While we are struggling to decode the true nature of the Donald Trump-dictated trade deal, the US president himself was busy over the weekend in writing a new chapter in political debasement. He was describing one his predecessors, Barack Obama, and his wife as apes. Never has an American president so diminished his office so tastelessly as has Trump. Faced with an adverse public reaction, the offending video clip was withdrawn and blamed on a White House staffer. The staffer, of course, was fully soaked in the fashionable animus and bad manners that are now the Trump White House signature tune. The anti-Obamas clip was no aberration. The Trump cheerleaders are cheerfully intoxicated in home-brewed hatred. They constantly need ‘enemy’ targets to go after. It is corrosive fun. Far away from Washington, a chief minister in Assam seems to be totally preoccupied in finding new and innovative ways to instigate hatred and animosity against the “Miyas.” He remains un-rebuked by his own party leadership just as he feels himself unrestrained by considerations of constitutional morality and responsibility; he seems pretty sure that the apex court will not be able to slow him down in his politics of toxic polarisation. It is a troubling thought that inventing enemies and channelizing hatred towards the invented individuals or myths or historical wrongs is becoming a requisite for gaining and then holding on to power. A system may be a formal democracy or a one-party authoritarian arrangement or a totalitarian regime, the “Leader” has to have a catalogue of “enemies” against whom hate and animus must be directed. The “stronger” the leader, the greater his need to have “enemies” whose elimination becomes a national priority.Of course, we in India have been practicing this black magic for some time now; in fact, our ruling elites have their own version of “invent the enemy” game. Once there is an identifiable “enemy” it is easy to invoke facile nationalism and arouse the populace, infuse it with anger and animus towards the designated adversary of the week or month, as per the ruling elites’ political or electoral requirements.The irony is we play this game righteously. Our commentariat and strategic experts are fond of accusing political classes in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal of resorting to cheap tactics of “anti-Indianism.” National sensitivities in our neighborhood are dismissed as ploys put in play by failing and faltering elites to distract their masses from the rulers’ incompetence and corruption. We, for example, arrogate to ourselves a right to preach to Bangladesh how to treat its minorities, without ever countenancing any reciprocity on Dhaka’s part. On the other hand, the “Miya” rhetoric of a Himanta Biswa Sarma or the “ghuspaithias” accusation by the Union home minister is seen as deplorable but excusable because both Assam and West Bengal are scheduled to have assembly elections in a few months. We seem to have self-servingly convinced ourselves that these rhetorical excesses are a necessary part of ‘democracy’ and its messy aberrations.We keep revising our blue-book of ‘enemies’ in all walks of life; most particularly in cricket, the only game we as a nation seem to have reached global standards of excellence. Over the next few weeks, we shall be in a season of cricket frenzy; on and off the field, we invoke our national honour/pride/anger/outrage to dispense with the cricket protocols. We shall not shake hands with the Pakistani players and the Indian captain will dedicate the victory over Pakistan to “Operation Sindoor.” We all feel entitled to this politicisation of the game. Then, we will officially ask an IPL team to defrock a Bangladeshi cricketer because of the presumed anger in West Bengal over violence against this or that Hindu establishment in Bangladesh. If the Bangladeshis feel snubbed, it is just too bad, but Bangladesh will not be granted any tit-for-tat nor will we allow Dhaka’s request to shift its games out of India. And, we pretend to be baffled that Pakistan has decided to forfeit its match against India, thus depriving us of the vicarious pleasure of scoring one more victory over Field Marshal Munir’s boys. It should be obvious that beyond the orgy of indignations in the sub-continent over these ‘cricket’ posturing, our ruling establishment is rather good at stoking the fires of tribalism. This tribal instinct is best decoded by Professor Amy Chua of the Yale Law School in her influential work, Political Tribes – Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations. As she tells it, the “tribal instinct is not just an instinct to belong. It is also an instinct to exclude.” And, she adds, “Some tribes are sources of joy and salvation; some are the hideous product of hate mongering by opportunistic power seekers.”Of course, some of our demagogues could tell her that they have been finessing this game for some time now; nobility of nationalism has been diminished by cynical politicians’ willingness to instigate hatred against designated “enemies.” Having acquired a taste for directing hatred towards national “enemies” it was only a matter of time that those skills and habits in demonology were steered towards internal rivals, who are then coloured and denounced as “proxy” for this or that enemy. The Assam chief minister is emerging as the deadliest player of this game. There is nothing to distinguish our rulers from those in Pakistan or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka as practitioners of political tribalism. These rulers reinforce each other as they seek to consolidate themselves in power. We may pat ourselves on the back that we are gloriously on the path of a Viksit Bharat, but we have hopelessly become addicted to rites of debasement. Just as Donald Trump is irrevocably diminishing American democracy on a weekly basis, our ruling coterie is bent on pushing us into political incivility. The institutional depth and three centuries of democratic resilience may enable the United States to see Donald Trump out of power in a couple of years; but we do not have that kind of systematic elbow room to flirt with wilful lowering of standards and taste. Donald Trump cannot be our national role model.Harish Khare is a former editor-in-chief of The Tribune.