Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
“Political marketing” is an archaic term that belongs to some long past times, and is rarely used today, for the sheer reason that today the whole politics is marketing. There are no ideologies or principles. But when a political idea becomes a platitude, and political marketing becomes propaganda, historically speaking – we’re not going in the right direction.
Historia magistra vitae est – history is life’s teacher. This is probably the first sentence which every school kid learns in their first history lesson. Indeed, retrospectively speaking, history comes in very similar cycles. Periods of peace, periods of war, periods of plague, periods of conquest. Each moment in history has a counterpart in more distant history. Be it the discovery of America or the moon landing. The black plague or AIDS. The pyramids or the Empire State Building. The Roman Empire or the United States. Be it Hitler or Trump.
Although this last comparison might sound strange, prophetic or conceited, from my point of view, it is very obvious. Donald Trump is the Republican presidential candidate – and in my opinion the future President of the United States, the most powerful country in the world. Polls say that Hillary Clinton is in the lead, that Donald will not win, and common sense dictates that it is impossible that a racist bigot becomes the most powerful man in the world.
The electoral process in the US – and in the rest of the world – has become an entertainment business. The funniest, loudest, most interesting, the most authoritative wins. Shocking and new wins – the only reason why Hillary has a chance is because she’s a woman. But Trump will win because he understands what people want to hear, regardless of whether they are for or against it. He knows that there is no bad marketing and he knows how to use social networks. Always on the edge of being offensive, he’s a constant sensation and we always hunger for more, even though we know it’s bad for us. And when he wins – and he will win – his decision will eventually have to become more radical in order to keep the audience’s attention – because that is essentially all that interests him. And that is the road of no return. Hitler wasn’t an evil genius, he was just a loud fanatic with the ability to infuriate the masses in a controlled manner. Hitler’s greatest misfortune was that his propaganda minister Goebbels didn’t have Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook.
And when Trump, Putin, Brexit, ISIS and other factors coincide, the historians of the future will ponder how come we were so naïve, how did we fail to anticipate all of it. How, after so many years of peace, were we able to go to war again? The same was asked by Stefan Zweig – one of the most popular authors in the first half of the twentieth century – who wondered how come Europe so easily slipped into the First World War after 50 years of peace. The answer lies in Goebbels’ quote “Man is and remains an animal. Here a beast of prey, there a housepet, but always an animal.”
I believe that our parents, matured in brotherhood and unity, during the breakup of Yugoslavia asked themselves: “How did it come to this?” So will we ask ourselves in a few years from new, when the world starts going backwards again, because the history of mankind is not a history of peace, but a history of war. And this will come same as it always does, because “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. I have some more things to say and do on this topic, but I must run to catch Pokémon.