Interim results of US President Donald Trump's tenure from 2017 to 2020

Kostiuchenko Savelii Vladimirovich Bachelor's degree, Department of American Studies, Faculty of International Relations, St. Petersburg State University. 195271, Russia, Leningradskaya oblast', g. Saint Petersburg, ul. Kondrat'evskii Prospekt, 64, kv. korpus 9, kvartira 211 flesar074@gmail.com

Introduction

The election of populist Donald Trump to the presidency took the American political elite by surprise. In his keynote speech, he did not bypass any sore points of today's America, clearly and concretely defining his position on each of them. The problem lies in the fact that the American political system could not adapt to the demands of society, the program of the elected president, as a result of which the imbalance of the American political system began, which led to intraparty division and deepening of the crisis of the US political system.

A political portrait of the non-systemic US President Donald Trump.

Drawing a historical parallel, political scientists characterize Donald Trump and Andrew Jackson (the seventh US president) as “non-systemic presidents". The term “non-systemic president” evolved from such a concept as “non-systemic". In the political dictionary, the term “non-systemic” is interpreted as a subject that is in a contradictory position with the conceptual world of the environment ^{[9, p. 456]}. The similarity of the two “non-systemic presidents” Donald Trump and Andrew Jackson are protest behavior, the presence of populist views, the position of an outsider who breaks existing stereotypes of the world order. A retrospective analysis of the reign of the seventh president of the United States of America showed that the “Jacksonian Revolution”, as historians call it, was essentially a protest by “ordinary people” — farmers and loggers of the rapidly expanding West — against the Virginia gentlemen who ruled the country during the first half century of its existence. Drawing a historical parallel, it should be noted that for Donald Trump, the seventh President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, has become a kind of standard to follow. Having launched his political activities, Donald Trump acted according to the same scenario as Andrew Jackson. The most important component of Trump's victory was the protest vote of labor America, first of all – residents of the states of the Midwest and the American hinterland due to the deterioration of their financial situation. Trump's election campaign has managed to effectively mobilize and ride this social protest, directing it against the political elite, the leading media and the political and academic community, accused of grossly ignoring the interests of ordinary Americans. Being a bright populist, Donald Trump proposed a populist program of action. The political class of the country perceived the victory of Trump and his supporters as an authoritarian-nationalist threat to liberal institutions, which must be stopped ^{[8, pp. 13-34]}. Trump's populist program mirrored the problems of modern America, served as a trigger for the inconsistency of the actions of the US political elite.  It should be noted that the "Trumpist Revolution" relies on "ordinary people" and is directed against the American political elite, which has hitherto set the tone.

            Summarizing what has been said, I can assume that the standard chosen by Donald Trump can significantly shorten his term as president, from early retirement to defeat in the election race for a second presidential term. We remember that in the political career of Andrew Jackson there were enough contradictions that could at one time lead to a loosening of the domestic political situation in the country.  

             Regarding Trump's persona, the following should be clarified, Trump does not look like a “simple neighbor guy” or a “guy from the people” ^{[4, p. 24]}. The American political structure has been built for quite a long time in such a way that, despite all the loud cries about democracy, there is no way for a person from the street to win presidential elections ^{[12, pp. 27-44]}. It should be clarified that the American system of existing financial and administrative filters is such that no non-systemic opponent, without money, will be able to get to the top with all his desire. Trump belongs to the US political elite – just its other flank, conservative. In the course of a preliminary study, it was found that in the past, as a big businessman, Donald Trump liked to play politics and always had excellent relations with politicians. However, there are no former businessmen, and no matter what issue Donald Trump dealt with while in office, he sought to “stretch” his business approach in all directions in pursuit of his economic benefit. At the present stage, Trump feels confident enough and is determined to play to the last, although it is not easy for him to cope ^{[5, p. 9]}. From the media, we observe how the existing system is actively fighting with the elected president and doing everything to make his presidency as short as possible ^[2].  Studying Trump's rating, it can be stated that 2020 brought him another test related to the coronavirus epidemic, unfolding rallies due to the deaths of African Americans in Minneapolis and Atlanta.  Let me express my point of view in the framework of the study, which is as follows: the tendency to populism, the position of denial of the events taking place around Donald Trump, led the US president to lower his rating positions. The results of the Gallup survey, published on the fourth of June 2020, came as an unpleasant surprise to the White House. According to sociologists, in just one month, President Trump's rating has fallen by ten points - today only 39% of Americans approve of his activities. The respondents named the actions of the head of the White House during the coronavirus epidemic and the state of the country's economy as the main reason. Despite the drop in rating positions and the deterioration of the situation in the country during the pandemic, the head of the White House continued to insist that the new virus does not pose a danger to the population. For almost two months, from late January to mid-March, Trump argued that the virus would disappear after the onset of heat, calling the epidemic a "conspiracy of Democrats" and a diversion by the Chinese authorities. However, a miracle did not happen, as of today, 7,894,478 cases of infection with the COVID-19 coronavirus have been recorded in the United States. This is 21.27% of the total number of infected. Unfortunately, as of today, 218,648 people have already died in the US country, the mortality rate is 2.77%. 5,064,300 people were completely cured of the virus, recovery is 64.15%. The USA ranks 1st in the ranking by the number of infected people worldwide ^[15].  Later, Donald Trump tried to turn his miscalculation in the fight against the COVID–19 epidemic into a plus, playing the role of a "tough guy" who defeated a dangerous disease in two days without using a vaccine. Donald Trump, in one of his speeches to supporters in North Carolina, expressed confidence that the country will be able to get rid of the coronavirus, regardless of whether it has a vaccine or not ^[14]. The tragic incident in Minneapolis gave Donald Trump another chance to show adequate political steps in resolving the crisis situation in the country, thereby raising his rating in the eyes of voters, however, here Trump fully acted as a populist, justifying incompetent police actions in connection with the deaths of African Americans George Floyd and Rashard Brooks. During the meeting with the police, he called the law enforcement officers "wonderful people", and called for an increase in funding for law enforcement agencies, which caused even more indignation of the protesters. In his actions, Donald Trump adheres to the main postulate of “law and order”, which was used at the time by ex-President Richard Nixon. References to the experience of Nixon, who became a symbol of unscrupulousness in American politics, have become a new feature to the portrait of Trump, who can already be called the most eccentric elected president of the United States of the XXI century.

           All of the above gives us the opportunity to draw our own conclusions about Trump's chances of turning the situation in his favor. In order to radically change the situation, Trump will have to work hard and find such political mechanisms that would stabilize the situation in the country, put the existing system in order and increase his rating during the pre-election period. At the same time, it should be noted that the presidency for Donald Trump turned out to be not the toy that you can just play with.

           Based on the above, it is logical to assume that Donald Trump must first of all defeat himself, build his political line, move away from the chosen standard in the person of Andrew Jackson, Richard Nixon, since Donald Trump has all the necessary moral (reputational and image resources of the United States) and material capabilities, including the creation of a team of intellectuals to develop their own handwriting in the settlement of the political situation in the country.

The role of the “deep State" in the possibility of impeachment proceedingsDonaldTrump.

From the first days of his presidency, Donald Trump has faced fierce resistance from that part of the American establishment, which realized that both power and strength would be taken away from it if he fulfilled at least part of his election promises. Since that moment, open conversations have resumed about the “Deep State” – the “deep state” that has been leading the United States since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and then President Richard Nixon was dismissed under threat of impeachment. The term “deep state” was defined in 2014 by Mike Lofgren, a former Republican congressional aide. The term “deep state” refers to a hybrid merger of government officials and top-level representatives of financiers and industrialists who effectively govern the United States without asking voters about it, violating the essence of the political process. The basis of the “deep state” consists of special services created by high–ranking officials in the ranks of intelligence organizations, military and judicial institutions, as well as organized criminal groups. ^{[2, p. 702]}. It should be noted that the term “deep state” began to pop up every now and then even in broad discussions – as a reality that cannot be denied, even if it is difficult to give an exact definition ^{[6, pp.181-185]}.  To date, the role of the “deep state” cannot be underestimated, since it can effectively squeeze its opponents out of the legislative and executive authorities, take control, localize and neutralize their activities.  Political scientists periodically state the facts of fierce resistance of a certain coordinated group. For example, this group imposed on Donald Trump on the eve of the November midterm congressional elections, leaving him no chance to avoid a head-on collision with Russia in Syria, and American globalist elites are literally pushing Trump into conflict with Vladimir Putin. On the issue of Putin and Trump's attitude to the American elites, their interests coincide, they need dialogue, and for dialogue peace is needed, whereas the elites of the “deep state” need war. Following this logic, it can be assumed that if Trump starts a war, he will be accused of starting it, if he evades, he will be accused of evasion. Thus, we are forced to state that this is nothing but a direct path to impeachment.  In this situation, it should also be noted that in the light of recent events related to the coronavirus epidemic and mass protests in Minneapolis and Atlanta, the American media serving the Democrats are raising a wave against Trump. Recall that a prominent representative of the “deep state” is Democrat Joe Biden, a possible candidate for the upcoming presidential election, who is trying to raise his rating against the background of current events, and reduce Donald Trump's position to zero. For example, the former vice president visited the family of a black man George Floyd, who was killed by police during his detention on May twenty-fifth, went out to the protesters in Wilmington, Delaware, kneeling as a sign of respect for the struggle for equal rights. After that, Joe Biden made a statement calling racism an "open wound" of America, while noting that the topic of racial discrimination will be a red line in his election program.

         Thus, we see that the actions of the representatives of the “deep state” represented by the Democrats are planned in nature, their main goal is to destabilize the political system in the country, the desire to undermine the position of Donald Trump and prevent him from a second presidential term. Presumably, if Donald Trump does not take balanced political steps to level the political situation in the country, Donald Trump's chances of being re-elected for a second presidential term will be low. In conclusion, it should be noted that US presidents who showed themselves as president with a similar business strategy were not elected for a second term.

The crisis of the functioning of the US political system.

The term "crisis of the political system" is difficult to understand and scientific interpretations, since structurally and functionally it is very multifaceted and ambiguous. A.V. Dakhin considers the concept of "crisis of the political system" in the context of deconstruction of social relations, institutions, structures, as a result of which dynamic chaos arises.  The 2016 presidential race was won by an outsider of the system, an unprofessional politician Donald Trump. Trump presented a program of concrete actions that were aimed at major changes, and if implemented, would lead to a strengthening of the role of the federal government. In his keynote speech, he did not bypass any sore points of today's America, clearly and concretely defining his position on each of them.  Thus, a foreign object came into the political system of the United States of America and declared itself, initially taking the highest level of government.

          Upon assuming the presidency, Donald Trump became the trigger for the beginning of the crisis of the US political system, which has long needed a deep transformation. The crisis of the US political system came as a result of intraparty division. The internal party division that has occurred is based on the ideological polarity of the Democratic and Republican parties. The essence of the internal party division is that the parties began to offer their supporters ideas of the opposite orientation, putting their voters before the choice. Party division led to the collapse of the entire American political system. Of course, the US political system needed a serious reset, and today a lot depends on who is in power, and in the future whether the US political system will be reformed. In the future, whoever is in power, the US political system is waiting for serious transformations, namely, structural and functional.

            The party division under the administration of D. Trump turned out to be even more pronounced than during the presidency of B. Obama ^{[11, pp. 52-55]}. The arrival of the unpopular and unexpected Donald Trump to the presidency in the United States has once again raised the question before American society that the political system has outlived itself. Donald Trump has only exposed the existing problems in the American political system. Professor of Sociology H.Anheyer considers the Trump presidency as one of the main incentives for reformatting the US political system. In particular, Anheyer writes, "The regrouping of the existing party system in the United States may be the only way out of the impasse for American politics. Potentially, it will allow to reverse the dangerous trend of the last decades — the insufficient results of the work of democracy" ^{[3, p. 112]}.

            It is obvious that the growing authoritarianism of the presidential power, the policy of denying everything that was done by the previous White House administration, the free internal political will of Trump only aggravated the situation and brought the American political system into an even greater crisis. A striking example of the growing self-will and authoritarianism of the presidential government is the state of emergency adopted on February 15, 2019 on the southern border of the United States. Donald Trump bypassed Congress and received about eight million dollars from the budget of the US Department of Defense to begin the construction of an "impenetrable" wall along the US-Mexican border. In addition, D. Trump used regular US troops to guard the US-Mexican border.  According to the influential politician of the 1990s, L. Panetta, who served as Secretary of Defense under W. Clinton, this is the first case of using the president's powers to bypass Congress, "the president, who used his powers to circumvent the will of Congress in order to obtain funds for the construction of a wall along the US-Mexican border, in fact, rejected the entire system of checks and counterweights, which was laid down by the founding fathers of America in its Constitution" ^{[13, pp. 53-67]}. Trump turned out to be unmanageable, and Republicans now have to put up with the not always far-sighted decisions of the current president. The mass protests that swept America in June 2020 reflected the stratification of the population along ethnic lines and the inability of the Trump administration to find some political mechanisms to reduce social tension in the country. In this case, we can state that there has been a separation not only of the party, but also of the social system in the country. Vladimir Putin, in one of his interviews, stressed about the imminent crisis of the system in the United States, which has acquired a deep character, "I try very carefully to comment (or better not to comment) what is happening in other countries, including the United States. What happened is a manifestation of some deep internal crises. In fact, we have been observing this for a long time, since the current president came to power," the head of state said in an interview with the Moscow program. Kremlin. Putin” ^[10].  

            Summing up the interim results, it should be noted, and another important fact, that the crisis of the American political system highlighted another problem related to the system of public administration in the United States of America.

Conclusions

The results of the conducted research prove that: firstly, to date, no alternative way out of the crisis state of the political system has been found. Secondly, on the basis of independent research, the factors that influenced the deepening of the crisis of the US political system have been identified. The deepening of the crisis of the American political system was caused by intraparty division based on the ideological polarity of the Democratic and Republican parties, the populist position of Donald Trump, expressed in the growing authoritarianism of the presidential power, the free internal political will of the president-elect, the inability of the president-elect to find optimal political mechanisms for solving domestic and foreign policy issues. Fourth, to date, the possibility of impeachment proceedings for Donald Trump exists, in this situation, the role of representatives of the “deep state” in preventing Trump from a second presidential term is great. Fifth, if Donald Trump is re-elected for a second presidential term, the populism of the president-elect will run counter to the interests of the political elite, as a result, the crisis of the American political system will continue.