Well, has the Trump magic changed History?

A proper understanding of history must begin with human psychology, mustn't it, with understanding the minds of those involved in it?

So President Trump diverts us. He talks of making History with a capital H, as if History exists apart yet can be made to perform to order - Trump's. 

And so the wizardry of tariffs will make all trade fair and every American rich, a dazzling illusion Donald Trump doubtless sees as real - at least until the next sleight of hand gets us baffled and taking sides. Trump magic pulls trick after trick.

But how does that craft make anything an historical certainty, besides confirming Trump and his supporters' belief in his limitless power? And what if the idea of History Repeating Itself is only the failure of leaders to learn from the past - lessons being the one area where Trump definitely gives rather than receives?

Human beings come in all shapes and sizes, convinced of all kinds of truths. Even so, it is hard not to see a foundational difference between the world views of two broad types - conservatives and liberals. And putting the matter broadly again, it is conservatives who worship President Trump as a MAGA magician and liberals who do not. 

The divide between magic and reality is visible everywhere there are people and stoked to extremes in the US today. Given human nature, a way back from mounting political disorder there is nowhere in sight. 

Hence a well-known piece of advice: if you're relying on conjurors like Trump to change their act before they are forced to, don’t hold your breath. And hence the only possible outcome: history alone will show whether Trump magic works wonders now.

The truth about Trump?

Is Trump a fascist? Some help with the question

Some years ago I wrote an article suggesting the answer lay with you – and with all of us – personally. Was that reasonable, is it now?

Since then, many Americans have become convinced President Trump is a fascist, as many round the world are convinced. Others still vigorously deny it and ridicule the idea. Their case is Trump simply tells it like it is. He's a patriot, fighting for his country, not running a charity. He drives a hard bargain and so he should. Who’s right? What is the answer?

The difficulty is trying to define the word ‘fascist’ or, let us say, to start by trying to define it by reference to some agreed standard. Hitler? Why not Stalin? Jean-Marie Le Pen? Bashar al-Assad? Nigel Farage? The next-door neighbour? 

Take another word and condition: 'bald'. The average human has between 90,000 and 150,000 hairs on their head. Does that mean you’re balding if you have 149,846? And are you definitely bald already if you have only 89,846? Why do we not seriously argue these points? 

Splitting hairs, getting bogged down in definitions and details, so often loses sight of the issue. Rather decide what democracy is and means to you. Then consider if Trump's way is a better way to organise society.

First off, democracy is a form of government that authorises people - that’s all of us, theoretically - to have a say in our government: the idea of ‘the consent of the governed’. Dispute it as everyone may, it is never clear how that principle can be improved on.

That is because if and when and where democracy is successful, it is evidently the fairest basis for government, even though in other respects fairness means different things to different people and democracy cannot in practice deliver a perfect balance of interests.

But if that sounds like an irredeemable deficiency and good reason to look for an option, it’s important to remember successful democracy is also self-correcting: people can demand fairness and change their minds when any fairness becomes unfair.

Faced with these circumstances, fascism must always insist it has the permanent solution, while democracy is the solution to there being no permanent solution.

That’s the question for the Trumps of the world. In a time when democracy has never been more importunate, they aren’t really democrats; they don’t believe that. Do you?

"Trump started as he means to go on"

                    Newspaper headline after Trump's combative Inaugural Address

Friend and foe know Donald Trump can talk alright. He is media's ideal Controversy, the surefire frightener who, most frighteningly of all, is not on the horizon any longer, but undeniably arrived in person.

Yet you can agree with nearly every word of nearly every hostile article or post, and a reservation still won't go away: an intuition, never quite rising to full confidence, that nevertheless democracy, the 'demos' if you like - but more than that, the vast joined-up context today, the whole shebang - has become far more complex and volatile than all the warnings of its demise would have us believe. Is democracy dead or dying? Is Trump Adolf Hitler reborn in our times? Is he all-powerful? Can anyone have it all his own way anymore? 

And did the Founding Fathers somehow miss the real threat: What if someone just ignores the Constitution? Or does the question miss the point? That all action creates reaction, and reaction, action: that nothing simply stops there.

Trump rejoices in reaction, turning the clock back to the great imagined past he embodies for his conservative supporters. While it’s transparently bogus to many, it makes him friend, hero and Saviour to many more. For the faithful, the water of the Gulf of Mexico is turned into the wine of the Gulf of America, and Mars will miraculously rise again as Mar-a-Lago perhaps, as soon as he can lay hands on it.

But his measured words to another Big Man, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, betray Trump, as well as betray his wonderful promise to put an end to the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. And so, in time, for all the talk?

Reality imposes its own checks and balances. You suspect he's in for big trouble, not today, not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of his life.