Žižek states that while he is shocked by Trump, it is Clinton who is the real threat. The danger of her position lies – according to Žižek – in the fact that the Democrat candidate would merely continue propagating the status quo, effectively suppressing or downright burying any hope for change. Every society, Žižek says, has a web of unwritten rules directing the behavior of its elites – and Trump breaks these rules. Trump’s victory can shock American society into political activity, forcing both the dominant parties, Republicans and Democrats, to re-evaluate their approaches and return to their ideological roots. Žižek would – obviously – not welcome Trump’s victory; he is merely investing his desperate, very desperate hope into it. [...]
I believe Žižek’s rationalization of voting for Trump hides a similar mechanism of subjectivity’s destruction and self-sacrifice. A left-wing or liberal voter could subjectively incline towards voting for the Democrat candidate, despite Hillary Clinton embodying the ingrowing elite of those in power and despite the liberal coat of paint of the Democratic party showing more and more wear and tear to reveal the cynical realpolitik underneath. Žižek would have voted “objectively”: not for himself (since his own opinions disagree with Trump), but to sacrifice his vote on the altar of the ideal of the political activation of society. He does not ask whether there are any prerequisites for such a development: who would mobilize? What forms would the mobilization take? How familiar is Žižek with the reality of life in America? He further explains that the election of Trump would not be a cataclysmic disaster – because the USA is not a dictatorship, but a democracy. This is a remarkable statement. What democracy is there when the country is ruled by – as he himself claims – isolated elites and shadowy political-economic structures, represented by Clinton? Žižek is simply contradicting himself here. [...]
I do not want to crudely compare Trump to Hitler (Trump, after all, lacks SA and SS units). What I am trying to point out is the danger and – in a certain sense – the perverseness of Žižek’s arguments that remind me of the old adage “the worse things become, the better”. Žižek dreams of a Lenin-like jump, of seizing the historical opportunity – not of a Menshevik wait for a situation allowing for revolution. But the year 1933 in Germany showed that there is no bottom to history: that the situation of “the worse things get, the worse they get” is possible. Because of that, Žižek’s desperate hope is really a pure gamble, a sacrifice intended for something that cannot be seen – something with no name or shape.
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