Riding the Trump Train to the End of the American Line
The America you knew is not coming back
“It is difficult to find a plausible explanation for the policies of the second Trump administration.” — Margaret MacMillan, Professor Emeritus of International History at Oxford University
Out of a toxic mix of spite, ignorance, and (probably) dementia — it now appears no deeper than that — Donald Trump and his Army of Broken Boys is destroying America.
The depths of this destruction became particularly clear to me after listening to an episode of David Frum’s podcast a couple of weeks ago (transcript here). Before interviewing his guest George Conway, Frum spent some time discussing a question that is really at the core of America’s situation today:
What is the difference between being a fully developed society — a society that can meet the needs of people — and one that isn’t?
Frum comes up with eight features that he feels are necessary for a modern capitalist society to be responsive to the needs of its people. It’s a good list.
- A responsive society must respect people’s rights and liberties.
- Its government must be honest, and be seen as honest.
- It must have a stable currency.
- It must have a predictable tax regime.
- It must invest in growing a healthy and well-educated workforce.
- It must invest heavily in science and technology.
- It musts have a competent, merit-based, and well-trained civil service.
- Finally, it must be able to compete successfully in the global economy.
In the era of American global supremacy that began in the ashes of World War II and is ending in the ashes of Trump 2.0, the United States led the world in developing and maintaining most if not all of these features (its biggest failing: “growing a healthy and well-educated workforce” … that got hijacked with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980).
But now, under Trump 2.0, all that progress is being undone in what can only be described as a blatant and deliberate destruction of every standard and principle the American republic has ever stood for. Thom Hartmann sums it up nicely:
[Trump] is dismantling America’s scientific leadership, destroying our universities and public schools, gutting our social safety net, rigging our future elections, legitimizing corruption for himself and his high-level cronies, building a network of concentration camps across America, and has created a massive federal police force of masked, unaccountable agents with a larger budget than Russia’s entire military. (source)
Interestingly, neither Frum nor Hartmann mentions one other likely effect of Trump 2.0 — interrupting and rolling back America’s efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions, modernize the country’s energy infrastructure, and limit the damage of global warming. But this abandonment of a science-based climate policy in favor of a “drill, baby, drill” fantasy, will only lead to even more devastating results, although the worst effects may not appear until after the perpetrators are long gone. I hope to take this issue up in a later post.
Trump’s American overhaul is not sustainable
“America is moving backward. On the 60th anniversary of Medicare, we’re watching the systematic destruction of the safety net that millions of seniors and families depend on.” (source)
America has entered an era of intellectual, moral, and cultural collapse. Because this collapse is being driven by a war on both truth and reality, any hope that it might result in some kind of rebirth of American greatness is delusional at best. Perhaps the best historical analog to what is happening in the USA today is the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s China between 1966 and 1976. In that sorry episode, just as in America today, the government decided to launch a war on truth and reality. Deploying an army of young radicals, the Red Guards, Mao Zedong’s government unleashed a full-scale assault on science and academia. Universities were shut down, scientists were publicly humiliated, government officials were purged, and experts throughout government were replaced by inexperienced political ideologues. All of this sounds eerily familiar in Trump’s America today:
During the Cultural Revolution, Mao led a sweeping purge of academics, scientists, and government officials deemed politically unreliable or too closely aligned with Western or bourgeois influences, replacing them with ideologically driven loyalists. In a modern parallel, the Trump administration has dismissed climate scientists, environmental regulators, and inspectors general, often replacing them with loyalists who reject mainstream scientific consensus. While the scale and methods differ, both efforts reflect a broader pattern of sidelining expertise in favor of ideological conformity, with lasting consequences for policy and institutional stability. (source)
The long-term impacts of the Cultural Revolution were severe: China’s scientific progress stagnated for years, creating a knowledge gap versus the rest of the world that took decades to close. While the Chinese Communist Party later acknowledged that the Cultural Revolution was “responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the people, the country, and the party since the founding of the People’s Republic” (source), the Trump 2.0 team seems unaware of this historical parallel as it continues to push forward with extorting universities, defunding billions of dollars in scientific research, and firing thousands of government scientists.
The attack on science and expertise is not the only way Trump 2.0 is collapsing America. Revisiting David Frum’s criteria for a well-developed society, we can see this as a violation of #6, “investing heavily in science and technology”. But Trump’s wrecking ball has hardly been confined to this one area. America today is failing to achieve any of Frum’s criteria for a fully-developed society: under Trump, we’re losing our freedoms, our government is deeply corrupt, our currency is tanking, our tax regime is locking in intolerable inequality, we are deliberately undermining the health and education of our citizens, we have declared war on science and expertise, and we are abandoning our position at the “stable center” of the global economy.
America’s cultural revolution is likely to have far more devastating consequences than China’s. Externally, the world will learn to live without the USA at its center. New global leaders will emerge and America will suffer a long-lasting decline not unlike that which Britain has suffered under Brexit, just massively worse. How about internally? How will the American people weather this destruction of their nation?
Americans are already literally sick and tired. They are sick because they can’t afford the decent healthcare the rest of the modern world enjoys. When compared to other OECD countries (the club of rich capitalist nations), US citizens spend about twice as much on healthcare and receive significantly worse outcomes: lower overall life expectancy, more people foregoing treatment due to costs, worse maternal and infant mortality rates, and higher premature death rates. Hospital admissions tell a similar story: compared to other high-income countries, US hospitals admit more than twice as many patients per capita suffering from congestive heart failure and over three times as many suffering from diabetes (source).
There are many reasons for America’s high healthcare costs and poor healthcare outcomes. But at the center of American politics since a very specific year, 1980, has been a concerted effort by the Republican Party to block and/or roll back every effort to provide comprehensive healthcare to American citizens (and/or non-citizen residents) that has been proposed or implemented by Democrats. The success of this effort, and its longterm negative costs, is dramatically captured in this chart from Our World in Data:
Americans are tired because no matter how hard they work, too many of them can’t afford to fund a decent life on wages that have not kept up with the cost of living for decades. The severity of this situation is often hidden in “average” statistics that look quite robust, but only because they ignore how unequally financial resources are distributed within the American public. Today, for example, America’s economy remains largely consumption-driven: nearly 70% of American GDP comes from consumer spending (source). But recently, a greater and greater percentage of that spending has come from the wealthiest Americans. As reported recently in the Washington Post:
“The top 10 percent of earners now drive about half of spending, according to Moody’s, up from 36 percent three decades ago. These people will determine if the U.S. economy avoids a recession. These are households earning $250,000 or more, and they are largely doing just fine, buoyed by strong stock-market gains, mansions and rental properties that have shot up in value in recent years, and a rebound in business dealmaking. The wealthy continue to spend on lavish vacations, parties and events, and that masks the strain that many middle-class and moderate-income families are experiencing.” (emphasis added)
By the way, those “lavish vacations, parties and events” are examples of why the American economy is predominantly a services economy, not a goods economy (80% of American spending is on services, not “stuff”). This means that the US is highly dependent on imports for many of the goods it consumes. That flow of imports is likely to be significantly disrupted by the Trump tariffs (just another reason why Trump’s tariffs are nonsensical and likely to throw the economy into recession and stagflation).
Americans lacking the financial resources of the top 10% of earners are not “doing just fine.” On the contrary, most Americans are living on the financial edge, shackled with debt and barely able to cover their month-to-month living expenses (source, source). Today, the average American household carries $264,000 in mortgage debt, $45,000 in home equity debt, $38,000 in student loan debt, and $7,000 in credit card debt (source). In addition, every American risks suffering from the Trump Administration’s planned evisceration of Medicaid and Medicare. Medical debt is a uniquely American phenomenon that will only get catastrophically worse should Trump 2.0 succeed in its cutbacks:
In the United States, 62% of personal bankruptcies are attributed to medical debt. 56 million Americans struggle with medical debt each year, and these aren’t poor people: two-thirds were homeowners, 60% were college graduates, and some had private insurance but still faced an average of $17,749 per family in out-of-pocket costs.
In 2022, one in six adults with healthcare debt either went bankrupt or lost their homes because of it. Medical bills drive about 550,000 Americans into bankruptcy every year. (source)
As America becomes more unequal, as the haves continue to “do well” and the have-nots continue to see their costs rise, their incomes stagnate, their jobs disappear, their savings evaporate, and their communities turn into ICE occupation zones, Donald Trump is executing his racist war on working class and middle class Americans.
I believe most observers seriously underestimate how fragile the American economy is, and how easily it can be tipped into recession and possibly depression as Trump 2.0 continues to roll out its draconian and destructive policies.
One likely source of America’s collapse should be highlighted: the failure of American public education. How could Americans be stupid enough to elect Donald Trump to the Presidency … twice? According to a 2020 study by the (soon to be de-funded) U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16–74 years old — that is, about 130 million people — lacked proficiency in literacy, and were unable to read above a sixth-grade level (source). Lacking the cognitive tools necessary to discriminate between truth and lies, these Americans remain susceptible to false promises of skilled con artists like Donald Trump (source).
Why America is facing economic collapse
The American economy is rigged. It has been rigged for decades, as Republican administrations have successfully transferred more and more of the country’s wealth to their morbidly rich benefactors (source, source), while Democratic Administrations have failed time and again to do anything meaningful to reverse the flow.
What happens when this is how your government functions? In 1995, the minimum wage was $4.75/hour (source). In that year, there were approximately 365 billionaires worldwide, together holding approximately $892 billion in assets (source). By 2023 (only twenty-eight years later), the minimum wage was still a measly $7.25/hour. But there were now approximately 2,544 billionaires in the world, holding a total of $12 trillion in assets (source).
So … while the minimum wage increased by about 50% during this twenty-eight year period (keeping in mind that a family trying to live on this wage in 2023 would be classified as living in extreme poverty), the number of billionaires increased by 600% and their collective wealth increased by around 1,250%. This is not simply increasing inequality, this is exploding inequality. Something is fundamentally broken in any economy that produces results like this.
Which reminds me of an old saying from my organizational change management days:
Every organization is uniquely designed to produce the results it produces
What we have witnessed over just the last decade is an economic regime designed (maybe deliberately, maybe inadvertently, maybe a bit of both) to implement a massive transfer of wealth from millions of workers to a few thousand individuals who would in all likelihood be unable to say how that additional income would materially improve their already opulent lives.
Thanks to the masterclass in propaganda delivered by the Republican Party and its rightwing media partners, many Americans’ attention has been diverted from this rising level of inequality, now greater than at any time since the Roaring Twenties (source). Instead, attention has been directed toward convenient scapegoats to blame for the country’s increasingly unequal economic outcomes: immigrants, government conspiracies, and “the Far Left” (source). Under Trump 2.0, this exercise in distraction now operates with the full force of the federal government behind it. But even so, it will not be enough to divert attention from what is going to happen next.
Unfortunately for our new overlords, immigrants, government conspiracies, and the Far Left are not responsible for America’s economic woes, so these efforts at distraction will ultimately fail as the economy continues to deteriorate. The destruction of the American economy will be brought about by one source, the unhinged policies of the Trump 2.0 Administration: the tariffs, the deportations, the gutting of government services, the armies of anonymous ICE thugs (and their Marine escorts) disrupting our cities and towns, the removal of even partial healthcare security for millions of Americans. And every American will see it happening in real time. It will be lived experience, not false beliefs about imaginary enemies, that will end the American Century (source) as well as the Trump 2.0 regime.
On the domestic front — it’s beginning to smell a lot like stagflation
Donald Trump is a sociopath and malignant narcissist , probably also a sadist, who displays increasing signs of dementia. He has no interest in anything that does not further his three conscious life goals: personal wealth, constant attention, and sycophantic flattery. These conscious goals mask his one unconscious driving motivation: to protect himself from humiliation and exposure as the fraud and imposter he knows he is. This psychiatric diagnosis of Trump is necessary because it is impossible to explain his obsession with tariffs in any other context.
Tariffs for Trump have nothing to do with trade, he sees them as a weapon to bully and dominate other nations (source).
Somebody once told Trump a fairy tale about how tariffs were wildly successful under William McKinley. The key to the story was that America was wealthier than it had ever been, thanks to a draconian tariff regime. This story, totally devoid of historical accuracy or context, provided the pretext for Trump to embrace tariffs as central to his agenda and, more importantly, as central to his identity. As he announced on the day of his second inauguration:
I always say tariffs is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary … because tariffs are going to make us rich as hell. It’s going to bring our country’s businesses back that left us. (source)
The following observation, I believe, is correct:
Trump’s affinity for tariffs is not the act of a man doing a favor for business interests. It is the act of a guy who has a weird idea in his head and has clung to that idea for decades because he believes he is the smartest man in the world. (source)
Given Trump’s inability to acknowledge error or admit ignorance, he could not have been pleased when economists patiently explained in op ed after op ed that his understanding of tariffs was deeply flawed and would lead to disastrous economic consequences. Because a narcissist cannot tolerate criticism, those warnings only hardened his determination to prove he was right. And so, as the first six months of the Trump 2.0 Administration rolled out in a fog of chaos and criminality, the world witnessed a series of on-again, off-again tariffs and “deals” that seemed to be announced one day and paused the next, only to be reannounced a few days later at a different rate, then paused again. Today, Trump’s tariff regime seems to have settled in at an average rate of 18.3% (as of August 5), up from an average of 2.4% before Trump took office (source). America’s tariffs are now at their highest levels since 1934, when the country was in the depths of the Great Depression.
The torturous pathway of Trump’s “trail of tariffs” is a frightening thing to behold, as illustrated in the timeline below created by economist Joseph Politano. As this timeline makes clear, the only consistency in Trump’s tariff regime is its consistent lack of consistency.
The domestic economic consequences of Trump’s tariff regime are already being felt. Tariffs are necessarily inflationary because they ultimately result in raising prices that consumers and businesses must pay for imported goods. As every economist who has not sold his soul to Donald Trump acknowledges, tariffs are a tax on consumers (source). And they tend to inflict a much heavier burden on lower-income consumers who, as noted above, are already living close to the financial edge, deep in debt, unable to afford luxuries or medical emergencies, and anxious about the stability of their jobs and the viability of the companies where they work.
The Trump 2.0 team is aware that these costs are coming (source), but seems to believe that American consumers will be able to absorb them without disrupting the overall economy. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t seem to be what is happening.
The real killer of consumer-driven economies is not inflation per se, but stagflation, a toxic mix of rising prices and high unemployment. Stagflation was a major problem throughout the 1970s in America, but has been “tamed” more recently, as later bouts of inflation have been brought under control by traditional monetary interventions, i.e., raising interest rates. Economists who have studied this shift believe it to be a function of expectations: specifically, the inflation of the 70s became “entrenched” because businesses didn’t expect inflation to be brought under control anytime soon, so to remain profitable they continued to raise prices even as the economy was deteriorating, creating the stagflation of that era. More recently, thanks to a sustained period of low inflation and low interest rates, businesses have come to expect the government (that is, the independent Federal Reserve) to bring inflation back down relatively quickly, so they have not raised prices in anticipation of future business losses. As a result, stagflation has been avoided and incremental growth has continued, largely uninterrupted. At least that’s the prevailing theory, and it would seem to have worked in achieving the inflationary “soft landing” experienced during Joe Biden’s presidency. (source, source)
But these expectations are now shifting again as businesses attempt to adjust to the latest tariffs and other destructive policies imposed by the Trump 2.0 Administration. The problem for businesses, both domestic and foreign, is that the United States has become unstable and unpredictable. It has turned both the cost and the flow of goods into the United States into a guessing game in which every business decision must depend on a “negotiation” with an essentially irrational and untrustworthy tyrant who is driven by autocratic ambitions that have nothing to do with trade. What “TACO” Trump gives today, he takes away tomorrow, then offers again the next day. And the day after that, who knows? This is intolerable for a world economy that has for decades relied on long-term planning to build and maintain vastly complex supply chains that deliver goods and services around the world. Trump 2.0 is throwing that system into chaos.
Domestically, inflation is already heating up, as predicted by everyone not a member of the Trump Administration or the Republican Party. Because businesses saw the Trump tariffs coming, they ramped up inventories at pre-tariff prices, but those inventories are now running down and the latest tariff rates are looking like they are “here to stay”. Indications that domestic prices are on the rise are starting to show up in wholesale price indices, as importers begin to absorb tariff fees as part of their costs (source). These price increases are starting to reach retail shelves right now, directly impacting that 70% of the American economy that depends on consumer spending.
Simultaneously, the American economy is starting to contract. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported significant drops in job growth in July, along with revisions downward of its job growth estimates for May and June (source), nobody outside the Administration was surprised. But for Donald Trump, this indication that his economic policies were failing (exactly as predicted) was intolerable. His immediate reaction was to declare the data “rigged”. His solution? Fire the head of the BLS and replace her with a Trump loyalist.
Of course, Trump’s response was right out of the petty-tyrant playbook: “If you don’t like data that accurately reflects your failing policies, go out an make up your own.” This willingness to falsify data to cover up a failing economy may well be the final nail in economic coffin Trump 2.0 is building for America. This is what third-world banana republics do. It is certainly not what global leaders do.
As the American economy slows down under the weight of Trump 2.0 policies (source, source), there is no indication that any efforts will be made to reverse course. As a consequence, we can expect the fundamentals to continue to deteriorate, economic growth to continue to contract, and the economy to slip into a new era of stagflation in which both prices and unemployment will continue to rise with stubborn persistence.
Because price increases become “entrenched” in business planning and decision making during periods of stagflation, the resulting inflation cannot be “tamed” simply by increasing interest rates. That only works for “normal” inflation caused by demand exceeding supply in an overheated economy. Under stagflation, increasing interest rates only makes things worse: the cost of capital goes up, businesses cannot afford to invest and grow, and both unemployment and business failures rise.
In a stagflation economy, there is only one solution to rising prices: price controls. The last time we saw price controls in the United States was in the early 1970s under Richard Nixon. Unfortunately, they did not end the inflation that had been plaguing the economy since Lyndon Johnson began his military buildup in Southeast Asia in 1965. Instead, they backfired rather spectacularly.
What the administration failed to appreciate was that the Great Inflation of 1973–1974 was not a function of excess demand; it resulted from supply shocks in the food and energy sectors — shocks that sopped up money in much the same way a tax increase or monetary contraction might have. In effect, supply shocks could create inflation and unemployment — or, in the common parlance of the day, “stagflation.” (source)
So here we are again, facing supply-driven inflation rather than demand-driven inflation and probably facing another round of price controls, once the Trump 2.0 team realizes that “Tariff Man” is, indeed, an idiot. America’s economic collapse under Trump 2.0 is picking up steam. The real pain is on order, yet to arrive, but we can see it on the horizon. In a nutshell:
Tariffs beget price controls. Price controls beget unemployment. Inflation surges, the economy slows, and demand shrinks, usually dramatically. Autocrats cook the books to try and hide it all. Markets stop functioning, and crashes and crises erupt. (source)
Under Trump 2.0, America is heading toward Involuntary Degrowth. For an overview of how this might play out, I’ve offered a couple of scenarios, e.g., here, here and here.
On the international front — surrendering global leadership by destroying faith in the dollar
There is a great irony in our current moment. For decades, the United States has held a privileged position at the apex of the global order — economically, politically, and militarily. In large part, this “exorbitant privilege” (as the French Foreign Minister called it in the 1960s) has derived from the fact that the American dollar is the world’s primary reserve currency. This unique position of the dollar in the international economy has afforded the United States some unique advantages (source). Because a reserve currency is by definition in high demand, it enables the US to borrow money at lower interest rates than would otherwise be the case. Other countries have tolerated this American advantage because it has also benefited them. The United States has long been seen as a “safe haven” for foreign investment, essentially shielding investors from currency crises that might erupt in other countries. In turn, the United States has enjoyed additional benefits: greater trade flexibility, the ability to run huge trade deficits without suffering a balance of payments crisis (because its imports are purchased with its own currency), and increased geopolitical leverage (i.e., the ability to threaten and punish other nations). (source)
Here’s the irony. America’s “safe haven” status was always based on three underlying conditions:
- America operated the world’s largest economy, with an 80-year track record of relative political stability and steady economic growth.
- The American economy operated under predictable rules and laws.
- The American economy was overseen by serious people with serious knowledge and experience.
But in November 2024, voters chose to hand the government over to a deluded and unstable President who understood none of this. He has now surrounded himself with a team of unqualified propagandists who also understand none of this. Together, under a false belief that this highly beneficial system somehow disadvantages the US, they are enthusiastically destroying every foundation upon which it rests (source). America is no longer a serious nation.
The chart below is a slightly updated version of a chart I first saw in a post by Paul Krugman. One of the “exorbitant privileges” enjoyed by the US has been a close relationship between American interest rates (e.g., Treasury bond yields) and the international value of the dollar. Historically, when interest rates rose, so did the exchange rate for the dollar, because higher yields on T-bills attracted more foreign investment, thus strengthening the dollar. But since the world has gotten a taste of what Trump 2.0 is cooking, that relationship has flipped. Today, we’re seeing rising interest rates and a falling US dollar.
Why is this significant?
The sinking dollar will reduce families’ purchasing power. Rising interest rates will dampen business investment, depress corporate earnings, inhibit the ability of Washington to engage in stimulus spending, and make it harder for Americans to purchase cars and homes. Meanwhile, the United States might become weaker in international negotiations, and less capable of sanctioning terrorists and drug cartels. (source)
A strong dollar makes imported goods cheaper for American consumers, but also makes American exports more expensive for foreigners. This is one reason why America consistently runs a high balance of payments deficit: prior to Trump 2.0, the world was essentially willing to fund America’s deficit spending by purchasing American dollars. Why? Because even as the United States assumed more and more debt, the world always believed it would never default on its obligations. But now Trump 2.0 is sending strong signals, both intentionally and unintentionally, that this belief may no longer be valid.
What do foreign investors see when they look at America today?
The markets are not just pricing in the diminished outlook for American and global growth. They are pricing in the fact that the United States seems like less of a haven than it did three months ago. Trump is bullying the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and threatening to fire [its Chairman, Jerome] Powell, though he has since backed away from the threat. At the same time, the White House is ignoring the courts, impairing federal agencies, impounding congressionally authorized spending, and perhaps violating due process. It is antagonizing the country’s allies and imperiling the freedom and fairness of American elections.
Runaway inflation seems more likely than it did before Trump was in office, as does the government defaulting on its debt payments. The policy-making process is in chaos. (source)
The bottom line: the shambolic chaos of Donald Trump’s program to overthrow American democracy is destroying America’s status as a safe haven for foreign investment. It is ending the era of “dollar dominance” in the global economy. The consequences of this are likely to be catastrophic for the American people, but might actually be beneficial for the rest of the world (source).
The world moves on, America falls behind
The world is beginning to recognize three undeniable facts:
- The United States government is now in the hands of a madman.
- This madman was intentionally chosen by 77 million American voters who failed to see that he was, in fact, a madman.
- If American voters could do something this stupid and irresponsible once, they could do it again.
The world is drawing the only conclusion it can from these facts: America can no longer be trusted, as an ally, as a trading partner, as a defender.
Compare this new reality with the three “fundamentals” underlying America’s role as a “safe haven” for foreign investment. Political stability is gone. The rule of law is gone. All the serious people are gone. Essentially, the American nation that led the world for 80 years is gone.
What will the rest of the world do now?
Several reactions are already becoming clear. And they will accelerate as the United States continues its decline into economic stagnation and international irrelevance.
First, the world will begin to look elsewhere for reliable trading partners
As the U.S. continues to pursue a more transactional and protectionist foreign policy in pursuit of its specific national security and strategic goals, the EU is likely to assert its strategic autonomy by rebalancing economic and political ties with other major powers. It can thereby seek to position itself as a central player in the rapidly evolving global order.
China is also likely to play a more important role in partnering with the EU to address global challenges such as climate change, security and multilateralism.
China’s BRI [Belt and Road Initiative] could increasingly be seen by the EU as a way to connect Europe with not only China but also Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In this context, there may be prospects for the EU to align its own infrastructure investments with China’s BRI. This may be particularly so in Central Asia and Eastern Europe — regions seen as key priorities for EU involvement. (source)
Second, the world will begin to look beyond the US dollar for safer global reserve and trading currencies
“Most Americans don’t realize what is going on or why the world buys treasury bonds and our debt. They do so because it is safe and they can trust us. But that is coming to an end. How can anyone trust a country that is allowing a madman to intentionally crash an economy, kidnap people at will, and send them to a gulag in El Salvador? Ultimately, how can anyone trust a country that elects convicted criminals for the presidency?” (source)
Third, the world will begin to look elsewhere for clean energy alternatives to America’s fossil fuels
“The country that electrifies most rapidly and builds the most renewables to power its electrified economy will be the most competitive economy globally.” (source)
… the world will power away from America, energized by solar- and wind-generated electricity, driving electric cars, breathing cleaner air and gaining the benefits of decarbonization. The USA will decline. Its emissions will sink because Americans won’t be able to afford to travel. Wind and solar will continue to displace coal and gas simply because they are cheaper and have proven fully reliable, something even Texas understands. The already slow pace of US decarbonization will slow further. (source)
Fourth, the world will begin to look elsewhere for security and intelligence partnerships
Trump’s behavior has added momentum to intelligence being part of Europe’s push for strategic autonomy and reducing reliance on the U.S. This spring’s suspension of battlefield information — crucial for Ukrainian soldiers — was the final push many in Europe’s services needed to begin to shed decades of siloed thinking and start working toward joint intelligence that not only informs national governments but feeds directly into policy debates in Brussels. (source)
Any one of these developments could end America’s exorbitant privilege as the indispensable player at the center of the global economy. Should all four come to pass, it will leave the United States isolated and weak, deep in recession if not depression, looking more like a politically-unstable third-world country than the leader of the “free world” it used to be.
What about democracy in America?
I was expecting one more element in David Frum’s list of features of a fully-developed society: a truly representative, democratic form of government. Its absence raises some interesting questions.
Could a fully-developed society exist in the absence of democracy? Frum’s list implies — by omission — that it could. Indeed, we could imagine a benevolent dictator implementing all these features of a responsive society without any semblance of democracy anywhere in the governing structure. Some commentators have pointed to Singapore under the essentially-dictatorial rule of Lee Kuan Yew as a positive example. Lee served as Prime Minister of Singapore for 31 years and is credited with leading that small nation from third-world poverty to first-world prosperity. But Lee’s views on democracy were far from positive:
So when people say, ‘Oh, ask the people!’ It’s childish rubbish. We are leaders. We know the consequences. You mean that ice-water man knows the consequences of his vote? They say people can think for themselves? Do you honestly believe that the chap who can’t pass primary six knows the consequences of his choice when he answers a question viscerally on language, culture and religion? — Lee Kuan Yew, 1998. (quoted in source)
The problem with benevolent dictators, of course, is that they don’t tend to stay benevolent for long. Lee was an exception in this regard as well. He voluntarily relinquished his role as Prime Minister in 1990, although he remained in influential advisory roles until 2011. For Americans who still remember our 240+ years as a democratic republic, these anti-democratic views are abhorrent. Yet, they force us to face a disturbing question:
If a people are unable to demonstrate the cognitive capacity to know and defend their own rights and interests, can they be trusted to elect representatives who will faithfully defend those rights and serve those interests?
What we are seeing today — first in Republican-led Red States and now in the Federal Government writ large — is undeniable evidence that the large and influential “MAGA” segment of the voting population (which, incidentally, makes up only about 15% of the total adult population of the country) no longer qualifies as a functioning democratic populace: it neither understands nor believes in the concept of democracy.
This corruption of the American public can be laid directly at the feet of the Republican Party, which has spent decades keeping its voters as ignorant, angry, and uninformed as possible (source). What the Party failed to realize was that this strategy of denigrating both truth and trust in government would leave its constituency highly vulnerable to the siren song of a true demagogue, Donald Trump, who easily won over the Party’s voters in 2015 and has held them closely ever since … at least until his too-clever-by-half efforts to exploit the adventures of his child-raping buddy Jeffrey Epstein blew up in his face in July 2025. Whether this will act as some kind of wake-up call for his deluded cult members remains to be seen.
Donald Trump and his fascist regime will not be the end of the story. There will be a post-Trump America. It will be a shadow of the America that led a western alliance through 80 years of relative peace and prosperity since the end of World War II. Trump is making sure of that. It will be a humiliated and weakened America, a nation forced to face the very real consequences of its suicidal dive into cultural, economic, political, and environmental collapse. Again, Trump is making sure of that.
As America inevitably attempts to recover and rebuild what Trump 2.0 has destroyed, it will be facing an angry and fractured populace, including a relatively large contingent of “MAGA losers” who will in many ways resemble the population of defeated Southerners the Union faced in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Will America require a new era of Reconstruction, one hopefully more successful than the first (source)? Can the MAGA base be rehabilitated? Can America’s long love affair with white supremacy be reversed? Can Americans be convinced to reject the anti-democracy policies and practices of the Republican Party? Can America’s media landscape be reformed to end the promotion of deliberate lies and conspiracies as “news”?
If recovering America’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law requires a positive response to all those questions, a return to democracy in America is going to require much more than a few election victories. Can we rebuild a better America on the ruins of Trump 2.0? Can we “learn our lesson” and build an American society that is more humble, more civil, more sustainable, more tolerant, more equal, and more democratic? Or will we simply swap out this dictator for the next one, perhaps a more benevolent version, but more likely a smarter and even more diabolical one?
Let’s just say the jury is still out.
