The United States: A Decadent Society

Published at: 19/01/2024 06:00 PM

Businessman Donald Trump was found guilty of 37 charges ranging from sexual assault, defamation, handling classified documents, falsification, witness manipulation to corruption, and yet he is making progress in his bid for the presidency of the United States.

Faced with this news, it is worth reflecting on the fact that a citizen with that trajectory is the favorite to occupy the White House, speaks of the moral decline experienced by American society, which, as explained by Raoul Peck, writer of the documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” in 2016, in which he explained that “even if the outbreak of North American economic decline is more or less recent, the America's moral decline is long-standing. As long as slavery, racism, imperialist doctrines and sequelae, and the frayed American dream.”

According to the definition presented in the Merriam-Webster dictionary , a society is “a community, nation or a large group of people who have common traditions, institutions and activities and collective interests”. This concept is naturally associated with that of ethics, which, according to the Chinese Ethical Thought developed by the philosopher Wong, “is mainly concerned with questions about how one should live: what makes life worthwhile, how to weigh duties to family and duties to strangers”, in this way, it is constantly questioned how we must relate to the world, to what extent we should be involved in reforming the political structures of our society and how we should act if we have a position of influence or power.

In recent years, we have seen how Donald Trump has been the protagonist of several scandals and even convicted of sexual abuse and defamation against the writer of the magazine “Elle”, Jean Carroll. This was decided by a civil jury of the Federal Court in Manhattan, New York, after a verdict reached in record time. Although they did not hold him responsible for raping the writer in the 1990s, they did so for sexual abuse and for calling her a liar.

During the trial, two women testified against Trump, alleging that they had also been sexually harassed by the former president. The former reporter for “People” magazine, Natasha Stoynoff, stated that she was cornered at the Mar - a - Lago beach club in 2005 and was forcibly kissed. While Jessica Leeds said that she was kissed, groped and held her hand up her skirt during a flight in 1979.

In addition, these women, after testifying to the crimes to which they were subject, declared to the press that “the judicial system of our nation is compromised by powerful politicians. We have allowed false and totally fabricated complaints from disturbed people to interfere with our choices, doing immense harm,” said the victims.

However, Trump's image has not been affected at his hard core. His supporters have even held demonstrations repudiating the alleged “harassment” of justice against the tycoon, who is well positioned in his party because of the dispute over the Republican presidential nomination.

Even after receiving the formal accusation in the case of bribes against porn actress Stormy Daniels, her numbers in the polls increased. There is no sociological theory that can explain the silent behavior of a society in the face of these scandals played by the North American magnate.

In the case of Donald Trump, the accusations are more serious: documents leaked by the group not only point to acts of child abuse supposedly perpetrated by him, but also points to him as responsible for the death of magnate Jeffrey Epstein in an attempt to silence him, as the hacker Anonimous also reported him on his “X” account , who wrote: “You had Jeffrey Epstein killed to cover up your stories of trafficking and child rape.”

So, considering morality as the element that cohesives society, it is important to examine the social context of its influences to understand why people may react in ways that differ from their moral point of view, such as a moving code within the community.

In addition, we are struck by what the psychologist Jordi Quiodbach explains when he describes that “there are two groups of moral values: the binding ones, which govern group behavior , and the individualizing ones, which refer to personal rights and freedoms. Binding values help to regulate community behavior, so that we can give more importance to these values when we are in the presence of other people who are closest to us.

However, the proximity associated with the tycoon stems from his admiration for amassing a fortune that, no matter how it was achieved, is the greatest measure of success that human beings can have in American society.

“When you're famous they let you do anything to them,” Donald Trump said in a video in which he spoke of “grabbing women by the pussy” or kissing them without permission and justifying their behavior as caused by “costume language”, referring to the clothes that women wear.

Despite the fact that there are politicians who reject the candidate's words because they consider them unacceptable “as parents” and “as spouses”, such as Mitt Romney and John McCain. But Trump, after bragging about committing aggression and maintaining a tone of impunity, has managed to portray how this attitude is more typical of a generalized culture than the mistake of a businessman convinced that no one will be able to knock him down.

Until now, the judicial problems caused by the crimes committed have not affected Donald Trump, in fact, the opposite has been the case, as reported by his lawyer Steve Sadow regarding the increase in his popularity in the polls: “there are already Republicans who say that a cumulative effect is taking place and that the elections are won. with the support of the rank and file and receiving some favors”.

It is regrettable to see how a society is degrading, considering that the collective consciousness of a nation is the sum total of its values, norms and laws. When this consciousness is weak, undermined or decays, then a vicious circle emerges where decomposition brings even more degradation that affects the well-being of all.

AMELYREN BASABE/MAZO WRITING