JANUARY 31, 2025 – At any moment in the course of human events, every member of society faces three basic big-picture questions:
- What’s happening?
- Based on what’s happening, what’s likely to happen in the future?
- How can and should one try to influence and adapt to what’s likely to happen?
Since Trump’s inauguration, these three questions have been especially challenging.
Understanding accurately what’s going on in the present is always difficult. C. P. Snow (1905 – 1980), the British novelist and scientist, observed that the history of an era or the biography of an influential individual can’t be written for at least 50 years after the era or individual under study has passed. This is because only with time and experience can a full and more reliable perspective be developed. It’s hard to know what to make of the chaos inside a restaurant kitchen when you’re standing in the middle of it. The best way to judge the chaos is to consume and digest the meal that comes from it. Only then can a proper evaluation be made.
Turning to the current chaos of the new administration, does anyone have a clear notion of what’s happening? Is the federal government being destroyed three headlines at a time? Or is there some method to the madness, by which method some actual purpose—dark or constructive—may be advanced? These questions are not for the faint of heart.
Based on Trump’s words and actions since January 20, we know that absolutely nothing is happening inside his head except a non-stop game of attention-getting Whack a Mole. Equipped with a wooden mallet, he simply smacks down the Moles that dare to threaten his Oval Office snack supplies. He makes no distinction between a Mole of one color and a Mole of another. They’re all the same; they’re all a bunch of Moles.
One of my favorite cable-opinion opinionators is Chris Hayes. He’s very sharp, quick, well informed, and knows how to think. In Paradise Bronx (see my three-part series on the book, beginning 01/03/2025), I learned that the father and uncle of Chris Hayes were highly effective community activists in the Bronx. The other day I saw him interviewed about his latest book, The Siren’s Call. His thesis is that being a seriously flawed human being, Trump has a bizarrely obsessive need for attention. Nothing matters about the cause of the attention—negative, positive or otherwise. All he wants is . . . non-stop attention. Having generated a solid supply of attention, Trump has discovered that it creates financial and political power. His success in this regard is not the result of “genius” or “special talent” or of some grand scheme. His power is the natural outcome of his OCD need for constant attention. It arises organically from an unending series of transactional behaviors that draw excessive attention to an excessive need for it.
What’s happening outside Trump’s empty mind, however, is potentially transformational on a scale never before realized on the stage of American politics. At the core of this transformation is destruction of the federal government, except for the elements that can be commandeered to serve the interests of the destroyers. That’s what’s happening, outside of Trump’s game of Whack A Mole to draw non-stop attention.
The anti-government underpinnings of Trump’s political support have existed for generations. They are deeply embedded in our history, culture, and geography and aren’t likely to fade or soften. Intensifying anti-government sentiments is the clash between ever increasing complexity and our growing impatience with how slow a fast-shifting world responds to our individual needs and wants. This part of the equation—and the export of American cultural values—explains parallel growth of right-wing parties throughout Europe.
As some people might have learned earlier this week, burning the house down is an ill-advised method of cleaning it.
The question now is . . . what comes next? (Cont.)
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
