Getting Crazier
We all know that American politics has been pretty crazy for about eight years now. Yes, that coincides with Donald Trump coming onto the scene of the American political landscape in a serious (I have a really hard time using that word to describe anything Donald Trump does) way. It does strike me that we are in the beginning of the eventual end to that reign of terror now that we are seeing both self-interest in the form of people like Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro pleading guilty and agreeing to testify against Trump and others, and the Republican House caucus finally find its backbone to rally against the likes of Jim Jordan, endorsed by Trump, from ascending to the Speakership of the House of Representatives. America is seeing the dismantling of the Trump crime syndicate piece by piece and there is no way to see that as anything except sanity slowly seeping back into the American psyche after a debauched decade of craziness. And yes, I did say decade because I believe we have most of two years yet to unwind this mess that Trump and the hateful and soured people who danced in glee around the bonfire of the vanities offered up by Trumpianism have created. So, as crazy as American politics with its polarizing nature may seem, I choose to declare that it is getting less crazy at this time and may even return to the realm of sensible some time soon.
By the way, I know that smart people avoid making predictions, but I have never been smart enough to do that, so I want to make clear in this blog what I see on the political horizon with the only caveat being that this is highly aspirational while attempting to be rational. I know that all of these predictions are highly debatable and will bring out every neigh-sayer in the neighborhood, but here goes. I believe that neither Trump nor Biden will be on the ballot by November 5th, 2024. I think that what will happen is that in the next six months, Trump will unravel so far through a combination of his criminal and civil litigation that the outcry against him will rise to the level that the Republican Party will be forced to step away from him despite the cries of the wounded and extreme minority that constitute his primal core. No, I do not believe that the United States will vindicate its disgust with all things Trump by throwing his ass in jail (other than perhaps for a night or two if he can’t contain his contempt of court after court). I see the trailers for the new Joaquin Phoenix movie Napoleon, and it reminds us that the world has had other crazy, yet somewhat momentarily revered, leaders before, and we have dealt with them by exiling them to places like Elba rather than throwing them into the Bastille. The modern day version of Elba (or hopefully more like Napoleon’s final resting place, St. Helena) would seem to be Mar-A-Lago on Palm Beach Island. Napoleon’s fifteen year reign of terror is strikingly similar to Trump’s last decade (take five years off the timeline due to modern telecommunications and media). The parallels are striking, but just as Napoleon met his Waterloo, so too Trump is at the precipice of his downfall and exile.
The less apparent yet equally likely outcome is that with Trump off the ballot and with another six months to go before the general election, as much as the conventional election timetable suggests otherwise, the Democrats will rally their resolve to convince Joe Biden that he has done a wonderful and historic job of stewardship in bringing the American people out of the land of crazy, but that he deserves a much-needed rest during his eighth decade. We will have an unprecedented politically-charged six months in 2024 where Trump will slink into obscurity and historical ridicule and Biden will slouch back to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, collecting kudos and accolades for his half-century of service, while the rest of the political field goes really crazy trying to figure out what’s next for America. I actually believe that the majority of Americans will, upon the departure of the two current presidential protagonists, come to realize that Trump was the wrong direction and that Biden was the right direction. And the departure of both will free us up from the bounds of vengeful fear of reprisal on the one hand and the need to criticize ageism and scapegoatism on the other. My hope is that moderation will return as the standard bearer that guides us through what is quickly becoming an even crazier world outside the United States.
I think it is meaningful that the United States Department of State saw fit this week to place the American people on an orange caution level for traveling abroad. As two American Hamas hostages were released, we have finally concluded that Americans traveling abroad are taking higher and higher risks just by being out there. In fairness, the threat levels within the United States are no cakewalk either and the Department of Homeland Security also acknowledged that with a caution for Americans within the United States due to various forms of domestic terrorism. Yes folks, its getting crazier by the day.
I have told Kim for several years that China is simply off the bucket list for Americans for the foreseeable future. I define that as meaning while Xi remains the dictator of The Middle Kingdom, the Red Dragon, the Sleeping Giant. How much that threat extends to Southeast Asia will be something we focus a lot of attention on in the next three months as we prepare for our two weeks in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. In the same way that we got out ahead of the Middle East crisis by visiting Egypt and Jordan earlier this year, I sense that a trip to Southeast Asia may be equally portentous in early 2024….we’ll see. So, if China and much of Asia is off-limits and the Middle East has gone red, red, red by State Department rating, at least there is good old Europe, right? Wrong. As we heard of people heading for Paris for an extended stay, we don’t need too much prodding to remember that with Putin pushing Europe on the age old and back-breaking Eastern Front, the demographic changes to the aging population of Western Europe have left it far more vulnerable and volatile when it comes to anything that feels like a Jihad in the Middle East. The rioting in major cities like Paris, Rome and Madrid are unlikely to get any relief as we see the Israel/Hamas situation heating up and expanding its boundaries. There is no way that America can stay out of Israel just as it cannot absent itself from Ukraine. It is intrinsically in our self-interest to get involved and stay involved until resolution, whether through triumph or reconciliation.
And that means that the galvanized world will find more, not less, reasons to find Americans once again ugly. As much as I am a globalist and as much as I am a peace-loving anti-violence advocate, I see no way in the face of the violent and aggressive instincts of the nationalistic pushes happening around the world, to do anything but to stand for human rights and freedom in the good old American tradition. But I admit that the world is getting crazier even as we are reviving our sanity within the country, so as seems to be the trend for the past few centuries, we will have to try to make the world forget how crazy we have been over the past decade and remind them about why getting crazier still is not in their own best interest.