A New World Order

“The old is dying and the new cannot be born.” ~ Antonio Gramsci

Photo by Manuel bonadeo on Unsplash

I must admit I was caught blindsided by Trump’s victory. He proudly displayed all the self-absorbed, inarticulate, chaotic, vengeful, misogynistic, racist, disrespect for the law that would disqualify any other candidate for presidential office. But, I and other Progressives misread the mood of the majority of the American population and how much anger had accumulated.

That was more of a primal scream of anger and insecurity than it was an election.

Dynamics of Change

I wrote after the first Trump victory that this was part of the natural order of change. To build the new, the old must be razed to bare ground. One demolition attempt should have been enough, but we had the Covid epidemic, and economic stagnation transformed into inflation. We can argue about politics endlessly, but the price of milk and gasoline are primal existential motivators.

He may have campaigned previously on "draining the swamp", but reptilian Trump is quite at home in the muck and mire and gleefully stirs the shit to get attention. Some may have trepidation about feelings of anger, but Trump is not so constrained.  A cesspool of anger is his natural habitat, and he is very comfortable there.

Sadly and obviously that is the prevailing mood of a majority of American citizens who voted: "I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!" Get comfortable around anger because now we all swim in a sea of it.

I would contend that the Dems lost because they embraced hope and ignored the tsunami of the fear and anger felt viscerally by a majority of citizens experiencing being left behind and ignored.

“Today, 59 percent of Americans believe that our country is in decline, 69 percent believe that the “political and economic elite don’t care about hard-working people,” 63 percent think experts don’t understand their lives, and 66 percent believe that America “needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful.”

They feel violated and justified in embracing vengeance and Trump is certainly your go-to guy for that.

There has been a lot of analysis and handwringing about what went wrong, but it is best not to overthink it.  The simple fact is many Americans feel left behind and disconnected from the optimism and enthusiasm of the Progressives. Everything is moving way too fast, so let's jam an orange monkey wrench into the gears.

Sane economic and corporate professionals will predict a disaster, but that is a "feature" not a "flaw" in the motivations behind this election.

Foundations of the Fall

Photo by Unseen Histories on Unsplash

I am old enough to remember in the 60’s and 70’s the rise of the concept of the drug-fueled far-left vision of a "Counterculture". President Nixon resigned, the Vietnam War ended, and the ‘revolution’ was put on autopilot. Then the 80's happened, we all acquired mortgages and the momentum waned.

That revolution was fueled by social disruptors like the sexual revolution and the draft of unwilling conscripts for a misunderstood war in an unknown part of the world. There was a lot of frustration and anger expressed, but most Americans did not experience the economic tectonic jolts to follow with the arrival of personal computing and the worldwide web leading to globalization and offshoring of labor to the lowest common denominator.

If the working class is angry, it is probably for good reasons, and everybody is chasing the next shiny tech thing rather than being concerned with their very human plight. Competing with a robot or algorithm is a losing game and they know it.

Class War

Robert Reich agrees that the real lesson of this election is most Americans voted on the economy and their votes aligned with their class and level of education.

“While the economy has improved over the last two years according to standard economic measures, most Americans without college degrees — that’s the majority — have not felt it. 

Most Americans without college degrees have not felt much economic improvement for four decades, and their jobs have grown less secure. The real median wage of the bottom 90 percent is stuck nearly where it was in the early 1990s, even though the economy is more than twice as large. 

Most of the economy’s gains have gone to the top. 

This has caused many Americans to feel frustrated and angry. Trump gave voice to that anger. Harris did not.”

We must become aware and comfortable with righteous anger by fellow human beings. We pay more attention to our screens than to look into the eyes of those being left behind.

They are angry and scared and will support the biggest bully who amplifies their anger and "sticks it to the man."

We now have an ironic shift from a radical left to a radical right. "Peace and love" have been supplanted by "insurgence and deportation."

This has been brewing for decades but American optimism fed our denial counting on “market dynamics” and new technologies to magically solve the problem. Don’t fret, the wealth will obviously “trickle down” and surely there is an “app” you can download to help you be competitive. Trump is only the last in a long line of liars.

Globalized Conflict

If it is any consolation, we are not in this predicament alone. We have unleashed the furies of disruptive technology, and globalization, followed up with a worldwide pandemic paralyzing international supply lines.

In a comprehensive essay in the New York Times, veteran columnist Roger Cohen outlines the long trail leading to the resentment displayed in the U.S. election and the rise of authoritarians globally.

“As the Cold War wound down almost four decades ago, a top adviser to the reformist Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, warned the West that “we are going to do the most terrible thing to you. We are going to deprive you of an enemy.”

In the celebrations of the triumph of Western liberal democracy, of free trade and open societies, few considered how disorienting the end of a binary world of good and evil would be.

But when the spread of democracy in newly freed societies looked more like the spread of divisive global capitalism, when social fracture grew and shared truth died, when hope collapsed in the communities, technology left behind a yearning for the certainties of the providential authoritarian leader set in.”  

“Thomas Bagger, the State Secretary of the German Federal Foreign Office, said that “the shock is more profound because this time the election of Trump is not an accident, but a clear expression of what America is and what it wants.”

“As a nation, we don’t have a way to deal with a world where every country is only looking out for itself,” Mr. Bagger said of Germany. “We nurtured the idea of an international community because it was the only post-Nazi way to think of ourselves. So, where we turn in Trump’s world is unclear.”

While the way forward may be “unclear”, the momentum is decidedly authoritarian.

A New Reality

If any message can be found in this primal scream of an election it is the hope of reconciliation is unrealistic.

Trump promised chaos and destruction and a majority of Americans were not in the mood for the message of inclusion and reconciliation the Democrats offered. The status quo is not working for most of us, we're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Disruption is a feature not a flaw of majority sentiment and it is shared worldwide. 

Currently, politics is not the problem and is best avoided until clarity of the dynamics fueling the divide is determined. "Something is rotten in America" and there is no consensus as to what is dead and decaying. Fear is contagious and we cannot hope to reconcile until we take the time for introspection and self-care before attempting to reach out to the opposition.

Most Americans chose vengeance and despair and that is the current reality.

Gestalt psychologist Fritz Perls observed: "Nothing changes until it becomes what it truly is." The "fog of war" is still too thick for any clarity as to the source of this anger and despair. Arguing politics just adds to the confusion and panic. The façade of elitist politics has been toppled and we are all about to discover what this nation has become and what it truly is.

Clash Of Priorities

I have no definitive answer about the underlying dynamics but what has been billed as a class struggle between the working class and the wealthy tech elites. On the surface, this is probably so, but the real problem is social, not technical.

Technology now is expanding exponentially while our social structure can only move incrementally. Disruptive technology stresses our existing economic and social structures, and that stress is felt personally. No matter what class we inhabit, we all spend more time staring at our screens than we do looking into the eyes and hearts of our family and neighbors. 

And, whenever we get a glimpse of how passive and desperate we subconsciously are, we sense we are simply prey for the predators feeding on us. We are left with a choice between rage and despair. Trump is our ‘rage coach.’ Swing that wrecking ball and damn the consequences.

Revolution Or Evolution

The excitement and exhilaration of revolution and insurrection are addictive. During the Counterculture era, we imagined a total annihilation of the outmoded previous social structure creating a constantly dynamic system in its place. We had a naïve vision of constant revolution – an energizing rage against complacency.

The problem with perpetual revolution is there is little thought or time spent on implementation. The aftermath of the French Revolution was a bloody mess that circled back to becoming an autocratic empire to function. Constant Revolution is exhausting, disruptive, and inhumane. It ignores the mundane tasks of governing and finance and the house of cards eventually collapses.

I would suggest that the current split between the progressive left and conservative right is primarily over the implementation of revolutionary technological changes and a severe lag for our sociology and psychology to adapt at that rate.

Previously I pointed out that Tech Bros tout their “disruptive technologies” without any thought or concern for the human toll of such rapid and ceaseless destruction of economic and social structures. Ironically, the social structures that support rampant revolutionary technological change are counter to the slower, mundane tasks of social welfare and unifying legislation. 

Dilemma of Democracy

Democracy is ill-adapted to the modern frantic rate of change. It is little wonder that tech billionaires are trending right towards authoritarianism. The collective “will of the people” impedes their goals of the tech revolution.

It is they who will dictate what phones we use, the cars we drive, and even the infrastructures to support them.

Revolution inevitably spawns autocracies to sustain them.

Ironically, the American and French Revolutions were conceived to destroy the authoritative aristocracy only to become such again. We are entering a new era of technological aristocracy with a few high-tech ‘Robber Barons’ building wealth and empires that Napoleon could only dream of.

“Hail to the new boss, just like the old boss…” Yes, we will be fooled again.