Why Trump's America Will Live On — Joel Kotkin

Trump’s 2016 victory may be best considered a necessary colonic to a constipated political economy. He challenged in ways not seen for a generation the comfortable establishmentarian politics of both parties. Most critical of all, Trump, the scion of a property mogul, has re-established, along with his odd socialist doppelganger, Bernie Sanders, the relevance of class in American politics.

Trump may soon be out of power, but many of his views on international trade, media, economics and immigration will continue to influence politics for the next decade. We might see the end of President Trump, but the forces and attitudes he has unleashed likely will remain with us for decades to come.…

A deep dive into American politics. 

It is necessary to separate Donald J. Trump the personality from the politician that correctly recognized a political trend developing. This trend has far from peaked. 

Even though Trump the personality may fade into history, the political transition he both saw emerging and exploited skillfully will likely be around for some time. 

Both the populist right and the progressive left are seizing on it. Joel Kotkin argues that the populist right is more in tune with the time than the progressive left.

(This doesn't bode very well for adoption of MMT analysis as a policy tool.)

Kotkin doesn't mention it but the most complicating factor facing America and threatening the republic today is loss of confidence in the voting system, which was already under pressure prior to this election. 

It's not only the charge of allegations of voter fraud, doubt about electronic voting and other problems with the actual election, but also redistricting, voter suppression and other machinations to fix the process before the election takes place.

This more than anything else spells "banana republic," with all that implies. It can't be blamed on any person or party since it has been going on for so long with some many involved. It is traceable to the Civil War and aftermath, for example. But now we are on the brink of a full-scale constitutional crisis staring into the abyss of disorder. 

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Why Trump's America Will Live On

Joel Kotkin | Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, executive director of the Urban Reform Institute, and author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism (Encounter 2020).

See also

These crisis periods—“Ages of Discord”—have recurred in societies throughout history. Modern Americans may be disconcerted to learn that the US right now has much in common with the Antebellum 1850s and, more surprisingly, with ancien régime France on the eve of the French Revolution. Can it really be true that there is nothing new about our troubled time, and that similar ages arise periodically for similar underlying reasons? Ages of Discord marshals Structural-Demograpic Theory and detailed historical data to show that this is, indeed, the case. The book takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride through American history, from the Era of Good Feelings of the 1820s to our first Age of Discord, which culminated in the American Civil War, to post-WW2 prosperity and, finally, to our present, second Age of Discord.

 Peter Turchin, Ages of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American History