Myths and legends have become part of the digital world. However, unlike in fairy tales, the real world cannot be divided into good and evil. Donald Trump's exchange of blows with four young democrats must therefore be analysed on a meta-level.
“So now we know what the 2020 election will look like. It will be “the Squad” versus the mob.” .
Is this the plot for the US election, flushed into communication channels worldwide? Here - four young, bright women who want to change the political system. There - an elderly, rumbling President who negates the climate change , provokes distribution battles and thus ignores the causes of migration, which he himself rejects.
It is in the nature of man to form causal chains to derive explanation models from them. Rational information is missed or simply ignored. This may lead to wrong conclusions. Anyone who wants to understand the phenomenon “The Squad” should better look up and analyse on a meta-level.
Personalisation and simplification
An unwritten law of the media age is to keep messages simple. A core element is personalisation. Ideas, convictions, moral concepts and dogmas are projected on people. Instead of a well-founded, differentiated and critical examination of complex issues, intensive involvement with personalities predominates.
Trump vs. The Squad provides the classic constellation of protagonist-antagonist. What could be a better antagonist to an elderly, rumbling white male republican than young, smart, coloured female democrats with a migration background?
Perplexity about future political leadership
Western democracies are currently experiencing a fundamental crisis: dissolution of classic political camps and ideologies; massive losses of traditional parties to the benefit of younger movements, often referred to as left- or right-wing-extremists; perplexity as to who will be the future political leaders of the future.
Consequently, political elites and media are darting at almost every fresh face, scanning it to see whether the prototype of the new politician can be derived.
The young democrats represent - from their ethnic background - a large part of the world's population (Arab, African, Hispanic). Future will show, whether an internal dispute can form a sustainable political movement, which is also approved by the sovereign.
Call for a strong state
The ageing of the population, economic and financial crises, unemployment, and the massive influx of migration are intensifying the fight for increasingly scarce social resources.
This leads to a call for a strong state. “Socialist” claims are as easy to come by as appeals to the national pride. However, the question what the classical nation state can still achieve in the globalised world is deliberately left out.
Whether socialist ideas can prevail in the U.S. will not depend on the behaviour of the President, the Republicans, or the conservative wing of the Democrats.
A simple look at demography will do: according to the State Statistical Office, the share of the Hispanic population will increase from about 18 per cent at present to about 30 per cent in 2060 .
At the same time, US society is becoming older, so that the group of people over 65 will almost be the largest in the middle of the century.
Labour force is projected to increase from 157 million in 2015 to 186 million in 2060. However, labour force participation rates have been falling steadily for years and will continue to fall until 2050.
So the call for state provision is inevitable.
Why should we bother?
Due to globalisation, transnational interdependencies have increased sharply in the last two decades. If - on a meta-level - the core issue of Trump vs. The Squad is the question of dealing with migration against the background of increasingly scarce resources, then it is by no means just a matter of strategic electoral manoeuvres. Then it is a global issue, where proponents and opponents alike are interested in joining forces in a globalised and digitised world.
