The world has spent the past four years obsessing over President Donald Trump: his biography, his ideology, his speech, his tweets, his moods, his health, his hair. But what did the Trump era teach us about ourselves, and the country he was elected to lead?
Trump’s presidency has been a four-year war on many people’s assumptions about what was and wasn’t “American”—what a leader can call people in public, which institutions really matter, whether power lies with elites or masses. And it has forced serious arguments about what information, and what version of our history, we can even agree on.
With four years of Trump nearly behind us, Politico Magazine asked a group of smart political and cultural observers to tell us what big, new insight this era has given them about America—and what that insight means for the country’s future.
Many were alarmed to discover that our political institutions and norms are more fragile than they thought. Others pointed out the blind spots that members of the political and cultural elite have for the deep sense of […]
Clearly the U.S. of A. is really rather unexceptional when compared to other large empires of times past. Yes democracy was established for some while native peoples were exterminated and black people enslaved. A huge economy was built on exploitation of abundant natural and human resources by a culture that valued material wealth over everything else.
So now in our enlightened modern times when never before have so many had so much we have a national/cultural poverty that even easy credit will not fix. I despise the cruelty, stupidity and greed represented by himself but when marking my ballot in 2016 I almost ticked one for him but finally did not. He is not wrong about the deep state or as I think of it the national security state or about the swamp of oligarchy that infiltrates governance at all levels. Maybe it takes a pathological narcissist to illuminate that behavior in our national character so we can ask the deep questions that bring enduring life affirming change.
I agree, Will. The Democratic Socialism of Bernie Sanders looks a lot better than the Oligarchic Fascism of Trump, with it’s top-down capitalism as a method of running a “Democracy”.
Well said Stephen! There’s plenty of things quickly changing now. There’s so much more to come soon. I’m making a discipline out of putting my ten-cents to use in the most life-affirming way. Every day. Have a nice one!