AMERICA in the TIME of TRUMP Special Edition
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AMERICA IN THE TIME OF TRUMP Special Edition May 2018 Dear readers, It’s been over a year since Donald Trump’s inauguration as 45th President of the United States of America. The repercussions of this election have been felt across the globe and here in France we have decided to turn our attention to the home of the brave and its controversial President in order to take stock of the situation. We are embarking on a journey which will take you from Trump’s childhood, the tale of which is told by Gabrielle Colas in her tremendous bedtime story, to the case of an ordinary French boy swept up in the American far-right from the perspective of one of his friends, Rayan Dequin. On the way we will explore Trump’s relationship with religion with Solène Garnier de Boisgrollier and Antoine Larcher, from the President’s recent stance on his “heavenly Jerusalem” to the massive support he has received from the American Evangelical population. We will also try to make sense of Trump’s stance on gun control with Manon Fossemale. If Trump’s policies are sometimes hard to understand, it may be due to his infamous style of speech but Milena Kerner is here to help you make sense of it all with an analysis of his use of language. We will also look to certain groups who have felt attacked and subsequently retaliated against Trump, with Tatiana Wegner’s piece on feminism and Charlyze Anguiley’s article on politically engaged hip-hop. Have a good trip. America in the time of Trump May 2018 Trump’s childhood to become official bedtime story for 3 to 11 year olds By Gabrielle Colas on March 21st, 2018 Picture from TheGuardian.com Rumours from trusted informants of the White House have surfaced regarding the latest legislative initiative taken by Mr Trump and his government. Whilst some voters have been patiently waiting for promised economic reform or official updates on the American government’s stance on immigration, it is said that the President will officially announce his latest political stunt in the next couple of days on his certified Twitter account. According to the White House’s PR team, this will be the American government’s greatest initiative since its historically rapid response to the disastrous Hurricane Katrina under Bush in 2005. Officials claim that Trump is still hesitating on whether he should announce if Stephen King or J.K Rowling were the chosen authors of his official bedtime biography. The government claims that parents will have to choose between Trump’s biography and his book “Think like a Champion: An informal education in Business and Life.” to read to their young loved ones before they fall asleep. A “coincidental” leak of the bedtime story spread across the internet late last night, and a general public frenzy has since flourished. Luckily the editors of our newspaper were able to get their hands on it before it was too late: The tale of Donald J Trump By Unknown “ nce Upon a Time, O A young boy of unverified Swedish ancestry was wandering the busy streets of Manhattan with his best friend. This boy, named Donny, was tall, handsome and had signature luscious tangerine locks. Donny was known for his gloat worthy qualities and the fact that no one knew more than this young man. Donny’s dream was to become the spitting image of his father Fred Trump the king of real estate development of the East Coast. Donald had ideals of becoming the anti-dark skinned, rumoured Ku Klux Klan rally attending, and failure to house people of colour in his properties businessman his father embodied. Fred Trump was so notorious for his accomplishments in the racially discriminatory “squad” of the 1950s, that singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie wrote a song about his profits off racism in real estate titled “I Ain’t Got No Home” which clearly depicted that African American tenants were not welcome in Mr Trumps beautiful, lavish and posh housing. What was there that Donny shouldn’t admire about his father’s xenophobic and narrow-minded entrepreneurial ascent? Whilst Donny and his friend returned home from the Big City after purchasing “dainty” switchblades, Mr Trump, the king of real estate development discovered that his precious obedient and favourite son has disobeyed the strict rules of his kingdom. What was he to do to discipline his son? Fred Trump shunned Donny from his only home and sent him off to the intimidating New York Military Academy. Donny was yanked out of his serene life and packed off to a boarding school, left with the weight of his father’s disappointment on his two small privileged shoulders. Life in the academy was atrocious and Donny had to endure a tough regime of early mornings and difficult chores. Luckily, after wishing upon star after star every night before going to bed (well those he could see under the bustling pollution in the city of New York), Donny found hope. His hope was none other than Norman Vincent Peale the pastor of the Positive Thinking Church. Peale had always been a part of Donny’s life, yet during his stay at the Academy the boy finally realised how much he needed his fairy godmother. Peale/ Donny’s fairy godmother, preached sermons about having faith in oneself, and of stamping indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself succeeding. Peale taught Donny that “- any fact facing us, however difficult, even seemingly hopeless, is not so important as our attitude toward that fact, adding - a confident and optimistic thought pattern can modify or overcome the fact altogether.” Peale was able to give Donny the last 000,1 percent of confidence he didn’t already have. Donny became a legendary icon in his Academy. His peers and his mentors recognized his innate drive and his ability to persuade himself and others that he was number one. It was said that Donny embodied something greater, that there was an air about him which showed that he was just in the academy passing time and that he would go on to something greater. Donny’s fairy godmother also trained his disciple in the art of projection, a technique which is often affiliated with Adolf Hitler’s speeches. This political mannerism is a defence mechanism by which the ego of an individual defends itself against unpleasant impulses, tendencies or characteristics by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. This quality has followed Donny throughout his life and has enabled him to achieve great deceitful actions in his future economic and political successes. After overcoming the Military Academy of New York and his father’s abandonment thanks to the positive ideology Donny’s fairy godmother Vincent Peale established for his prodigy, the young man was able to flourish and achieve a self-made tycoon’s dreams. He made the Forbes World’s Billionaires list at the young age of 43, became joint partner with NBC in the nineties, had his own Emmy nominated reality television series, his own restaurant chain, a star on the Hollywood walk of fame, three happy marriages, and a board game. Someone asked Donny if he thought he was a genius and he decided to say yes. Why not? Try it out. Tell yourself that you are a genius. That was the philosophy that got Donny the success he deserved. Now to live happily ever after, Donny had only one more dream to achieve: Become President of the United States of America.” The official bedtime autobiography is set to release in stores and national libraries in July 2018, just after the President’s birthday. Trump’s childhood certainly embodies an enthrallingly mundane and monotonous fairy-tale which will inevitably put any child to sleep. Exporting Nation Rayan Dequin, 28th March 2018 Neo-conservatism, also known for its multiple variations and evolutions across social medias as the “alt-right”, was defined in 1973 by its first “intellectual”, Irving Kristol, an old Trotskyist who became the spearhead and creator of this ideology, as a fight for culture which takes place over a battle for “turning intellect into influence” (“Les Nécoconservateurs”, Juliette Grange, Agora, 2017). This ideology, standing above the values of a Christianity-rooted society, defends ultra-right and ultra-liberal positions all across America and current Europe through the cultural spreading of their beliefs in the academic and literary fields. But the main forces of neo-conservatism are founded on the cultural recipient of their propaganda, an amorphous mass of movements, micro-party and other far-right organizations and associations swarming on social media. Among those, and despite the will of the neocons to fight against protectionism and isolationism (they wish for an American Empire through both hard and soft powers), remain the Facebook pages and groups, Twitter account and bloggers which, with the help of freedom of speech on the internet has, managed to raise an army of voters to make Trump their president. Those ideological manifestations across the different platforms proposed by Facebook or Twitter gave birth to micro- ideology formations more or less linked to bigger intellectual movements like anarcho-capitalism, paleo-conservatives etc. But their size and reach, despite their appearance, are far more powerful than it may seem. Through the uptake of a generation of young white supremacists or crypto-supremacists, they have managed to implement themselves into a self-assuming far-right ideology and the daily life of western citizens. “Among the people absorbed by neo-conservatism through the intermediary of those social-media-entities was one of my closest friends, Ludwig.” Among the people absorbed by neo-conservatism through the intermediary of those social-media-entities was one of my closest friends, Ludwig.