"Esto no va de Trump": the manual for getting ready for the US presidential elections
There is only one month left before the US elections. These elections are taking place in a context that nobody expected at the beginning of the years.
The polls in January gave a clear lead to Donald Trump to reassert his position in the White House, but the coronavirus has not only changed the way of life of society but also the polls.
This, together with the galloping economic crisis and the continuous demonstrations in recent months about the racial conflict, which was blown up by the death of George Floyd, under the knees of police officers, has created a breeding ground that is resulting in increased violence and extreme polarisation.
In this climate, talking about what the Trump Administration has been, not only for Americans but also for the rest of the world in terms of its foreign policy, is necessary in order to take a proper and informed look at the elections that will mark the future of what for the time being continues to be the world's leading power.
This is what has been celebrated, under all the pertinent security norms, in Casa de América with the presentation of the book written by José María Peredo, professor of Communication and International Policy at the European University of Madrid and illustrated by Begoña Moreno, professor of creative thinking at the same university and published by Catarata and Atalayar. Through 62 articles, the author gives a critical, open and transversal interpretation of US international policy that helps to understand, just one month before the US presidential elections, some of the most current events such as the heated electoral debate between President Trump and the candidate Joe Biden.
"Esto no va de Trump. Un repaso ilustrado de la política internacional de Donald Trump", an essential book for understanding what makes the most controversial US president in recent years and the one who has been most controversial, especially in the field of communication rather than in the executive. The title of the book, "This is not about Trump", gives the reader a clue so that he does not have the idea that it only talks about the New York magnate, but that the topics dealt with are multiple and varied, although they have a common denominator: the four years of the Republican Administration.
The combination of texts and illustrations makes this work a distinctive piece of writing of all that has been published so far, and which brings together the most decisive themes of the last three years. "An article is something perishable. Either you conquer the reader or you don't. But with the book it becomes more imperishable and makes something as ephemeral as politics remain", said its author, José María Peredo, during the presentation.
With the freshness of the immediate analysis of what was happening on a day-to-day basis, which allows us to remember things that the present day has been covering up, the book takes a journey from the danger to democracy that the arrival of a populist like Trump has represented, to American politics, both in the domestic sphere and, especially, in the external sphere where Trump's Republican Administration has maintained a leading role in Iran, North Korea and China, and a secondary one with European partners, such as Spain. All this is accompanied by illustrations, designed by Begoña Moreno, which give the manuscript a differential point.
The authors, accompanied by three great experts on American issues: Carlos Franganillo, presenter of the TVE news programme and Vicente Vallés, presenter of Antena 3 Noticias, together with the former ambassador to the United Nations and Spanish consul in Los Angeles, Inocencio Arias, have shown their work, after several attempts to do so in Madrid but which the COVID-19 has insisted on postponing, to try to understand the atmosphere in which Donald Trump and Joe Biden are running in the elections on 3 November and to predict a possible result, although it has already been shown in the 2016 elections that polls and betting pools on American issues do not usually turn out as expected.
"I hope Biden comes out. He would be a moderate president like Bush senior, but the worst thing that could happen to him is that he would have a lapse of time just a few days before the elections," said Arias.
We will have to wait until 3 November, but thanks to' Esto no va de Trump' the reader will be able to understand how and why this point of maximum polarisation and uncertainty has been reached in the US country.
