Watching Donald Trump framing his Presidential Election battle against Kamala Harris, one can’t help but notice at least two similarities with Thai politics worth elaborating.
First, Trump makes Kamala Harris “un-American” by calling her “comrade Harris” repeatedly. Given the Cold War history, being a communist, or even an alleged communist in the United States, is tantamount to being “un-American”. Here Trump presented himself as the only American choice as Harris is being characterised as being un-American because she’s a socialist, a commie. That’s why Trump kept calling Harris on X, Comrade Harris.
In Thailand, the opposition Move Forward Party, now known as People’s Party, has been repeatedly and continuously branded as a threat to the monarchy – thus a threat to the nation as well in the eyes of royalists.
When Akanat Promphan, a die-hard anti-Thaksinite and secretary general of the pro-junta United Thai Nation Party, recently defended his decision to join the Paetongtarn Shinawatra administration as new Minister of Industry, his justification was that Thailand is now facing “a new security threat.”
Akanat didn’t say who the new national security threat was but given that only one political party is now repeatedly being branded as anti-monarchist, it shouldu6n’t be hard for people to draw a conclusion on their own.
Being a communist is being un-American. Being an anti-monarchist, for royalists, is tantamount to being un-Thai. They both are made to be “the other” and unpatriotic.
Second, Trump’s MAGA, or Made America Great Again motto is now being rehashed under the hashtag #MAGA2024. It plays on the nostalgia of the imagined “good old time” when America was unquestionably the sole superpower in the world for a short period after the end of the Cold War. Some may even imagine the era of the New Deal under President Roosevelt or decades later, when a hard working American man doesn’t need a college degree and yet if work hard and honestly could assured himself of a solid middle class life.
Today, we see some middle class Americans falling into debt and poverty, unable to maintain their middle class lifestyle. The underclass meanwhile became increasingly visible. Thousands are on drugs, walking like zombies in broad daylight in parts of cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco.
“Kamala Harris DESTROYED the housing market. President Trump will make home ownership attainable for average Americans once again!” Trump reposted @TeamTrump, the official X account for the Trump campaign, on Aug 29.
Given such a narrative, it’s not a surprise that Trump’s latest New York Times best-seller book is entitled “Save America.”
Likewise, in Thailand, royalists feel the nostalgic for the past before the 1932 revolt which ended absolute monarchy as a preferred version of Thailand and imagined the past to be great, compared to the present where corrupt politicians jockey for power and anti-monarchists try to undermine the monarchy institution and change the country into a republic, or a confederation. Some are even nostalgic for the most recent military rule under coup leader Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, and openly expressed their yearning for another military rule that they believe to be incorrupt and better than the elected government. They yearn for Thailand to be “saved” anew.
Like Trump supporters, Thai ultra-royalists feel their country needs to be saved. Unlike Trump supporters, they do not mind if it is done through yet another military intervention.
And unlike Thailand, you can always seek to assassinate a sitting president or a presidential candidate if you want a regime chance or prevent one from happening, as most recently seen by the two assassination attempts made against Trump.
