Clashes of images: Trump vs Biden

This narrative must be reasonable but not necessarily rational-it should make people believe what they are watching is real, with an enduring cinematic effect that any movie can create. At some point, the movie must be so emotionally charged that we may express sorrow, delight, anger, or hate. All these emotional responses can be carefully aroused, released, and guided to increase the credibility of the illusion.

If this movie is a psychological thriller, more suspenseful plots are needed to keep the viewers riveted and emotionally intensified by powerful anxiety, apprehension, adventures, and ecstasies.

What the Biden era has shown us sufficiently is that political leadership can be just a face, not a strategic mind, not great statesmanship, not a strategic vision. Moreover, the image of this face is not necessarily fixed-it can be manipulated, multiplied, and changed, adjusting any movie script accordingly. In that case, these technocrats can produce many Bidens if people need leaders. A political leader's face and mind no longer mirror each other-a face can be the face of anybody as a mask that anybody can wear.

We are in the midst of a political-psychological thriller: the 2024 US election. The image of Biden, by all measures, is a depressing one. It raises the question of whether this image is a tragic symbol of a nation in deep trouble, an indication of the humiliating decline of the greatest nation that humanity has ever seen, a part of predictive programming to show the slow death of nationhood, or a deep strategy to trivialize and mock national politics and leaders. Only time will reveal the truth. However, this depression has the potential to silently depress more people and dampen their passion for meaningful political participation and their hope for social changes in the long run.

And this is the real tragedy.

In the case of Trump, this political thriller took a radical turn to show the world how a democratic election process was instantly brutally sabotaged and how this election was so crucial to the survival of this very democracy. Sadly, it re-traumatises this nation, which has not fully recovered emotionally from the tragic memories of her beloved son, President John F. Kennedy.

Moreover, the danger to Trump's life is far from over. What if whoever is behind this assassination gets more desperate to stop the radical boost to, and moral support for, Trump's popularity, idealisation, and even idolisation among many Republican voters and beyond. Sometimes, desperation begets madness, and madness works toward the political apocalypse.

Trump's defiance may trigger something more sinister and destructive as a response to stop him from being elected as the next US President at all costs, including either dividing the US into two separate states, run by Democrats and Republicans independently, a bloody civil war, or something unimaginably evil.

If Trump wins, he may focus on political revenge and retribution, as he has often alluded to, instead of revitalising public trust to work on national unity and reconciliation. This reconciliation may also be complicated as many Democrats are more frantically determined to fight against Trumpism and Trump's expected attempt at a national reconciliation goal.

Consequently, the political landscape will turn messier. Infighting will be crueller and more devastating, and the viewers will be more divided and antagonistic toward each other. The political thriller's most crucial aspect could become so ominous that Trump might be the last president to be taken seriously in a country ruined by its illusions.

The US is at its most critical stage, and so is the rest of the world.