The United States of Trump, the New Banana Republic

by John Lundin

‘Bananas’ is an old (1971) Woody Allen movie that can easily be viewed today as a metaphor of Donald Trump’s America. In a reversal of roles, it’s the United States of Trump that has become the new ‘Banana Republic.’

‘Bananas’ is also American slang for crazy, and everything in this film, and arguably in the Trump administration, is crazy. The world — the world as one has come to expect it to be — has been turned upside-down and inside-out. In other words, it’s gone bananas. There’s a ridiculous change of plot every minute, unexpected twists and turns as the hero, the most unlikely New York hero ever, ends up being president. Not president of the USA, in the case of ‘Bananas,’ but president of the fictional South American ‘banana republic’ of San Marcos.

Woody Allen’s character, Fielding Mellish, never had any intention of becoming president — it just happened.

And the unsavory revolutionaries who made it happen manipulate the naïve Mellish in support of their own political and economic gain. And in the end, Woody Allen — or rather Mellish — starts to play the role and enjoy the ride.

Do you get where I’m going with this?

I am an American citizen living in Colombia, what many of my American friends would call a ‘banana republic.’ But from my vantage point, I have seen my America become more of what is meant by a ‘banana republic’ than is today’s Colombia. In the Woody Allen movie, ‘banana republic’ is the punch line of a joke. Today, Donald Trump, and the America I love, is the punch line of the joke.

So what is a ‘banana republic,’ anyway?

In everyday use, ‘banana republic’ typically describes a politically unstable country in Latin America with an economy dependent upon the exportation of a limited-resource product, for example bananas, minerals, etc. Typically, the banana republic has a society made up of unequal social classes, usually a large, poor working class and a much smaller ruling-class plutocracy, composed of the business, political, and military elites of the society. The ruling-class oligarchy controls the primary sector of the economy by way of the exploitation of the labor class. Thus, the term banana republic is a pejorative term for a dictatorship that abets and supports, for kickbacks, the exploitation of large-scale plantation agriculture, especially banana cultivation.

As a result of this kickback and exploitation, corruption tends to be rampant and pervasive.

Take a minute to re-read that last paragraph. It is also a comprehensive description of what is happening within Trump’s America at this moment. Corruption is so pervasive that Donald Trump and his cohorts are not even aware of how corrupt they all are!

Now bananas are not the currency of this corruption in the States, of course. There are other products and services that drive the complex US economy. The principal agricultural commodities include soybeans, wheat and corn. But the number one US export commodity is cars and trucks, followed by heavy machinery, military arms including airplanes and tanks, followed by petroleum, and then all manner of electronics.

Whether the republic’s economy is based on bananas or on a wider variety of commodities, the principle is the same. Those at the top get richer at the expense of the working class, and it is graft and corruption and dishonest and ambitious politicians that pull the levers.

Historically, the United States of America has seen itself as something better. More economic equality, seeking out politicians of character and morality. And idolizing the notion of ‘democracy.’ ‘The Great Experiment,’ it has been called.

Today that experiment is in danger of failing. While Colombia is advancing on the peace front, and its economy is strong, in the United States a corrupt administration with a weak moral compass threatens to undo years of progress. And ultimately what happens in the United States affects the entire world — Colombia most certainly included.

Woody Allen’s movie ‘Bananas’ was a joke, an opportunity to laugh at ourselves and how the world is going bananas. That was in 1971. Today it is all too real in Trump’s America. And it’s no longer a joke.

In the film, Woody Allen’s fictional president Mellish is brought before the court and revealed to be a fraud, an unqualified imposter. He is unceremoniously deposed. He returns to his civilian life in New York, even gets the girl he was courting, and life returns to normal.

I don’t think the ‘ending’ in the States will be quite that predictable. But I do have confidence in the American people, and a great deal of hope that the imposter will be soon be deposed, and the joke will be over.

I am seated in front of my laptop, popcorn in hand, watching as the plot takes new twists and turns — good, bad and ugly — every day. It has become the ultimate ‘reality television show.’

And it’s bananas!



JOHN LUNDIN is a spiritual writer and environmental activist, and the author of The New Mandala — Eastern Wisdom for Western Living, written with the Dala Lama, and Journey to the Heart of the World, written with the indigenous elders of La Serra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia. This article was originally written in español and published in CAYEYE, the arts and entertainment, culture and opinion bi-monthly magazine published in Santa Marta, Colombia.

Lea el original, en español, aquí: https://web.facebook.com/notes/john...