Today marked the end of the term of the only US President who wasn’t a politician and wasn’t military. Prior to this time, I had spent endless hours hypothesizing what such a person in the oval office would be like. Historians, political guru’s and even average American’s will long ponder what the last four years was really about. I couldn’t possibly begin to summarize the data from the Great Experiment in this one post.
Trump was a President who broke the mold. He was brazen, bold, belligerent, and blatantly offensive. He was the head of a political war the likes of which I’ve never seen. There were no sacred cows, not even the media. I have nothing to even compare him to.
The media war combined with Twitter led to the first time in history that the President was in the limelight every day of his tenure. Which meant politics was in the face of the American people nonstop for 4 years. This has never happened before. Even for a political nut like myself, this was simply too much. I went from being a political junky to a political recluse. And everyone was suddenly a political expert. And when everyone is an expert, no one is an expert. America lost its mind.
So why do I call it the Great Experiment? Because in my wildest imagination, I never could have come up with a more perfect national setting that tested humanity on many levels, in a way that could be observed. While the politicians, the media and many people throughout the world focused on Trump, I focused on everyone else.
What do you mean everyone else? Just what I said, I watched Congress, Democrats, Republicans, world leaders, military leaders, judges, the masses on social media, various journalist on many platforms, religious leaders, my fellow American’s of which I engaged in many forums, philosophers, and such. I used social media, podcast, many news organizations, friends, connections, official documents, and anything I could acquire to measure the world and its reaction to this bold figure that was glaring in everyone’s face. I wanted to know not just what they were doing but why they were doing it.
The first thing that became apparent to me was the shift in political strategies. Politics has always been ugly, but the knife twisting usually was kept behind closed doors. But the media war with Trump first brought them to their defensive heals and then shifted them to a full on offensive. Politicians in Congress soon followed suit.
Suddenly we found ourselves seeing the dirt of politics out in the open. At the same time social media and regular media brought the fight into our living rooms, into our pockets and laid it out before us in an onslaught that was far too overwhelming to understand or wrap our heads around.
You would have to have lived and breathed politics all day long to have any hopes of keeping up. And the mass of ‘experts’ and social media brought so much information to the forefront in record time, that the waters of each event were muddied almost instantly. It was an investigators worst nightmare. Even for someone like me who had habitually dug into political events, it was just impossible to sift through the noise. On top of the noise, the rate of events increased to a point where the next event was occurring before you even heard of the current event.
In the absence of real information the world delved into a chasm of subjectiveness and misinformation. So, what was I to do? I shifted my own strategy. I knew I couldn’t possibly keep up with the onslaught, but I could keep up with policy, and at the end of the day, political policy is what impacts the average American, not political pandering.
It meant mostly ignoring the social media rants, news rants and Twitter wars. It meant gleaning for the nuggets that would lead to the polices to see what was actually being done.
It was a scary confirmation of everything I’ve always suspected about politicians. House of Cards couldn’t hold a candle to what was going on.
On the left was an all-out strategy to weaponize every tool of politics (including impeachment) to bring down the President. On the right was a bizarre splitting and reunification under a President that simply didn’t belong in the GOP narrative. Trying to hold to the image of the 'conservative right' while dealing with the image of the Trumpian right. One image was winning and it was hard not to get on board.
In the midst of this storm, we had an astounding process of domestic deregulation and implementation of almost libertarian statutes. In the foreign arena there was more noise as world leaders flounder in their positions of whether to support and work with or outright disdain the “Leader of the Free World”. The military was rapidly expanded and even the crazy North Korean despot was brought to the table when faced with the uncertainty of a most unpredictable US President. All while countless US leaders came into, provided support for and then were driven out of the fold of Trumps arena.
Trump took Twitter by storm and poked the bear of the media and politicians who hated him. And over and over again took the bait leading to the craziest retaliations imaginable. It was political chaos on a grand level.
By the end of the 3rd year of this experiment the left and media was unified against Trump and the right had seemingly unified under Trump (very unexpectedly). The stage was set for what would be the most politically enflamed year of my life.
2020 brought two major issues. COVID 19 and BLM/Police brutality.
The first should have never become the political nightmare that it was. COVID 19 demonstrated that anything can be used as a political weapon. Even something that should have had nothing to do with politics. And once it was politicized the data became ambiguous at best and out right contradictory at worst. From Congress all the way down to the lay man on the street was a divide based upon the ‘data’ that each side chose to believe.
BLM demonstrated how vastly different the right and left are. An already desperate America became a violent America and burned and looted its own communities to the ground all across the nation. Both sides claiming the moral high ground. Both sides enraged by the actions of the other. Neither side yielding.
Combined these became the political fight of the year. And the degrees of depravity and destruction on a massive scale that our leaders and our citizens were willing to drag us to in order to gain political capital was beyond awful. The level of hate and disdain that stirred at the ground level resulted in violence, rage, pettiness, loss of wealth, jobs, homes, friends, and much much more.
I could go on, but we all were there. I for one learned just how ugly we can be. How blind we can be. And how dirty our politicians truly are. I suspect there is still even more twistedness going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about. And I watched the once narrow political divide between the two parties become a Grand Canyon like chasm.
The great experiment revealed the darkness that has been brewing in America for a long time. It unleashed that darkness, and the genie will be hard to put back in the bottle. Many will say this is a new evil, but I rather believe it’s always been there, and we have always been this way. We just didn’t wear it on our sleeves like a badge of honor. We didn’t parade around like a peacock fanning its feathers. To this day both sides are proud of what they stood for and disgusted to the point of hate and rage at who and what they stood against.
Moral high ground eh? Clearly we have lost the meaning.
I have to wonder, has a new door been opened for the potential of another future ‘outsider’? Will I ever see another non-politician President? Do I want to? Is there anyone who could stand in that furnace facing the heat of the media and the politicians and social media in an endless onslaught and still be left standing, if they didn’t have the abrasiveness and unapologetic attitude of Trump? Is Trump the example of the only type of outsider that stands a chance to carry the mantle in the cesspool of US politics?
I know for many on the right, that is exactly the sentiment. “We didn’t particularly like him but we needed him in that office”. Is it possible for a more Ron Paulesqe outsider to rise to power and survive in that furnace? I’d still like to think so, but at this time, if I’m honest, my hope in that possibility is gone.
Trump did something that has never been done before. He rose past all the seasoned politicians as an outsider to become President of the United States. So we know that it is at least possible.
But he also exposed and brought to the forefront the ugliness of American politics. An ugliness that they will try to hide and pretend never happened and doesn’t exist. An ugliness I am certain will be brought forth to bear on any future outsider. Who would want to step into that arena that is worth having in that arena?
Even worse it’s an ugliness that is still alive and well on the floors of Congress as they try to destroy each other openly. An ugliness that I fear is now to be the norm.
Today as we move forward where do we stand?
We have a 47 year politician as President. We certain can’t expect him to do anything outside the politically expedient box. A true ‘reed in the political wind’ politician.
We have a Democratic house divided. 2020 brought rise to the voice of the ‘Progressive’ left which is at war with the liberal left.
We have a GOP divided. Pro Trump and anti-Trump camps.
We don’t know who will come out on top in either of those two arenas.
We have a Congress actively engaged in a civil war. Our courts are mysteriously silent. Our governors are no more united than the rest of us. Our mayors are blaming everyone but themselves. Our sheriff's are defying our governors. Our citizens are opening shaming and judging those who oppose them. Our industry is shutting down dissenting voices. Our performers are pretending to be politicians.
Our small businesses are dying on the vine of shutdown. Our schools are drowning in division and failing to teach our kids.
We have angry American’s on all sides. We live in fear of being accused or exposed. We live in fear of being able to survive. We live in fear of a most uncertain future.
"Hate your next door neighbor, but don't forget to say Grace,
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don't believe we're on the Eve of Destruction"
The nation holds its breath not knowing what to expect of life after the experiment. Some rejoice believing a great victory has been won and a new era of peace and prosperity will be rung in. But others fear with great trembling what the future holds. There are cries of unity and peace, all while the embers of the chaos are still glowing hot.
All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
At this time more than ever I am grateful that God reigns over His creation. I may not know what man will do, but I know God has a good plan and we can’t thwart it. I’m made keenly aware of just how small I am and how little of the world I can even influence. And I’m driven to stay focused on the coin God has given me to invest in the world within my scope of influence. To trust in the Lord when the world seems in chaos is a challenge and test of faith. One that I know I fail at daily, but I’m trying.
1Why do the nations ragea
and the peoples plot in vain?
2The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
3“Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
4He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
5Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6“As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
