THE U.S. CONGRESS HAS BECOME A POLITICAL REALITY TV SHOW

The US Congress of 2025 is nothing more than a sorry parody of what it was supposed to represent in the democratic system envisioned by the founding fathers. This transformation of a respected legislative institution into a political reality TV show is perhaps one of the most dramatic transformations in American institutional history. Trump has succeeded in his diabolical gamble: to empty democracy of its substance while preserving its formal appearances.

This spectacular shift reveals the deep flaws of a political system ill-suited to the digital age. American institutions, designed for a pre-media society of the 18th century, are dramatically vulnerable to the manipulations of the digital age. This institutional obsolescence is transforming the world's oldest democracy into a full-scale laboratory for contemporary political pathologies.

The impact of this transformation extends far beyond American borders. By ridiculing parliamentary democracy, Trump offers unexpected arguments to authoritarian regimes around the world. This self-destruction of American democratic exemplarity compromises hopes for global democratization, transforming America into a deterrent rather than a model.

Faced with this shift, democratic resistance forces are struggling to organize. How can we fight a system that absorbs and diverts all criticism into a media spectacle? This absorptive capacity of the spectacular system transforms even its opponents into unwitting actors in the show they denounce.

The future of American democracy—and perhaps even global democracy—is being played out in this battle between substance and spectacle, between authentic democratic debate and demagogic political entertainment. American citizens still have the power to choose between these two paths, but time is running out. Every day that passes in this spectacular drift makes a return to substantive politics more difficult.

This major institutional crisis demands responses commensurate with the challenge: constitutional reform, media regulation, renewed civic education. But all these solutions require political will, a level that the current spectacular system makes nearly impossible. This tragic contradiction may condemn America to endure its drift until the final collapse of its democratic institutions.