AMERICA : A PROGNOSIS...FOR NOW.

In Coming Apart, Charles Murray describes America as an almost-failed experiment, since the top and bottom of white America increasingly live in different cultures. The gap between the type of cars, food, travel destinations, and philosophical beliefs strikes at the heart of the former pursuit of happiness. President Obama's therapies were unable to reverse the trend. President-elect Trump is the result of this rapidly growing divergence. He is the embodiment of a white America turned upside down. Secretary Clinton described the Trump loyalists as "deplorables". Her analysis might have lacked charity but was not devoid of clarity.

Trump has to deal with two major shifts. The former world order is no longer and the American dream machine is running out of gas. At the end of the day, Trump, who was the "avatar" of this electoral descent into hell,  is seen by many nowadays as the healer-in-chief. Notwithstanding, Mrs.Clinton won the popular vote by an impressive margin and could claim the support from a much larger spectrum of the electorate. She lost mostly the white blue-collar voters who were taken hostage by empty demagoguery. If Trump starts to reverse some of Obama's executive orders regarding conservation, energy, or the Affordable Care Act, they may wake up to a harsh reality. The Republican "permanent coup" will spare nothing, starting with the Supreme Court, reproductive rights, minorities, climate change, communication i.a..  World affairs are already becoming a poker game. The moves and the bluff will be the more dangerous, since Trump has a total disregard for antecedent, history and style. 

America is unraveling and after January 20th, it will get a president who fits the script. Civic culture will make room for "tweeted opportunism". A right wing Zeitgeist will, for awhile, play in the hands of the equally inclined. The elections in France and Germany might lead to a further metastasizing of the Brexit malignity.  As happens often, unfortunately, the political virus has come from overseas. The American mass has lost part of its immune system after the breakdown which Obama could no longer control.  9/11 was the opening salvo for the sad symphony of mistakes which followed and which continues to shake mostly the Western world and alliance.

Americans treasured their "exceptionalism".  The world was envious. Not that grand gestures, from Normandy to Bretton Woods were altruistic, far from it. The benefits and shared values overcame ulterior motives and the appropriation of the new world governance. Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt were an unfaithful couple until they agreed that separation was too high a price to pay. There is nothing wrong with self-interest "a deux" since the re-evaluation of an alliance leaves it stronger than before.  Ennui is the enemy.

One should hope that a Trump administration might have some success. Unfortunately, the early signals are frightening. The entourage of the president-elect appears to be indifferent to legitimacy. The priorities send one back to Sykes/Picot times when personalities just created countries and borders out of nowhere, with total, arrogant disdain for history.  Another nefarious change becomes clearer with every passing of the days, a form of paternalistic disdain for the truth and for the media in general. Deflection marginalizes discourse, soundbites replace answers. Lack of familiarity with existing narratives is leading to a shrug of the shoulders. The deal chases the ratio.

Not since the Pact of Steel have we seen leaders of two major powers coming close to such an "understanding". I never imagine that Putin and Trump think alike (this would be an affront for Putin) but I can very well believe that neither loses sleep over some ideological difference. Both want to make their realms great again: Putin through retrenchment, Trump through reduction. The former makes room for the latter...a match made in heaven! Meanwhile, President Xi follows Peter the Great's example, imitating the Dutch engineering skills in "filling up" the seas.

The ambitious FDR and LBJ legacies are endangered by a coalition of radical conservatives and evangelicals. This fight opposes, for now, the winning who know too little against the losers who know too much. The battles will be more existential (even if the term does not figure in the lexicon of most) than just political. America might end up accommodating the enemy abroad while alienating half of the population inside.  Alliances will be weakened and the American project will be put at risk.

"Now is the winter of our discontent (Richard III,V,4.13).