Riding the Wave

November 8th, 2016 has come and gone. So has January 20th, 2017.

It is worth recognizing that the sun rose and fell as usual those days, for every day after, and every one likely ahead (for at least another four billion years -- barring the odd catastrophic meteor strike). Parents want the best for their children, cats are still enigmatic, and, despite the evidence to the contrary, (most) men do eventually grow up. Quitting time still rolls around basically the same time every day, Friday still ends the work week, and a good beverage (alcoholic or not) is easy to find.

The US presidential race has been like one of those space-time anomalies from ‘Star Trek.’ It has been a distortion of life, with the happier moments forgotten and the more sensational ones rolling around in our consciousness like a gastric attack. Well, enough is enough. It’s time to wave the whole business goodbye in the rear view mirror. Donald Trump has officially taken over as President, and campaigning has given way to governing.

Or a presidential-level reality show with the whole world as his stage.

Trump's inaugural address was -- like the man and his campaign -- an outlier on its surface, unlike any other which preceded it. Presidents, especially new ones eager to reintroduce themselves to the nation (and the world) after a hard-fought campaign, and with an eye to the next election by nature seek to reassure, unite and reach for inspirational rhetorical poetry. John F. Kennedy did so with his epic 1960 speech (a triumph of visionary eloquence), George H. W. Bush in 1988 with a lyrical ode to a "New Breeze" blowing winds of freedom through a post-war world, and Ronald Reagan's "We are Americans" unabashed patriotic appeal.

Instead, he gave what observers will likely label one of the darkest speeches in recent presidential memory, conjuring up a world view at odds with the statistics, yet powerfully resonant with the angry base which propelled him to power. Declarations of "America First!" reverberate throughout global capitals, stoking fears of protectionism, looming trade wars and jacked-up tariffs. Jingoistic statements about wiping out militant Islam echo with "them or us" immigration implications, not to mention populist sentiments of "taking your country back" and "draining the swamp" of red tape and corruption choking American creativity and innovation.

Closer reflection reveals a more distinct subtext. We have been here before, listening to similar themes, though perhaps more artfully presented. This whole opening section of Trump’s speech has echoes of the inaugural address of another Republican president who came in as a Washington outsider promising change -- Ronald Reagan, who in his 1981 inaugural address said: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." In that speech, like Trump, Reagan pitted himself and the American people against the elites who ruled in Washington. Many of those establishment elites (members of Congress, past presidents) sat behind Trump as he delivered his remarks.

Though peppered throughout his remarks were occasional lines striving for poetical rhetoric, coupled with calls for an all-encompassing and comprehensive national unity, the strong populist tone of his words were evident. He took previous administrations to task for military interventions abroad, and basically disparaged every recent administration for one failure or another.

Many observers will make much of his comments about "American carnage" as the results from the ravages of crime, drugs and gangs. This is a very stark term that carries forward an idea that is repeated in his speech and that he often stressed during his presidential quest. Combined with a dark picture of a country plagued by a devastated manufacturing sector, crime and troubled schools, it offered a sober reality. While the nation has seen an overall downward trend in violent crime in recent decades, despite several cities have experienced spikes in crime over the past couple of years, the nightly news has steadily fed the general public so many sensational stories of crime and chaos that at times it did seem that the streets were awash in violence.

There is a method to this madness. In true marketing fashion -- Trump is, after all, at his core a highly effective salesman -- he is setting himself up to be the conquering hero. By saying, in effect, that the situation is dire, the people are demoralized and that the nation's problems are HUGE, he will claim a few years down the road that he -- "I can fix it!" -- and only he -- has made progress against almost insurmountable odds. That's consistent with his essentially narcissistic nature.

He's partially correct. Donald Trump’s election has no modern historical equivalent. He never served in the military, is not a lawyer (whereas 26 of the 44 presidents, or 59%, have been), or held any kind of political office. He has been an entrepreneur and developer of hotels and casinos with varying degrees of profitability results, an international beauty pageant promoter, and a reality television program star. Hardly the accepted path to the presidency. However, Barack Obama, in 2008, had taken what he himself had called an "improbable" journey to the nation's highest office, and had to some large extent proven that, in accordance with the the constitution's parametres, anyone could become commander-in-chief.

The last quarter century has been presided over by three consecutive two-term presidencies --two governors (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush) and a Senator (Barack Obama), two graduates from Yale and one Harvard. To blue collar workers working the window manufacturing line in Des Moisnes, the fading coal mines of Appalachia, or the docks of San Diego port these men blurred into three metaphorical suits in slightly different styles and cuts from essentially the same establishment store. The US economy grew from $9.5 trillion to $16 trillion plus in real dollar terms. US scientists dominated the digital technology economy, and the 47-year interregnum without a war between great powers extended to 71. We have not seen such relative peace since the Roman Empire.

Yet this unprecedented period belies a complex, even contradictory economic reality. Following World War II, the majority of Americans could be loosely called “middle class.” However a recent study by Pew Research showed that by early 2015, 120.8 million adults were in middle-income households, compared with 121.3 million in lower and upper-income households combined. Most of that change reflected an increase in upper-income households, while about a third of the change came from families moving down in income. As a result, the majority of Americans were either upper-income or lower-income -- but not in the “middle class.” The hamburger buns have shrinking meat patties in between.

In 2000, the nation had 17.18 million manufacturing jobs. In 2016, the number was down to 12.28 million.

These are the facts, essentially a mixed bag when looked at dispassionately but facts and balanced news does not make for good copy. Nor does it necessarily resonate with a public looking for stories with a more emotional resonance -- the ‘felt’ story, the ‘lived’ narrative of individual experiences for millions. Audiences find more appeal in the televised images of closed steel mills, shuttered storefronts and hollowed-eyed unemployed workers in Des Moisnes, Appalachia and San Diego than recitations of figures. It is this interpretation that Trump chooses to expound. In his view, his predecessors -- Messrs Clinton, Bush and Obama failed those in these media images.

These very different men shared a surprising inability to convince the public that they had a grip on a world where rapid change created by globalization was a new fact of life. All three talked -- sometimes with great eloquence -- about saving jobs (especially manufacturing ones), but still those jobs appeared to fade away. They spoke of uplifting the poor from dispiriting lives, yet many remained mired in despond, marooned in dying towns with single incomes barely able to make ends meet. They promised to heal the political divisions between Left and Right yet, with each successive presidency, these divisions have become so acute that the first African-American presidency has seen some of the worse interracial violence since segregation. They promised to eliminate the scourge of terrorism, yet dark forces of all stripes planted fields of chaos and despair all the way from the Middle East and Europe to the very heart of suburban USA.

More than that, for all of the summits and conferences and talks (Davos and TED, anyone?) virtually every world leader is flailing for a coherent agenda or vision. No one seems to know how to cope with the realities of over-zealous globalization and the transition to a ‘New Economy’ with ‘New Jobs’ that seem as ethereal as cotton candy wafting on a summer breeze. Neither can they explain how to manage the socio-political impacts of the accompanying technological revolution confounds economists while dislocating the employment of millions around the globe. Sure, there’s a lot of geek-inspired jargon about tony words such as “disruption” and bandied about by businesses and bureaucracies but what does it all mean? How does it all add up? How can governments plan for what they can barely comprehend, summarize or digest?

Though he has not evinced a record for deep thinking, Trump is an instinctive opportunist and he shrewdly exploited this void. In much the same way that Steve Jobs vaulted over HMV and Jeff Bezos retail stores, Trump latched onto technological innovations like Twitter and Facebook to bypass reporters, editorial boards, parties, even the traditional foot soldiers and door knockers who constitute a conventional campaign. Combined with his understanding that politics is no longer just about poetry or prose, but performance as well, he played up to his audiences by serving up dollops of news -- outrageous of otherwise -- so long as it kept his name at the forefront of public consciousness and drowned mention of others.

It is important to realize that Donald Trump is a symptom, not a cause, yet his example is one that cannot be safely ignored by establishment governments everywhere. Like the magma that runs beneath the earth’s crust forces are afire under Paris, Berlin, and Beijing, having erupted in Washington, Rome and London. Elites' assumptions no longer apply. We don’t know what’s going to happen anymore. Our societies constituted ourselves around elites that claimed to know everything about anything, even though much of that knowledge was but theoretical, not practical; political parties entrenched themselves in partisan battles and gridlock that ground on like trench warfare, while the people's needs were ignored; we deluded ourselves that endless government initiatives answered the demands of the people even as ministers and intelligentsia traveled in luxury cars and ignored riding the MRTs, subways, trains and taxis. All this because we thought we would know what would happen.

We probably never really did, but in past times we satisfied ourselves with the self delusion that we did.

The reality is that manufacturing jobs are not only being lost to China and Mexico, but to automation. Traditional resource-based employment in industries such as coal lost out not only to the focus on sustainability but also to higher efficiencies in power generation as well as effective consumption management awareness. Societies like Japan and Singapore are being confronted with obsolescence made possible by technological advances in medicine extending life and vanquishing disease with the result that senior citizens will soon form the largest age group in their society. What does it mean to put a hand-sized computer (the cell phone) into our grasp, not to mention the implications of linking everyone together through the electronic ether? How much change, how fast, and how much more far reaching will this kind of technology cause?

Well, the failure of leaders to solve these issues helped get Trump elected. But now he is the leader, and it’s his turn to be flummoxed.

His opening moves have been about building walls, travel bans and creating fortress America.

These are the actions of a man running the United States in much the same manner he displayed on 'The Apprentice.' We are given the impression of a presidency in action racing off...to where? We don’t really know what will happen. Trump's view of a dark America is not a vision.

We do know what matters, however. Freedom matters, as do dignity, opportunity, kindness, duty, honour and country. Society must organize itself around creativity, transparency, experimentation and goodwill. If our leaders cannot see for the darkness than it must fall to us as individuals to help light the candle.

That, is what will get us through the next four years, irrespective of whether or not Donald Trump can ride the whirlwind that brought him to power.

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