Of Presidents and Digital Pharaohs

The Cost of Abandoning Principles and Wishing for Failure

It is not without irony that, earlier this week, Donald J. Trump was sworn into office as the 47th president of the United States on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day celebrating the life - and mourning the death - of perhaps the most committedly serene and passionately courageous figure in American history. A coincidence, yes, but a richly symbolic one. To imagine Trump as an avatar of King’s vision is to conjure a satirical farce of such cosmic proportions it could only be authored by history itself. King and Trump both survived an assassination attempt. Each man’s reaction in the immediate aftermath of those events almost perfectly delineates the chasm between their respective qualities of character: MLK sitting calmly against the wall of a bookstore in Harlem with a letter opener sticking out of his sternum, an inch from his heart, and Trump, with bloodied ear, rising between his bodyguards and furiously screaming “fight, fight, fight!” once a Secret Service sniper had dispatched his would-be murderer. King’s next assassin would succeed ten years after the first, robbing him of life and us of a profoundly great and temperate leader, whose powers of reason, sincere mercy, and measured self-awareness may have steered the project of social justice for another generation or more.

The dissonance between Trump’s and King’s ideals of equality and justice is not so unique. The same would probably be true of 44 of the 47 men to occupy the American presidency (allowing for Grover Cleveland and Trump’s double acts). The sole exception, of course, being Barack Obama - for a reason self-evident enough that it scarcely needs stating here.

Trump is a bigot, undoubtedly. But let us not entertain the sanctimony that suggests he is alone in this sin. He is merely the loudest, most garish, and most recent representative of a political lineage replete with prejudice, hypocrisy, and self-interest. To single him out as the culmination of all things vile is to miss the wider - and much older - pathology of American leadership.

Despite all of Trump’s malefic anti-qualities, it is now - more than ever - crucially important that we move forward and away from the unrelenting focus with which we have blessed his exploits, and address the harm that singular, disproportionate focus has caused our institutions. For years, we have pursued him with the fervor of Ahab chasing the white whale. We have cried wolf at every utterance, manufactured outrage at trivialities, and diluted the impact of his truly monstrous acts. Trump thrives on this attention. His trollish essence metabolizes outrage into power, his legion of followers emboldened by the very animus they provoke. Like it or not, this ecosystem of mutual loathing sustains him. Meanwhile, it has shaken the foundations of mainstream journalism, the academy, and left-wing politics by exposing the depths of hypocrisy, double-dealing, and corruption those institutions will sink to if they don’t get their way. Trump was victorious because we – those who could not abide his vulgarity – wasted every shred of credibility we had trying to beat him at his own game of dirty pool and instead tore asunder the very institutions we’d require to ensure his downfall by legitimate means. One does not win a game by complaining incessantly to the referees about the opponent: you win by playing a better game.

And now, dear reader, permit me to say something that leaves me faintly nauseous: I hope Trump succeeds. There it is - out in the open like the contents of a violently upturned stomach. I say this not out of admiration or wholesale agreement with his policy objectives, but out of necessity. I live in the United States. I have a young son. Like anyone else with skin in the game of civilization, I am forced to root for the captain of the ship even if he is a craven, transactional nimrod. The alternative - actively wishing for failure - is simply too self-destructive to entertain.

This, of course, brings me to Joe Biden. Let us dispense with the pretense: by any objective measure, his presidency was an abject failure. Not because he accomplished nothing - sheer inertia would ensure some things got done. No, Biden failed because he was elected with one clear mandate: to restore normalcy. He did not. And he could have - he should have - succeeded. The man had nothing to lose, and a heroic legacy to gain. Imagine the audacity, the grace, if his inauguration speech had been a farewell note:

“My fellow Americans, I will serve only one term. I will not campaign. I will not distract. I will govern with the singular purpose of stabilizing this nation and preparing it for a better future. And then I will go quietly into retirement, taking with me the ghosts of the past four years.”

But no. Biden, a fossilized embodiment of political careerism, clung to his role with the same lifeless grip he has maintained on the public imagination for decades. Biden’s rudderless drift and lack of political spine drove traditionally democratic voters straight into Trump’s flabby, orange embrace. His presidency, like his career, has been defined by hypocrisy - a morality of convenience. In this respect, he is no different from Mitch McConnell or Trump. He is simply less transparent.

Without new and better leadership, the Democrats will continue to flounder. Their 2020 post-victory strategy was not one of passion but of routine - a tepid coalition cobbled together by a committee too preoccupied with pleasing everyone except, it seems, the vast majority of voters. Yes, trans lives matter, but it turns out trans votes do not. The opposition, by contrast, voted with a fiery “fuck you” on their lips - a phrase as emotionally satisfying as it is politically nonsensical. Trump, in his perverse genius, has given his followers a license to rage, a cathartic middle finger to the establishment. And yet, we persist in feeding the beast, pouring fuel on the fire while lamenting the smoke.

But all is not lost. There remains a path forward, though it requires an uncomfortable reckoning. We must abandon the petty theatrics of reactionary politics and demand accountability - not for the crimes we wish Trump had committed, but for those he undeniably has. We must stop chasing shadows and focus instead on illuminating the rot within our own institutions. The trolls, after all, thrive in filth. Our job is to clean house, a refrain not dissimilar to Trump’s oblivious calls to “drain the swamp” even as his chief political strategist was busy “flooding the zone with shit.” Not the bitterest of ironies, but certainly the smelliest.

And so, with a faint ember of hope and a kerosene can of defiance, I say this to Trump: you are my president. I am not your subject. You work for me. Not the other way around. Now, get to work. Do your job. Because when - not if - you fail, I want the record to show that it was on your terms, not ours. And if, by some divine providence, Trump manages to “make America great again” - whatever that means – we should fairly demand it extends to all of us.

Now, following up on last week’s dive into troll culture, we return to the vicissitudes of social media - a bazaar of digital detritus and idle vanity, where human ingenuity has been reduced to a cacophony of algorithms and outrage. Whether one abandons Twitter - now farcically rechristened as “X” by its illiterate proprietor - or flocks to BlueSky, the migration is futile. These platforms, like all algorithmic models, are governed by the inescapable law of entropy. They do not grow better; they merely grow worse in new and inventive ways. Changing platforms is as useful as moving house to escape the electric bill. The landscape shifts, but the debt remains immutable. The algorithms, far from nurturing or restorative, are zombifying. Any new social media platform may begin as a living, breathing organism, vaguely capable of good, only to decay with astonishing rapidity into a brain-munching ghoul - a viral contagion infecting everything and everyone it touches.

This is the modern surveillance state: a glittering panopticon in which we have gleefully surrendered our faces, fingerprints, and very souls for the illusion of “security.” Social media offers no reprieve - only the faint, flickering hope that someone, somewhere, might momentarily care about our lives. It distracts us, seduces us, and ultimately devours us, leaving behind only the hollow echo of our own digital narcissism.

And yet, the furor over TikTok - the bans that weren’t, the desperate flop-sweat of its many devotees and evangelists - is somehow even more dispiriting. TikTok, I admit, has no direct impact on my daily life, save for its capacity to transform otherwise capable colleagues into slack-jawed voyeurs. Still, its appeal is undeniable: who wouldn’t prefer watching attractive people in swimwear flipping omelets while delivering breathless reviews of Gordon Ramsay’s latest absurdly overpriced cookware? The alternative, after all, is the drudgery of human interaction with the grumbling, aimless masses yearning for a scapegoat.

I’m ashamed to admit that in the embryonic days of social media - Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, and the original iteration of Instagram - I was as gullible as the next fool. It seemed a novelty, a harmless diversion, and even a useful tool for staying in touch with friends and family. That I failed to foresee the hydra-headed monster it would become is a testament to the naivety of optimism. But now, as surely as night follows day, these platforms evolve - or devolve - into grotesque caricatures of their initial promise.

The panic surrounding TikTok, or indeed any social media platform, is overblown when framed as a crisis of free speech. The very notion that these privately owned fiefdoms might uphold absolute free expression is laughable. They are ruled not by principles but by algorithms - cold, unfeeling, and as far from egalitarian as one can imagine. Even platforms like “X,” that noisily brand themselves as defenders of the First Amendment, will banish dissenters without hesitation, particularly if they dare criticize their all-too-fragile overlord or his gilded enterprises.

The truth is, there is no algorithm - none, at least, that operates in the world we currently inhabit - that could guarantee a free and equal exchange of ideas. And the CEOs of these companies, despite their performative posturing, have no genuine interest in making it so. They are, above all, shackled by their own vanity and profit motives, unable to see past the glare of their own reflections.

So perhaps this isn’t, at its core, even a free speech issue. Or perhaps I’m wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.