Episode 8 Where I Predict the Future

Okay, this isn't really "episode eight," but as I was imagining what will happen to us here in the US post Trump, I remembered a toy from my childhood: The Magic 8 Ball. You would ask it a question, turn it upside down and get an answer, sometimes definitive: "Yes," sometimes deflecting: "Ask again later." It was silly and fun.

Life at the present moment has taken a decidedly less silly, less fun turn.

Yes, I am going to do some predicting. It's not particularly difficult if you've been paying attention and honestly it's hard to miss how things under the Orange Man have taken a turn for the worse. It is evident that the world in which the US was the dominant hegemonic power is gone. Trump has tanked it in record time, less than two years. NATO in shambles, international trade chaotic, inflation up, science and research eroded, our standing in the world in tatters.

Still, to quote Keb Mo', "I got a bad, bad feelin' that the worst is yet to come." That's two of us Keb.

Admittedly, things look dire at the moment. Sadly, we are only just at the top of a long downward slope. The damage done by DOGE at the behest of Trump, and Russell Vought, one of main the architects of Project 2025, has only begun to be realized. Over the next several years, maybe the next decade or so, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections, the momentum behind the cuts to "fraud and waste" will reverberate as the old order continues to crumble. We will all too soon find that our political, social, and economic institutions have been hollowed out to the point that there will be no "going back." Restoring them will not be possible. This is obvious even now.

As difficult and disheartening as it may be, when we reach that point, we will be forced to look at who we are as a nation, as a people, and decide what kind of society we want to build on the wreckage. It will be a time of introspection, a time to face the arrogance and hubris that drove the worst of our capitalist-fueled imperial ambitions. We will be forced to accept a new place the world. It will be a markedly humbling experience. It will be good for us.

It is my sincere hope that as we reflect on our losses, we will take a national inventory in the same manner that one takes a personal inventory when entering recovery. Maybe then we can honestly look at our history, look past the myth of who we claimed to be, and confront who and what we truly have been. If we can do this, we can then ask ourselves who and what it is that we want to be.

There are parallels for this, for rebuilding after disaster has struck. Europe was forced to rebuild after WW2. The destruction they faced was destruction of infrastructure as well as a collapse of their institutions. Our task should be less onerous. Taking our cues from the original Marshall Plan, we can decide to create new institutions that support our citizens, where corporations are not "citizens" and money isn't "speech." It may require rewriting our constitution.

I may not live long enough to witness our rebirth, but I am optimistic that we will be a better nation when we come out the other side, a nation that offers universal health care, full and equal rights for minorities and women, free childcare, an end to racism and misogyny. Let us become a nation that appreciates that it is possible to have enough, to not continually strive for more, to live a sustainable existence as a humble member of the international community.

Let's hope that this is the path we choose.