After the storming of Congress, America must resolve its internal crisis

America after the storming of Congress is dominated by the so-called “deep state”.

In an attempt to avert the implosion of the nation's society, over the coming months the federal apparatus will seek to silence Trump and project onto the world the suffering perceived by the citizenry, with a real risk of failing to resolve the domestic problems and of spiralling into very dangerous international crises, capable of worsening the storm already raging.

At this stage the United States is being shaken by the different relationships its main macro-regions have with the imperial dimension.

The coasts, Atlantic and Pacific, profit enormously from the country's hegemonic position in finance and the media, but seem to have forgotten that they live in an empire; they think of themselves as belonging to an (almost) normal nation.

The southern states (Dixieland) are militaristic and very proud to exist within the global empire, but they resent the attempt at cultural homogenisation plotted against them by the rest of the country.

The Midwest, America's Germanic heart, proudly sacrificed its own prosperity to turn the superpower into a buyer of last resort, giving up local manufacturing, but now feels the weight of that choice and considers it unfair that the coasts are the main beneficiaries.

Inevitably the South and the Midwest, furious territories, became Donald Trump's main electoral base; over the years he managed to cynically claim their grievances as his own and set himself up as the unlikely champion of their pain. The New Yorker's reluctance to accept the election result in Biden's favour led so-called deep America to lash out at the symbols of institutional power.

And so on 6 January hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol, home of the House of Representatives and the Senate, desecrating the country's most powerful institution, with the support of the police, spontaneously inclined to see white Anglo-Saxons as those with the greater right to protest.

The shock produced by these events brought the federal agencies, far more influential than the White House, to power.

As shown by Biden's appointments to the main departments, almost all of them given to “technocrats”, the American apparatus is preparing to run the superpower's domestic and foreign action more or less on its own. Partly because of the new president's age, as he is probably destined to serve a single term. And partly because of the weakness of the vice president, who a year ago was even forced to drop out of the Democratic primaries for lack of support.

The deep state has a twofold objective, domestic and external.

First, to damn Trump's memory by depriving him of his voice on social media. The day after the events at the Capitol, the apparatus forced Big Tech to silence the outgoing president on every platform, on the grounds that he had incited the riot, although in Western Europe the belief is that this decision was taken by Twitter or Facebook. The idea is to erase Trump's presence so that his political weight fades, perhaps preventing him from running again through an (unlikely) intervention by Congress or legal action against him.

Second, the federal agencies intend to run foreign policy themselves. The plan is to force public opinion to focus abroad, drawing attention away from the domestic crises that threaten to make the whole system implode.

So in the medium term Washington will show itself more aggressive in specific international theatres.

In the Asia-Pacific, where it is engaged in containing the People's Republic of China at sea; in the Middle East, where it wants to curb the rise of Turkey; and between Europe and Central Asia, against Russia.

Possibly without starting a new war, but with enough intensity to put what is happening around the planet front and centre.

Very risky manoeuvres. Trump's political elimination, which is unlikely in any case, will not heal the fault lines within American society, because these were not created by the New York tycoon.

Large parts of the nation will keep their schizophrenic relationship with global hegemony even without him. In fact, an attempt to sideline him could heighten tensions further rather than ease them.

Likewise, the calculated decision to concern itself more with the globe, pushing American aggression towards its main enemies to fever pitch, risks provoking new conflicts and dragging Washington into scenarios with no possible solution.

With the possibility that the home front splits further when faced with new and costly trials.

Exactly what the apparatus would not want to bring about, but what it is at real risk of living through.

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