Future historians will dub the current era as the age of uncertainty.
In normal times there’s always a sizeable degree of predictability about life, but currently there’s none.
For example, are we now living, as a top American military figure said a year back, no longer in the post 2nd World War period, but instead in the pre-3rd World War age?
This is one positive about Trump, namely his aversion to wars. Hopefully his appeasement mentality will see an end to the evil Putin’s territorial ambitions via a face-saving concession of some eastern Ukrainian territory to Russia. There’s a legitimate case for that mind you, as some of those statelets are basically Russian and would prefer such realignment.
That’s also true of lovely Crimea, a reality ignored by Western commentators.
In less than two months Trump takes control of the world’s major economic power-house.
He will need an attention-taking diversion such as resolving the Ukrainian situation, to dodge acting on his ludicrous spur-of-the-moment outburst of imposing 30% import taxes on Mexico, Canada and China. This would inflict enormous economic harm on America and for that reason it won’t happen.
Trump has the intellectual capacity of a 12 year old.
Those closest to him insist he’s never read a book, something I have no difficulty believing.
That said, his plans to attack what he colourfully but accurately refers to as the deep state, although enormously disruptive, are still highly desirable.
The western world recent decades, massive growth of bureaucracies, a consequence of democracies’ politicians wooing voters with ill-considered expenditure promise, a classic case of spending other people’s money, needs to be arrested. If Trump can achieve that then it will mark his Presidency as historically significant.
It’s certainly not an easy task and will bring in its wake much disruption, notably unemployment. But it’s certainly desirable and needs to be addressed.
One thing’s for sure. We’re living in a revolutionary age of great uncertainty, frightening for some folk while exciting for others.
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Trump may or may not have the mentality of a 12 year old but that appears to be greater than his recent precedents.
When referring to his ‘predecessors’, are you including President Obama?
Yup.
Yes, Biden is simply Obamas third term, a lot of what we see now, identity politics, wokery, Geo politics all began and fostered by Obama
I agree that we are living in a revolutionary age.
However , I lean towards a pronoiac view, and believe future historians will judge our preceding era as that of barbarism, while the current and future era will be known as a time of enormous change, that was reflected in the maturing of human nature.
Sophisticated societies will simply not tolerate repeating the mistakes of the past.
World war 3 is extremely overdue, and for that reason I predict that it will never happen.
What we are witnessing is the final battle between the old way and the way of the future.
The future will see old politicians being replaced by a much younger breed, filled with vitality and fresh ideas about how to make the world a better place for those that hold peace in their hearts.
Poverty will end, once leaders state the obvious , that there is enough for everyone.
The likes of Putin and Kim Jong Un will become isolated and probably end up serving life sentences behind bars.
We learn from our past mistakes and the future is far too precious to throw away with a nuclear Armageddon.
Anyone who bases their opinion of Donald Trump on second-hand anecdotes from people who are trying to sell their otherwise boring books should watch the recent 3 hour Joe Rogan interview.
Like many highly successful people, Trump appears to have a thirst for knowledge especially American history.
Trump is also a dealmaker by nature and a proponent of the Teddy Roosevelt “speak softly and carry a big stick” dictum which is one reason that he is admired and respected by other World leaders.
Trump does not have to implement 100% tariffs, he only has to threaten to do so, which is why for example Castro Jr. Trudeau scampered down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with him recently.
He appears to have a thirst for knowledge especially American history, is what you say?
Is that why he routinely skipped his Daily Brief during his first term, or is that an ‘anecdote’ i picked up from ‘someone trying to sell a boring book’?
And is he ‘admired and respected by other world leaders?
I doubt that he is but he is the most powerful man in the world and other leaders, in their respective national interests, have to be seen to be getting on with him. So, in the main, they humour him, nod, flatter him, and nod again. all the while viewing him with disdain and holding him in contempt. That sentiment is pretty clear to those who live in Europe, at least.
Worse still, some feel they even have to make the dreaded-by-all trip to the ghastly Mar a Lago., but then nobody ever said it’s a just world.
The years long campaign to generate hatred of Trump is one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever witnessed; “mentality of a 12 year old” is obviously nonsense. No wonder 70% of Americans (and a similar proportion here) have little or no faith in the legacy media – to the point of assuming that it’s nearly all lies and manipulation; that the opposite of what they say is more likely to be true.
Full support from me for Trump’s plans to cut government waste, end institutional corruption and loose voting rules, haul in the “they/them” insanity, stop illegal immigration and end DIE programs. His election has already encouraged a change; the Russians and Ukrainians, even the Mad Mullahs, are talking peace.
Putin’s references to ‘peace’ has nothing to do with trump and every thing to do with his spending 40% of his budget on sustaining his illegal war against the Ukrainian people. That’s more than his health and education budgets combined so you don’t have to be an intellectual giant to understand where Russia is headed, without ‘peace’.
Is Trump successful though? Having been left a fortune by his father, Donald junior leaves a trail of bankruptcy behind him, and the ” second hand anecdotes ” are public statements from colleagues who uniformly declaim him as stupid and venal.
The only thing we know for sure is that he admires dictators. Hardly characteristic of a successful person. He certainly seems to be ambitious but again, I wonder if he had his hand forced in this.
Having seen the interview in question what stands out to me is how much smarter and more electable Joe Rogan is.
Your point about the Rogan interview is well made.
“I know not with what weapons WWIII will be fought, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones.”-Albert Einstein
In 1990 Charles Handy wrote The Age of Unreason, a book based on the need for constant and deep change, Not entirely dissimilar to Bobs writing here. It’s a good read even 34 years later. I dusted off my copy to recall it this morning.
About: In an era when change is constant, random, and, as Handy calls it, discontinuous, it is necessary to break out of old ways of thinking in order to use change to our advantage. Handy examines how dramatic changes are transforming business, education, and the nature of work. We can see it in astounding new developments in technology, in the shift in demand from manual to cerebral skills, and in the virtual disappearance of lifelong, full-time jobs. Handy maintains that discontinuous change requires discontinuous, upside-down thinking, and discusses the need for new kinds of organizations, new approaches to work, new types of schools, and new ideas about the nature of our society.
Don’t see Trump as a Javier Milei. Trump ran up enough debt last time round. Put plenty of tariffs in place to against China too.
Those people saying ‘Trump has never read a book’? Wonder if they might have an axe to grind?
Trump may not be a book reader but Elon Musk is. After reading the Elon Musk biography I can see what a big deal the Trump/Musk relationship is.
I can also now see just how profound the AI revolution is. ….. It will be most disruptive when AI + robots merge at some point…. to become , almost, humanlike productive servants.
(Musk reckons the cost of one of this robots might be less than $30,000. ) I understand a little better why Musk thinks Ai might become a threat to Human existence…. at some point.
ps…Maybe Bob is underestimating Trump. …
I’m sure he is
Musk may be a book reader but he’s not the President.
Or is he?
Shame he (Musk) didn’t read a few more books on Russia and Putin before he got cosy with Vlad the poisoner. Specifically some of the books detailing how many people Putin has murdered. If Musk is silly enough to think he is immune from this then good luck to him.
The problem with Trump’s obsession with the destruction of the ‘deep state’ is how he perceives it, and I fear it is anything that challenges and threatens him, including the media. On the positive side, though, the media can rely on the guard rail offered by the First Amendment.
But despite his being a pigmy in an intellection sense (and the pigmy’s not yet 12), he is a canny politician, in a feral sense, for he was quick to tap into a sentiment that is to the fore in America – best identified by a study undertaken by three universities in 2015 which found a majority of the population to be more inclined to an authoritarian regime that to a democracy. Hence his embrace of Bannon’s 2015-stated strategy of destroying the democratic institutions and rebuilding.
What will need to be rebuilt America, though, if Trump agrees to leave in 2029, will be a horribly fractured society .
History shows that lazy societies are replaced by those societies that are not…That is a certainty….These are the times we are currently in…
The western elite (lazy old wealth trying to maintain their power through anti competition behaviour and corrupting politicians and bureaucrats to facilitate it) have been fooling themselves since the late 1960’s.
Sustainable real wealth can not be maintained through financial manipulation and bribing politicians. They have forgotten how Henry Ford created real wealth, which was through efficiency but more importantly by ensuring his workers were adequately paid to afford the products he made.
They’ll blame socialism, yet they have been the biggest benefactors in their too big to fail model.
We/I look forward to a future economy where it is much easier for small business to establish, rather than protecting the inefficient large businesses who have captured the politicians.
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