Trump: the great global reset

The re-election of Donald Trump resets the world. Last time he came to power it was almost whimsical. He was a rank outsider with a very narrow path to victory, which he only just threaded.

He was also a naif. As he says himself, after election he had to make 10,000 appointments to various roles, and he knew no one in Washington. He’d never even “slept over” before becoming president.

So his first term started-off a little chaotically with staff streaming in and out of employment, some of them, like Whitehouse Director of Communications, Anthony Scaramucci, for only a few days.

Then there was the first impeachment and the Russia hoax – the latter based on a security dossier fabricated from false information and illegally funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign; the BLM riots making it feel like America was out of control; and then finally COVID hysteria.

It’s amazing he got anything done, but he did. He lowered corporate taxes and regulations leading to an economic boom; achieved a breakthrough in the Middle East with the Abrahamic accords; called China’s bluff and started a defensive trade war with them; bullied NATO countries into increasing defence expenditure; stemmed the flood of immigrants at the border; and appointed three black letter lawyers to the Supreme Court.

Now he is back with an historic win, taking the electoral college, the popular vote, and both houses of congress, despite a multiplicity of prosecutions in kangaroo courts and two assassination attempts.

A lot of people question Trump’s character. I don’t. He can be boorish, is certainly more than a little narcissistic, but in a dangerous world he’s just the sort of Henry VIII character you want at the head of the free world. He’s got character, and he’s got temperament, while a bit of inspired unpredictability doesn’t go astray.

His election was mainly due to the economy, and a little to do with border security. Then there was the political poverty of both Biden and Harris. It was also a lot to do with cultural issues.

We tend to split the political world into Left Wing and Right Wing, but I’ve started splitting it into Team Reality and Team Fantasy. I think it is more useful, and it provides a larger tent under which to pull together a political coalition together.

Many on the left are in Team Reality as are most on the right. When we share reality in common we can also work together.

Team Fantasy is the one that will promulgate truly bizarre theories, like that a man can just choose to identify as a woman and that makes him a real woman, as well as less-obviously bizarre theories, like catastrophic climate change; virus elimination theories of pandemic control; modern monetary theory; renewable-only electricity grids; defunding the police; whole-word in education; words being violence; cultural theory. Including DEI, intersectionality and anti-racism.

If you want to know why Team Fantasy is increasingly attracting people with a university education it is because there is a certain intellectual virtuosity in convincing yourself, and others, that any of these things have merit. It’s an intellectual highwire act, suspended above reality, and it is fun, and empowering, and elevating, to be able to thread the needle in ways “less-gifted” people can’t.