Scholars and ‘nagging tells of truth’ with (of course an ideological slant and mostly in its own mind), like The Economist Magazine (no fan of US President Donald Trump) are yet to settle the debate on the ‘constitutional crisis in the US - after Trump assumed presidency.
They aver that while Trumpian ‘disruption’ and ‘chaos’ is ‘throwing a spanner into the works of convention and norms' but the American Constitution has not been transgressed (yet). The Economist cites Theodore Roosevelt and the Nixon presidencies as the closest analogue - in a different, permutation, context, aims and premises-to the Trumpian presidency.
While I am not going into what The Economist is implying, but what I concur with is the fact that the US decidedly and definitely needed vigorous course correction. (Donald Trump is providing that in dollops). I base my assessment on ‘lived experience’ (albeit very brief) in the US overlaid by brief references to the country’s omissions post the end of the Cold War.
History's Defining Moment
I will begin with the latter.
That the end of the Cold War did not constitute, ’The End of History’ is a hackneyed statement of truth. Even though it was a world historical moment and a foundational moment in world politics and international relations (but from a historical perspective only an event in a cyclical idiom).
Scribblers amplified it into a ‘history determining’ moment that basically ended history. This would have amounted to idle speculation in the ivory towers of the academy were it not for support that this thesis got from the American establishment and sections of the media.
The grossly amplified thesis accorded philosophical elan and thesis by kind of twisting the great German, George Hegel and his dialectic had momentous consequences. The reference is not to merely to George Bush’s, ’New World Order’, the First Gulf War, ‘the shock therapy’ to be given to Russia (the author of this vulgar coinage appears to be contrite now) and so on.
Globalization devolving into Globalism
Wedded to the End of History thesis was the paradigm of neo-liberal globalization that devolved into globalism – paradigms that elevated markets to oracular status (emblematized by the Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan), the end of the state and sovereignty or more charitably, both (sovereignty and the state) as mere adjuncts to markets (ideas and themes propounded vulgarly - but ably - by the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman).
When allied to what the late Henry Kissinger has referred to as the paradoxical oscillation in the American foreign policy tradition – between ‘realism’ and idealism (promotion of ‘American values’ abroad), these ideas and themes induces a veritable hubris in and among the US elite.
In the schemata of this hubris, purpose was conflated with and reduced to power. (A rearguard action by - now professor emeritus of Harvard University - Professor Joseph Nye who probably recognized the perils of power and hubris and its deleterious consequences for America lay in the soft power coinage). As the US elite swooned itself, profound changes mostly of a structural nature were happening ‘sub rosa’.
Lived Experience in the US
I will illustrate these with my brief ‘lived experience‘ in the US. Hopefully, a few anecdotes will bring out the point in a fuller sense. To get ‘cross cutting and broader sample’ perspectives, I chose to live in a seedy Californian backpackers hostel. (For some reason that I am yet to suss out I look ‘rich and wealthy’ and educated).
As I stepped out of the hostel for a smoke and started chatting with folks around me, I got acquainted with people living in the hostel. A middle aged ‘white’ woman with a bloated belly approached me. She stuck a conversation with. After a little while, she told me she was suffering from cancer (liver carcinoma if memory serves me well), that she was estranged from her family, that Medicare was failing her.
To cut to the nub, she told me I looked educated and noble (which flattered and pleased me) and that she had heard people who invest in stocks could aspire for a life of dignity and that she would be able to pay her medical bills. She imploringly asked if I could help invest her meagre savings).
The Human Condition
In Pennsylvania, as I wandered around town, I saw a big burly African man who lay sprawled on the sidewalk, muttering what I could make out references to his family. I approached the man, drew out my hand to help him stand. The man sized me up and then offered his hand. As he stood, the sharp whiff of alcohol hit my nostrils, ’Ah need an Aahfiss jawb, an Aahfiss jawb' (I need an office job, an office job).
The man then squeezed my hand in gratitude and walked way muttering, ’aahfiss jawb’ all the while. In a New York City shelter that I chose to live in a few days, what was resplendent about it was it reflected the human condition - ‘browns’, ‘blacks’, ‘whites’ and so on were all there.
A ‘white guy’ who I became friends with, after a couple of days asked me, "Whatcha you doing here, dude?’ You're not the kind and type who lives in a shelter. I can smell a thief when I see one. You aint one", he guffawed. After a couple of days, one evening after he sought me out, he handed me his ‘days pickings’ (a wad of notes amounting to 30 dollars if memory serves me well).
‘Listen , my friend, I am off to another city now. I got this for you. Get out of here. You don’t belong here. Buy some nice clothes and get yourself a nice ‘missie’. (Honestly, I was overwhelmed with his gesture. I still remember ‘Pete’ - not his real name - fondly).
Underclass of Americans
While there were other experiences , the one’s I have delineated here in a loose and crude way, suggest an ‘underclass’ of Americans that were adrift, and unmoored and living in quasi Dickensian conditions. This ‘underclass’ was at odds with the educated and elite class - the beneficiaries of globalization and globalism.
But while this class made oodles of money, their existential locus was defined by a narrow and soul crushing consumerism. All in all then, it could safely be said that Americans had lost a sense of purpose. When a given society loses its sense of self, and purpose, real and actual decline is not far off.
It is here Donald Trump enters into the picture. He has upended paradigmatic ‘sacred cows’ in his country. But the question is to what end? If the disruption and ‘chaos’ induced by Trump constitute means then infusing purpose - moral, ethical and political - must constitute the ends.
How can this be done? By infusing a sense of sobriety, economic and social well being, gravitas, temperance and self-transcendent notion of the public and the civic spaces in service of Americanness.
The disruption and uncertainty induced Trump (call it an inflection point if you may) constitute the picture perfect moment for this. Trump has grasped the nettle and seized the moment. He must now catalyse this moment into a long lasting legacy that redounds to the benefit of all Americans.
The time for this is now!
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