The Trump Trajectory

People talked about the “Reagan Revolution.”  I guess it was a conscious effort to leave the malaise of the 1970s behind.  It rejected the pessimism that grew out of the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Oil Crisis and the general chaos that was spawned during the 1960s counterculture.  Reagan said that pessimism was unfounded and that America was ready to become “that shining city on a hill” that it was meant to be.

And to some extent, the booming 1980s sort of proved him right.  The hippies became yuppies and made a killing on Wall Street.  And away we went.  Of course that wasn’t all of it.  Reagan was followed by Bush senior and Clinton and Bush junior and all of them pushed agendas that didn’t include the long-range prosperity of the bulk of the American people.  They were intent on a “new world order” and getting their slice of the pie under the table.  So, the Reagan revolution didn’t end up with all of us living on that shining city on the hill.  Most of us ended up on the other side of the tracks and broke.

And that brings us to MAGA.  It’s sort of the Reagan Revolution 2.0 without the PG rating that 1940s Hollywood lent to Reagan.  We’ve got Donald Trump running this train and he’s got more of an R rating vibe to him.  But then again, in the age we’re in that doesn’t seem shocking or even surprising.  But what it does leave us to wonder about is where do we end up?  There were, are and probably always will be very powerful interest groups that are constantly lobbying for the federal government to do their bidding.  Arms dealers and hedge funds and pharmaceutical companies are constantly jockeying for Congress and the President to buy their weapons or approve their drug or pass a law to lock in their profits.  And all of these decisions could be detrimental to the future of you and yours.  Currently Donald Trump is calling the shots and he’s sticking it to the globalists and the Deep State and doing everything he can to make the job environment better for the middle and working classes of this country.  And I think this will re-ignite some of the optimism, opportunity and affluence that we saw and felt in the 1980s and 1990s.  And that’s wonderful.  So many of the young are hanging on by a thread and need some good times to help them catch up and live middle-class lives again.

But what comes after Trump?  Let’s be optimistic and say that by 2028 Trump has managed to hang onto his control and sparks a boom economy.  And because of that JD Vance gets catapulted into the White House.  Will he have the vision it takes to prevent the same kind of shenanigans that Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama and Biden allowed to happen?  I don’t know if he has the same kind of smarts that Trump has.  I’m not saying he’s dumb.  He seems eloquent and sharp.  But is he enough of a hustler to know when someone is trying to hustle him?  Because I think that’s what it comes down to.  Now the good thing is that Vance used to be a working class (at best) guy.  He may have a loyalty to the shlubs.  But can he out hustle all those crooks in DC?

And I think that is what it all comes down to.  Will JD Vance and Peter Thiel and Elon Musk throw in with us instead of Raytheon, Blackrock and Pfizer?  That’s the bottom line.  And can the majority of voters in this country throw in with them or will they instead vote for the next Mamdani or whatever communist flim-flam man comes down the pike next.  In other words, are Americans smart enough to vote for their own long-term interests.

That’s what I wonder.