This summer, Patricia and I went for a walk. She needed some fresh air. She's 94, and has lived in the same little house for over 60 years, located in western Detroit, Michigan. She has lost her short-term memory, the details of the last few days and hours, but not those of her life. On that day, the easiest thing to do was to visit the grounds of Fair Lane, American industrialist Henry Ford's former estate. The vast mansion, on the banks of the River Rouge, surrounded by parkland, has been open to the public for many years – like a local Versailles Palace.

With fatigue rapidly setting in, we needed to find a bench. The nearest one was in the rose garden, and was easy to spot, due to the life-size bronze statue of Ford and his wife Clara, contemplating their roses, which sat on the right-hand side. Patricia stiffened. A meter away from the bench, she looked coldly at the pair of statues and said: "They hated us." Us? "The people of Detroit. The ones who worked in their factories." She didn't move. She needed to sit, but didn't want to be near them, just as they would never have wanted to be next to her.

Today, Patricia doesn't know that Donald Trump has been re-elected as President of the United States. She had already forgotten. Yet, all of a sudden, her memory seemed to be the most solid of all. Stronger than those of the countless workers in Michigan, in neighboring states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, who believed that Trump cared about their fate. Stronger than the memories of Missouri voters who, while voting for the billionaire Republican candidate, demanded, through a local referendum, an increase in the minimum wage that was only in the Democratic platform. Stronger, too, than Kamala Harris' memory had been, when, at her final rally, she called Trump an anomaly: "That's not us," stated the Democratic candidate – and yet, it is.

A country obsessed with conquest

Trump is not an anomaly amid the American landscape. In fact, he's a pure product of it. He didn't invent anything, unlike Ford or Steve Jobs, but he made his fortune in the golden towers of real estate and television in the 1980s, and that, alone, is enough to embody success. Success, which drives this country obsessed with conquest. Success, which was the dream shared by gold diggers and all those who came in search of prosperity. Success, which allows the wealthiest individuals to have their names engraved in capital letters in every museum hall, as well as on the facades of hospitals. Success, which finances and contrains democracy under the weight of millions of dollars. Success, again and again, which drips from the huge billboards lining the highways, where super-powered lawyers promise to crush your opponents, whoever they may be.

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