In conversation with a friend of mine, an English teacher, she stated what the whole sane world is thinking about the Trumpocene era. “If you pitched it as an idea for a movie or a book, no one would believe it.” Her decades long career has seen her absorb every variety of literature, from classics to contemporary and back again. Someone who has read of every character and plot imaginable, going back centuries. Yet she is still capable of being amazed by Trump and his supporters and enablers. When someone as scholarly as that is stumped, you know we have the chaos candidate Western democracy always feared.
While we endure his antics in depressed awe, waiting for him to choke on a cheeseburger, or be voted out of our lives once and for all, it’s becoming depressingly clear the end of Trump won’t be the end of the Trump effect. How much more damage will he do before he’s gone and how long will it take to repair is the question? Though some of it could be irreparable. Exactly how will organisations like USAID be raised from the dead?
Another big worry is that by the time he’s gone, the destruction will be so much worse than it is already, to the extent that an impatient electorate won’t give an incoming Democratic administration the time to pick up all the pieces. Even if they get two terms, will eight years be enough to rebuild the economy and reassert the notion of law-abiding governance, adhered to in good faith? And how many Trumpists will he leave behind in a new “deep state” of Trump appointed officials? From the judiciary – the Supreme Court especially – to bureaucrats right across the government spectrum. How long will it take to route out the Quackery embedded in the system?
In what way does the US combat the damage that he’s done and the damage he will continue to do, including his timebomb of disestablishmentarianism of storied institutions like the NIH (to name but one) and their traditions of professional governance? Even when the cleanup begins, it will be hard to keep a wearied society engaged when they are set to be struggling for the foreseeable future. What’s to stop another Trumpist appearing a decade from now? Exploiting the slow pace of restoration and promising to make things better with simple, populist solutions to complex problems?
If a Democratic administration doesn’t succeed in making people’s lives better quickly, how long before Trump’s worst excesses fade from the memory and he comes to be remembered how people want to remember him, not how he really was? A version of Trump sanitised by time, could see one of his young cult followers today, become a disciple and messenger of Trumpism ten years from now. The same playbook, the same message of divide and rule and chaos for chaos sake.
I fear that without a dedicated university course on Trumpism, realising the seriousness of this time and guarding against the dangers of his followers rising again will be hard to sustain. I would imagine these moves are underway already. Trump has filled so many newspaper columns, taken up so much airtime on legacy media and streaming sites, from podcasts to independent media, bloggers and even the radio, that he would already command one whole semester of a modern history degree with a highlights reel.
Surely academics need to dive deeper and to be right across the Trump phenomena. Becoming experts on the mania he incited in parts of society. Documenting every crime he committed (and seems to be getting away with). Analysing the theft of the testicles and the backbone of almost every GOP politician in America. Studying the drawing out of racism and normalising it. These are all semesters on their own. This godawful fool who was put into power twice needs to be studied not just for his crimes and his incompetence but for the way he was able to manipulate so many people while being enabled by the rich and powerful for their own ends.
The study of Trumpism should be on the school curriculum for high school students in the not too distant future. But because Trump has created an “infodemic” of too much information/ disinformation, once the academic world has gathered up all we know about this extraordinary time, in this whole mad era and recorded it in multiple tomes, then a PHD course is surely warranted.
A discipline with the highest level of learning where students and academics gain the deep understanding needed to become experts on Trumpology. An expertise that can advise all levels of society on how not to repeat the mistake. Experts who will unfortunately have the onerous task of somehow holding all that they’ve learned about this scarcely believable time in their heads, so we can prevent a future Trumpist from getting into ours. Any takers?
One Response
Isn’t anyone getting bored with Donald Trump yet?
He is becoming predictable, like a school bully.
I would hate to think of the education system encouraging young people to study him or anything to do with him.
Bad call ‘teacher’.