Alexander Genis: Life with Trump

I do not presume to answer all over America, especially - for that part that voted for Donald Trump, and even more so the one that is satisfied with his first steps. I won’t even begin to assume that I know what Trump's supporters think about my comrades, colleagues, readers and critics (except for the madmen who write: “Hundreds of millions of Americans voted for Trump, I bought Soros” - a genuine quote, I can’t come up with this). But I can talk about the first experience of life with Trump, the experience that we divide with the more (three million) part of the Americans who did not choose it.

The shock of the elections for them did not pass, but mixed with a sense of constant surprise. I myself am already accustomed to open the newspaper every morning, waiting for new adventures of the president and his associates. The other day, for example, in New York Times wrote that newcomers in the White House sometimes sit in the dark, because they do not know where the light is turned on. If I understood correctly, this is not a metaphor (although it seems), but a characteristic detail of that chaotic process that the new president considers public administration.

Starting from the lower "to", Trump has not yet left this note. All his directives are negative, but are hardly decisions, because they do not lead anywhere. First of all, having canceled the Obumov’s hated republican reform, Trump found that there was nothing to replace it. Therefore, the massacre of medicine was postponed before the end of the year - either this, or the next. No better with the Great Mexican Wall. Although she brought Trump to the presidency, but no one wants to pay for her - neither Mexico, nor Congress, nor all the others who promised her immediately and for nothing.

Democracy is not only the power of the majority, but the science, art and the opportunity to correct it, most, mistakes

The ban on the entrance of the seven predominantly Muslim countries to the United States, which made Trump's supporters so, turned into a war, but not with terror, but with courts, the independence of which annoys the new president no less than the attack of the press. Indeed, you can’t get rid of it, especially after the adviser to Trump Kellien Konway said that she prefers “alternative facts” . Having become a popular meme, this phrase instantly flew around the country and returned to George Orwell’s novel “1984”, which describes in detail the rules of such a novel, in the list of bestsellers.

All this inspires the hope that common sense and American institutions - from a free press to an independent court - will fulfill their traditional role, becoming a gut and a muzzle of power.

“And with Trump,” say his opponents, “you can live, if, of course, to constantly fight him.”

This moderate optimism does not soften my resentment when my Moscow friends sympathize with America.

- Well, why is yours better than ours? - they ask, with difficulty hiding the gloating. - Trump also surrounded himself with a dense ring of enemies - from neighboring Mexico to distant Australia, and the whole world was also inspired, even they don’t want to let it into the English parliament, he also considers the truth by obsolete convention, and most importantly, Trump chose the same popular mass, which does not sink all this. It is not surprising that they like each other.

“Even if all this is so,” I snapper, “the proportion is different: you have 86%, here - 26%.”

And this is not a quantitative, but a qualitative factor that will become decisive in the next election. After all, democracy is not only the power of the majority, but the science, art and the opportunity to correct it, most, mistakes. Maybe the United States was also lucky - because Trump will be her invaluable lesson.

Alexander Genis is a New York writer and publicist, author and host of the Radio Liberty program “over barriers-American hour”

Opinions expressed under the heading "Law" may not reflect the point of view of the Radio Liberty editorial