Tomorrow looks nothing like tomorrow

Why is he so hard to look at? It’s almost a philosophical question.

Some say he’s a Russian agent or that he has been cultivated by Russian spies; others consider him a puppet that presents himself as a nationalist, a protectionist, a techno-libertarian, a xenophobe, etc., depending on who is pulling the strings; there are also others who see him as a business man in the wrong place at the wrong time, someone with a merely transactional view of life and politics; many consider him a psychologically unstable, intellectually weak and dangerously megalomaniacal individual; others portray him as a pathological narcissist, a two-dimensional character formed in front of a tv set, someone to whom reality never goes beyond the mirror. No doubt that Trump is some of these things; maybe he is all of them. But he’s also a symptom of our time’s disease. And that painful fact makes him so hard to look at.

Of course that doesn’t excuse him, not a bit, nor does it exonerate his followers from their responsibilities. But it should make us all think — so that we find ways of fighting and overcoming what he represents.

The truth is that Trump would not exist on the political sphere without social media and click-hungered algorithms (driven by a blind pursuit of profit that uses people’s lives as a mere vehicle for selling ads). He wouldn’t be possible in a world where a minimum of facts was accepted by all.

If we hadn’t let ourselves get locked to our smart screens, letting our communities crumble; if, entertained by the magic of never-ending communication, distracted by the illusion of always being connected to someone somewhere, we hadn’t let ourselves go, only to end up in this totalitarian present — where there’s no space for memory and knowledge, imagination and hope —, Trump wouldn’t be.

(When I write “Trump”, it goes without saying, I don’t mean the actual seventy-eight-years-old man, who was once a baby in a cradle. That one deserves only our compassion, I guess. When I write “Trump”, I mean the public figure, the political character and what it stands for.)

In “Monotony”, the Greek poet Cavafy says:

One monotonous day follows another

monotonous day, without change. The same

things happen, then happen again.

The same moments approach, then grow distant. 

A month passes and brings another month.

Anyone can guess what’s coming after:

all the tedious events from the day before,

until tomorrow looks nothing like tomorrow.

                                          (translation by Avi Sharon)

Our time is sick and trumpism is its political symptom. Theoretical image: a figure, whose skin is made of the sleek, well-designed material of smartphones, is wandering through the white corridors of its universe, thinking of itself as beautiful and sophisticated, when, suddenly, finds someone. A person who got lost and ended up there. The proverbial common person. They look at each other for a moment, not saying a word. But, reflected in this person’s human eyes, the figure sees itself in its entirety for the first time and realizes that, under its screen-skin, it is no more than a grotesque being, an apprentice dictator who risks deflating if it doesn’t get a compliment ever so often.

In his essay “On Tyranny”, Joseph Brodsky — the poet who escaped from the USSR to the USA — says that the tyrant wants to get to the top of something and, finding “its physical reality, skyscrapers and mountains, fully occupied”, joins a party, taking advantage of its “vertical topography”. These words written in 1980 may help us see the present moment a little more clearly. Actually, this is what’s happening in the US. First, Trump built a skyscraper, then he took advantage of the seemingly infinite “vertical topography” of social media posts that are scrolled and scrolled down into the void — and now, here he goes, towards tyranny.

Finding the way to oppose this (and it’s not only Trump, similar phenomena are showing up in other places) will take an effort of resistance and boldness. On one hand, to reactivate our memory, looking into the past, establishing connections that can illuminate today’s issues, searching for historical figures that may guide us. On the other hand, to exercise our imagination, opening up horizons, rebuilding roads into the future, mending the flags of hope.

We’re at that point where, as Cavafy wrote, “tomorrow looks nothing like tomorrow”. So we must reinvent it. That means, for starters, turning our social media off a lot more, putting our phones in flight mode a lot more and rising to the surface, coming back to life.