In a typical Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and any allergies, the human body’s immune system mounts unnecessary attacks on the skin, joints, and different body parts.
Now, this is exactly what is happening within the U.S.’s governmental bodies and media.
Since and during the presidential elections in 2016, the U.S. media’s hegemony widely adopted Ms. Clinton, while only 20 media portals adopted Mr. Trump. Each one of the two teams was viciously attacking the other candidate and his media. That scale of attacks did not happen through the history of U.S. before!
CNN has strongly criticized Fox News’ credibility, and spotlighted all possible problems of Fox News’ employees. They highlighted multiple issues as Mr. Trump’s preference and promotion of Fox News, settlement of sexual harassment allegations against Fox News’ employees, employees leaving the channel, Obama did not like Fox News, Fox News’ reporting mistakes, employees of Fox News criticizing each other, etc. Other well-known democratic-leaning news outlets like The New York Post, The New York Times, ABC, NBC News, and CBS followed the same lead.
Fox News responded quickly by siding along with Mr. Trump against his media foes since and after his election. Several news and issues concerning CNN was stressed: Sanders’ joke about CNN’s fake news, Nancy Sinatra’s critique of CNN, and Mr. Trump silencing CNN’s reporter by mentioning that CNN is “very fake news,” for reporting of Trump’s unverified intelligence dossier.
As another political RA symptom, Mr. Trump launched overwhelming attacks, against other governmental bodies of the U.S., questioning mainly the information leaks. His accusations included CIA as a source of the same unverified intelligence dossier that claimed information about Russia-Trump business relations, in addition to a compromising video in Russia. FBI was another target of Mr. Trump. He accused the FBI of their inability to stop insiders and leakers within the FBI itself. That accusation was pertaining to the White House’s request of the FBI to debunk an article that discussed the Russian relations of Mr. Trump‘s aides. The request was refused by the FBI citing going investigations. furthermore, the request was leaked to Mr. Trump’s archenemy: CNN, and hence came Mr. Trump’s reprimand of the FBI.
Before that, there was an issue of Mr. Michael Flynn, a national security advisor of Mr. Trump who lasted only for 24 days, that was also leaked to the media. Mr. Trump, in several tweets, accused the CIA and the FBI, again, for leaking some insider information about the conversations held between Mr. Flynn and the Russian ambassador – Mr. Sergey Kislyak – before being a formal representative of the United States. An American law – Logan Act – prevents unauthorized citizens from establishing diplomatic relationships with foreign countries, which was the main problem of Mr. Flynn. Mr. Trump’s logic was that the leak was the main problem and not the contacts themselves. Mr. Trump claimed that he cannot, confidently, assume his responsibilities since he was sure that he and his assistants were continuously monitored and media-shamed. Right now, the same situation is going on with Mr. Sessions, exposing a meet with the Russian ambassador, despite the case that some other U.S.’s senators had previously met the Russian ambassador.
Therefore, it was not clear to many of Mr. Trump’s supporters where and who draw the line separating what is allowable and what was not.
Jumping to another relatively old incident, a month ago, a federal court stopped Mr. Trump’s executive order to prevent the entry of the nationals of seven majority-Muslim countries to the USA. That order was an election promise by Mr. Trump to appease the worries of his supporters amid extremists’ attacks on U.S.’s soil. All of the countries in Trump’s list were and still experiencing obvious political and economic instabilities, which may undermine those countries’ efforts by correctly assessing and dealing with extremists and their attacks, and hence came the ban. Others, liberals, socialists, and democrats, interpreted this ban as a direct discrimination against Muslims that may prevent those Muslims from properly integrating with the American society, and may incite fear and hate against them. Both the argument and the ban had reasonable grounds although not every Muslim-majority country was banned from entry.
Mr. Trump, in counterattack tweets, condemned the federal judge’s decision, even the whole court system, and asserted his supporters that any malign result from stopping his ban would be assigned directly to the judge and the court system.
Strikingly similar, the ongoing USA political RA resembles the Arab Spring. In December 2010, a revolution erupted in Tunisia, followed by successive revolutions in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain. Some other weak demonstrations took place in other countries like Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan and others.
Tunisia and Egypt went through a seemingly short violent riots followed by several parliamentary and presidential elections. On the contrary, Syria headed directly to a devastating civil war for six straight years till now. Apparently, the revolutions won by ousting the existing presidents; however, that was the ice berg’s tip. The reason was that the political RA syndrome within these countries became very evident through the ability of the resilient Kleptocracies – corrupted existing regimes – to fend off the new rulers and their affiliates through state or affiliated media, security and intelligence bodies.
Whether you are a supporter or opponent, Trump’s administration is experiencing nearly the same political RA encountered by the revolutionists in the Arab Spring, where everybody is attacking and fearing the elected outsider. Although the FBI led by Mr. Comey had shaken Ms. Clinton’s campaign, the FBI and the CIA, according to Mr. Trump, are playing the same shaming game with his administration.
Looking into to history, the Arab Spring is not that far and still going, new political comers are faced with three options with existing regimes: conciliation, obliteration, and complete chaos. Apparently, the conciliation and absorption stage was in the election stage and it did not go well, as Mr. Trump’s promises were very ground-changing for the existing powers that be. Nowadays, the powers that be are waging the obliteration stage on Trump’s assistants and aides. Mr. Flynn resigned. Mr. Sessions is surrounded by the media and a public hearing, and a full resignation was requested by the democratic senators.
Doctors know well that there is no cure for RA. They also know that medications can only stop symptoms, ease, and mitigate the pain. So, whether the obliteration occurs or the complete chaos and the urgent need to surgical procedures became inevitable, only Mr. Trump and the U.S.’s powers that be can choose their destiny.
