Trumping Brexit?

This morning waking up to news on the alarm clock radio I (I imagine not alone) had a sense of deja vu with last June's Brexit result. The two events are linked by much more than the feeling of surprise for such a large number of people voting (apparently, personally) irrationally against overwhelming evidence.

I was not eligible to vote in either consultation, and yet in both cases will be part of the history that unfolds from here. Of course in the case of American elections this circumstance is shared with the rest of the world's population. But particularly as a European this hurts because if we abandoned our tribalism (sorry, I mean our Nations in which we are brainwashed to patriotically recognise ourselves) we might actually have something constructive to say. We hand over the role of "leader of the free world" by a potent combo of voluntary and unconscious actions. We then get what someone else thinks best.

In this case the election seems to me to have been won by Trump (this is probably the strongest link with Brexit) because of the disenchantment of sections of working and middle class who, despite the best job market conditions one could imagine, have actually been losing quality of life, not on an absolute scale but certainly relative to the top earners and to the "models" that society puts before us. I'm 42 (the answer to everything), and I felt Obama was the best USA president of my lifetime... yet as many have written there are many things that have not been solved or have even gone worse in the last decade. One is wealth distribution and lack of equality in opportunities across society. Will Trump manage to do something here? There's the potential for an economic disaster, but perhaps he will find a way to actually address this problem.   It's a problem that will surface again in the forthcoming votes in Italy, France and Germany... let's see if the "old world" is in sync with UK/USA or if the "social contract" there has (hopefully) held up better.  More of the same, even with good intentions, and even when things go well (e.g. low unemployment) is not sorting this problem out.

Let me be clear that I am pessimistic and sad, and I could not put my feelings better than Katharine Viner, Editor in Chief of the Guardian: "It was a terrible night for women, for Muslims, for Hispanic Americans, for people who believe climate change is a real and present danger, for people who believe women have a right to abortion, for men and women who object to sexual harassment of the most brutal and obvious kind, for disabled people, for black people, for Jewish people, for gay people, for progressives, for liberals, for people who believe Barack Obama was born in the USA, for a free and independent media working in the public interest", concluding that we need to hold up: "Progressive ideas are good ideas".

However, contrary to Brexit (where I simply cannot see any glimmer or anything good that can come out), I could imagine some positive things following Trump's election: (1) His "America Great/Strong again" might well have the effect of reducing Russia's aggressiveness not through specific threats but simply because I can imagine then several "alpha male" characters all claiming to stand up to each other is a stable scenario; this is a terrible view of how some equilibrium can be maintained, but better than war. It is harder, and takes consensus, to disarm, etc. and maybe the conjuncture of leaders is not the right one, so maybe this is the best we can hope for. (2) He might invest on infrastructure,  things like trains - this is something that would boost the right sectors of society, and would be good. (3) The middle eastern "knot", like all knots, does not necessarily disentangle if you keep pulling the same strings; it could be that a shift of approach will move things in a better direction (hard to see how things could be worse, there is one war happening in Siria, another in Yemen, unsolved tensions in Israel, and increasingly strong friction between Iran and Saudis). (4) He *might* find some way to make USA society more equal- this is a big one, because the potential is also there for things to go much worse than now (like Brexit, you can imagine many lose-lose scenarios where simply everyone loses out; he might well start a huge trade war with China from which the vast majority loses out).

The first President ever without experience of Public Office or military... I suppose that more than ever the people around him will count a lot. Let's hope there's a good team!   Other "expert" politicians, Wake Up!  - people need from you vision, ideas and well designed policies!  Or they will think they can do better without the experts.