America: So What Now?

It was always the case that Trump would do better than his detractors wanted, because for many forgotten Americans he has brought hope and jobs and a better future. And he has done that in record time and on a pretty impressive scale. How long it will last and whether it is long term sustainable is not the point. The point is the here and now.

But it was also the other case that among the more fortunate, better educated Americans, especially in the suburbs of the coasts, the Trump Presidency is a living nightmare of everything America should not be. To them it is not just about jobs, mostly because they have them. But, because of Republican incompetence over the replacement of Obamacare, many were caught by rising healthcare costs and real issues about preexisting medical conditions, as well as uncertainties about the outcome of the President’s trade war and his fetish fort tearing up treaties. And, this was decisive, especially his perceived attitude towards women.

The outcome, as we all now know, is a President who declares a great victory, sacks his Attorney General and holds a very bad tempered news conference. The reality is that one arm of government, the House of Representatives, is now in the hands of those who oppose him and in the American system that changes if not everything, almost all of it.

Trump was really not elected to govern. He was elected to disrupt because a great mass of the American heartlands, most of territorial America in fact, was fed up with government after government of each party failing to deliver on its promises. So disrupt he has. Yet in so doing he has revealed what America always tries to hide. There are two Americas. There have always been and they cannot be reconciled.

The one America is pro life, socially conservative, white supremacist, anti-immigration, gun toting, evangelical christian (a form of christian theology which exactly matches their attitudes) and the other is liberal, permissive, multi-racial, multi-cultural, and celebrates diversity in everything from LGBT to acknowledging climate change is man made.

Because of these two Americas, upon the same continent and held together by Federal institutions (an attempt to separate finished in Civil War but did not finish the argument) the United States was the last of the developed countries to outlaw slavery, allowed racial segregation to follow on and it remains the only advanced country without some kind of universal healthcare system. It is also the country where the first airplane flew,which invented the production line, which put men on the moon, brought about the revolution of the PC, smart-phone, laptop, tablet, internet and the social media platforms which we recognize Facebook and Twitter plus plus plus. Apple, Microsoft, Google and Android, which dominate this new world order, are American. Moreover it is the most economically successful country in history.

So back to the beginning. What must change about these two Americas?

Perhaps nothing.

But fasten your seat belts for the next two years of Trump. At times it could be quite rough.