May 2026. Observations
People are thinking that Trump has lost his way. But that does not seem possible, because he never found it in the first place. For someone with his keen political instincts, it strikes me as not unusual that he has no moral compass, because voters either do not care or care only about themselves. This has been true many times throughout our history, but moral leadership, or at least a modicum of it, has existed to some extent among the elites.
If it is true that leaders do not possess some element of decency and respect for their countrymen, then we are doomed to fail. It almost seems that we are on the cusp of that, if one looks around. But maybe not. Even a crook makes some correct decisions. After all, Nixon went to China. Trump may solve part of the Middle East problem while he screws everything else up domestically.
American history teaches us that there have been moral lapses before: presidents who presided over the killing of Native Americans, who were segregationists, who were racists, who were slaveowners, who catered to robber barons. There were titans who built the railroads, cornered the oil markets, burned down their competitors, shot strikers — but often these lapses were followed by reform movements. Hopefully that will happen again after this dark chapter of corruption returns permanently to Mar-a-Lago or to Leavenworth. I believe the American voter will wake up from this nightmare.
Jill Lepore, the Harvard historian, has just written a new book, We the People, the premise of which is that the Constitution needs to be amended from time to time, and that the difficulty of amending it has thrown a monkey wrench into not only the efficiency, but more importantly, the fairness by which we govern ourselves.
A number of things must be done — the discarding of the Electoral College, and the direct election of the President of the United States. One person, one vote. One methodology would be awarding each state’s electoral votes to the national popular vote winner, thereby avoiding the necessity of a national recount if there is controversy.
Next, proportioning the Senate more in line with population without abolishing the influence of each state — perhaps by adding senators in tiers and capping representation at six per state, so that the Senate does not simply become another House. Or alternatively, leaving the Senate alone but increasing the size of the House to create more equal representation. And stop gerrymandering through national legislation. Moreover, institutions and lawmakers are not keeping up with vast technological change and upheaval.
Unfortunately, the conservative elements of society have vested interests in keeping things the way they are, even if that includes massive wealth inequality, raging corporate profits, and increasingly desperate economic conditions for the working class, soon to be run off the road by robots, literally and figuratively.
60 Minutes ran a piece this past Sunday night about immigrant truck drivers being disqualified from renewing their licenses. The piece made no mention of the fact that soon there may not be any truck drivers at all. Those 18-wheelers scaring the shit out of us, barreling down the middle of the expressway, will be piloted by more cautious robots, perhaps relegated to the extreme right lane as in Europe. No time pressure. No need to get to the next rest stop to sleep.
Americans are getting a rapid dose of the future, but lawmakers are struggling to keep up with it. The idea that a Terminator may someday come after us is frightening, but somehow we forget the past. There were frightening times then also: wars, famines, the Great Depression, the Spanish flu killing millions, the Cold War.
Surely we can survive a few years of an unscrupulous, narcissistic, self-enriching president who might occasionally make a correct call here and there. Even Chauncey Gardner got the flowers to bloom.
