The Morning After: Reflections & Questions

As we process the meaning of Donald Trump’s presidential victory, we should stop and reflect on the bigger picture.

Patriarchy Has Come Roaring Back

Since the 1960s various groups have agitated for equal rights, with considerable success. Yet every gain African Americans have made has faced a fierce backlash. The vote of young males—White, Black, and Latina—for Trump indicates that they do not support these liberation moves. These young males see rights as a zero-sum game. More rights for others mean fewer rights for them.

Trump openly ran on patriarchy and White supremacy. It worked. But it leaves the country badly divided between men and women, rural and urban, religious and non-religious, those without and with a college education, and those with high incomes and those with falling incomes. Is a country governable with these divisions?

American religion has reaffirmed its acceptance of patriarchy and nativism. It has become reactionary and will be looking to Trump for his promised favors. Whether that will reverse its decline is doubtful. As a member of Westar and the Jesus Seminar, I have spent much of my adult life in support of Christianity’s reform. I was and am convinced that religion can be intelligent and beneficial. That possibility is now off the table. In its current form religion is dangerous and bears considerable responsibility for the mess in which we find ourselves.

Patriarchy has undergirded human culture since the Stone Age. It has guaranteed men a place of priority and superiority. It ensures they are entitled. To think that patriarchy could be undone in a generation or two is naïve. The struggle continues.

The Old World Order

Following World War II, the United States led the western democratic nations in the establishment of a new global order. It was never truly global, because large parts of the world were left out or opted out. This order was built around various political (United Nations), military (NATO) , financial (International Monetary Fund and the World Bank), and trade organizations (European Union) all in support of liberal democracies. Whether that order will survive without American leadership is doubtful. Trade wars will proliferate, military budgets will rise, and conflicts will become more frequent. The fate of democracy hangs in the balance. Times of uncertainty and conflict bring out the authoritarians. Without Pax Americana, how will the world shake out?

America Will Be Remade

Trump was elected to tear the system up. He articulated the grievances of a significant part of the population that the system was not working for them. In his campaign he put forward no extensive policies and explicitly denied connection to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, even though many of his close advisers authored the report. Given his performance in his first administration, Trump will be unsystematic, but that does not mean his appointees do not have plans. We can expect an effort to radically reshape American government along the lines of Project 2025. It’s ironic that conservatives will be tearing down, not conserving. But conservatives long have sought to slash the reforms begun under Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940s. This may be their best chance. The only question is how far will they go?

Will Trump try to reshape democracy to guarantee continuing victories for his MAGA movement? He controls the courts and may control both Houses of Congress. Little may stand in his way. American conservatives have admired the policies of Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Is that the model they will follow? Religious conservatives have likewise admired Orban’s support of Christianity.

Will It Work?

Despite his boasts, Trump is not a builder. He is a destroyer. His voters elected him to destroy the system, even if they do not know what that might mean. Although he promises to make America great again, he envisions an America that never was. And the world has moved on as well. He is remaking America in his own image—a chaotic, ungovernable mess. Since Edmund Burke’s formulation of conservatism in the eighteenth century, conservatives have always been about maintaining some imagined status quo threatened by liberalism, first in the French Revolution and then other assaults on established authority. After they tear it down, what will come?  

There are present and future crises facing America and the world that a wall of tariffs will do nothing to keep at bay. An aggressive Russia on Europe’s door and Israel in the Middle East do not bode well for the future. Trump may get along well with Putin and Netanyahu, but Europe and much of the Arab world will be uncomfortable. Does the world need American leadership? We will find out. An isolationist America will not bring peace. It certainly did not in the 1920s and 30s. We live in a world of atomic weapons which must be managed. The alternative is inconceivable.

Political crises are not the biggest issue facing the future Trump administration. The effects of global warming will continue to accrue regardless of Trump’s skepticism. We will waste four more years and possibly more, while the climate will continue to deteriorate. We will certainly miss the 1.5 degree temperature increase goal agreed to in the Paris Accords, from which Trump in his first administration withdrew the USA. Will we hit 1.8 or even 2 degrees? There is no wall behind which to hide from the effects of climate change. Even Elon Musk knows that.

Climate change alone ensures the Trump administration’s failure. But what will come after? Humanity has faced apocalyptic situations before. We can give into the threat and beseech a savior to come to our rescue, or we can focus on the present and do the hard work of conversion. It’s up to us to re-imagine a new world. We’ve been here before. Those who have ears, let them hear.  

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