It鈥檚 Not Too Soon to Talk About the Post-Trump Era
Why you can trust us
President Donald Trump waves and walks back to the Oval Office after a ceremony on the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, June 12, 2017.聽
Photo by Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post / Getty Images.聽
Now seems like a good time to talk about life after Trump.
Trump鈥檚 茅minence grise Steve Bannon was given the boot on Friday鈥攐r resigned, if you believe him鈥攁nd it鈥檚 tempting to celebrate this excision of a particularly nasty wart from the body politic.
Well, yes, let鈥檚 celebrate a little. We may soon see more departures鈥擝annon allies, perhaps鈥攁nd if the top job continues to be unrewarding and hard, we may soon see 45 himself rage-quit the Oval Office so he can go back to his previously idyllic existence of golf, tweeting at the TV, and putting his name on large buildings.
Here鈥檚 the thing: Former President Trump will have been just a very ugly symptom of a condition that鈥檚 been ravaging the United States for decades, including the growing stratification of the U.S. economy, hollowing-out of the middle class, and an intensifying White-centered culture that few leaders seem to want to get serious about rectifying.
When Trump goes鈥攁nd he will, whether it鈥檚 next month or next year, or in 2020, or whenever his steaks and extra scoops of ice cream get the better of his blood-brain barrier鈥攎ost of the nation will heave a collective sigh of relief, and there will be a very strong urge (especially in the national media) to declare, 鈥淣ow we can go back to normal and forget this ever happened.鈥�
That can鈥檛 happen. Not least because, if Trump鈥檚 exit is facilitated by impeachment, we鈥檒l likely be stuck with President Mike Pence, another small-minded ideologue who, odds are, is more competent than Trump.
But even if sensible adults take the wheel, back to normal is not what we want. We still live with the original afflictions that allowed a snake-oil salesman to ride into town, hijack a major political party, and turn it and the country into a vehicle for self-promotion and profit.
Trump鈥檚 faux-populism hid the fact that his 鈥渟olutions鈥� are garbage.
During his campaign, Trump exploited anxieties over some very real endemic problems facing America: Our , and has been for years. , and replaced鈥攚hen they are replaced at all鈥攚ith minimum wage service-sector jobs. Increasing global trade has enriched those same CEOs and other corporate bigwigs that are 聽at a time when the other 99 percent of us are dealing with stagnant wages and skyrocketing medical care costs. Illegal immigration is indeed a problem, especially for those who are victims of trafficking or abusive working conditions, and have no path to becoming legal residents.
The problems are there鈥擲en. Bernie Sanders pointed them out, too鈥攖hough Trump鈥檚 faux-populism hid the fact that his 鈥渟olutions鈥� are garbage. He had no real intention of trying to solve those problems anyway.
The very people charged with reversing those trends are sitting in Congress, firmly under the thumb of big money and so politically polarized that they can鈥檛 even agree what government should be spending money on, much less how much and who should benefit most.
The swamp really does need to be drained. It鈥檚 just unfortunate that Trump鈥檚 supporters believed he鈥檇 be the one to do it.
Real solutions aren鈥檛 easy, of course. A serious effort to rebuild the national infrastructure will require a significant number of Republicans to admit that some government spending is a good thing. It will be a long-term, complicated process to restore decent jobs, especially for those those who have been displaced by automation, deindustrialization, and policies that favor cheap overseas labor.
The hard part is building a foundation that will be there to support a new kind of economy.
Our unfettered capitalism has redistributed the national wealth into the hands of a very few and forced the rest of us to fight over the dwindling leftovers. The Koch brothers and their ilk would love for us to turn on each other along racial lines, because as long as we鈥檙e fighting each other, we鈥檙e distracted from their pillaging and won鈥檛 go after them. They only call it class war when we start to fight back, as the saying goes.
Resisting the divisiveness and cynical opportunism coming out of the White House is the easy part. The hard part is building a foundation that will be there to support a new kind of economy once Trump鈥檚 era is an ugly memory.
Yet in many ways, we鈥檙e doing just that. California Gov. Jerry Brown became de facto U.S. environmental leader once Trump clearly abdicated that role. In December, Will Stelle, the former Northwest Regional Administrator for NOAA Fisheries, spoke frankly to a group of climate scientists, and not wait for the federal government to take the lead. We鈥檙e seeing growing support for establishing a basic income program and renewed calls for universal health care.聽Communities are . They鈥檙e figuring out how to keep providing services without the help of the federal government, .
Across the U.S., people seem to recognize that their fates largely rest with one another. So while the Trump administration continues its now seven-month implosion as it attempts to undermine civil society, it鈥檚 worth remembering the problems we had when he arrived will still be there for us once he鈥檚 gone. The Post-Trump Era is coming, and there鈥檚 work to be done.
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Chris Winters
is a senior editor at YES!, where he specializes in covering democracy and the economy. Chris has been a journalist for more than 20 years, writing for newspapers and magazines in the Seattle area. He鈥檚 covered everything from city council meetings to natural disasters, local to national news, and won numerous awards for his work. He is based in Seattle, and speaks English and Hungarian.
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