Trump’s Earthquake: A Before and After Moment

Nobody saw it coming, least of all Donald Trump. But an extraordinary coalition of Americans united to give him the very kind of power that he so admires in dictators. He has the Electoral College, the Popular Vote, the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court all with majorities in his favour. The world is now gripped with anxiety about what powers he will use and to what end.

Let us pause a moment and ask ourselves the question, which shocked Democrats will be asking for sure. Why? The answer is simple. People are fed up with governments which promise and don’t deliver, who seem remote from the realities of life which include falling living standards for ordinary people and general dysfunction within many aspects of public services and  institutions. Yet taxes are high and expenditure vast.

They live in economies run by central bankers funding markets with limitless resources which seem always to end up in the pockets of the few rather than the many. Crime, organised by international gangs, is a constant threat, while unnecessary wars rage out of control.  Trump promises to put a stop to all of it. No wonder he won big.

We know what he says he is going to do, but with Trump what he actually does is often a bit different. But he will certainly change everything on the dusty political map of what we call the West. He will end the era where America  always has your back and always pays the bills.

I have to say, although  rather frightening, that is for all us Europeans a very good thing.