simile, towards an alternative reality of a Pakistan and further away from India. The Washington streets might look familiar to any war zone than a western capital of diverse views.
No wonder, that United States is the comfortable corner from where the Pakistani army chief, Asim Munir, could send his rant on an attack on India’s economic assets the next time around. Going by the earlier precedent of Pahalgam, another round of conflagration could just as well ensue and Trump might cajole dictators for his nomination for Nobel Peace Prize machinations.
The US president has militarised the American capital and sent out troops on the streets in a show of force. The president is apparently doing so because of the rising cases of street violence, gun murders, mugging and spreading homelessness who are encamping on the “beautiful parks”.
“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people,” claimed Donald Trump.
There might be some truth in the president’s complaints as any American city and metropolis has its share of deadly crime. But until now, no American president had thought of using the US military in the home land to fight crimes which are ordinarily the duty of the city police.
America’s idiom has become dictatorial since recently. Donald Trump has increasingly become drunk with himself. In trade policy, Trump says he was not happy with some countries, he was displeased with many others, he was hating some. The result would be a presidential executive order imposing tariffs.
In foreign policy, he was “disgusted” with some leaders and he felt someone did not have any cards. Hence, American foreign policy pivoted around the presidential preferences and feelings. Those were perceived to be weak, faced his ire. Those he felt strong enough, he only bared his fangs and quickly retraced, as he did in case of Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin.
He threatened high tariffs against China, and announced these forthwith. He quickly rolled back tariffs, when China reacted with equal measures. He announced severe non-tariff and other measures against China and quickly surrendered when China came out with counter measures including suspending supplies of rare earth minerals and magnets.
He proposed measures against Russia, and failed to make way with threats. Vladimir Putin simply “tapped him along”, as Trump himself admitted. He is now set to meet Putin — a dictator himself— with a similar mind set.
This is not however unprecedented and Donald Trump had done this earlier as well when he had deployed the American troops in other major cities for controlling mob violence and civil protests. He has done this in Los Angeles earlier and he had threatened such actions ever since.
As if for the sake of projection of power and legitimacy, Trump made the announcements with his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, standing behind him in attention and on the other side his attorney general and chief of intelligence, Kash Patel.
The capital streets have burst out into spontaneous protests, warning of the possible emergence of a totalitarian state in the so-called bastion of democracy. America is the second largest democracy, after India, and its drift towards totalitarianism could be a major concern for those upholding democratic values.
Significantly, Trump had initiated this move in the foreground to his meeting with the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska for resolving the three and half year old Ukraine war. It is not out of step that he had mentioned and regretted the scenes of crimes and “dirty” Washington parks dotted with encampments of the homeless while meeting Putin.
The media as well as the political circles are aghast that such a thing could happen in America. The protestors have come out with placards urging “free Washington” as a theme. Senior politicians are worried that if Los Angeles was a “test case” for launching more dictatorial measures within America the Washington take over was a step further in the same direction.
Trump had been pursuing his dictatorial and intolerance acutely since assuming power win the second term. He had even initiated steps against officials of the former Obama regime and threatening even arrests of such former officials. These steps are ominously similar to those pursued in regime before they become full-blown dictatorial states. (IPA Service)
