While Trump played visiting emperor in China, it has become clear that all is not well in his own American empire. Entropy made Trump; entropy will undo it. In the same way that American liberalism collapsed through the dysfunctions of neoliberalism and awoke to the disorder of Trumpism—as, according to the laws of physics, an orderly kitchen will inevitably descend into a mess—so Trumpism is succumbing to its underlying chaos. A few weeks ago it appeared that Maga had Gumby-like resilience. Trump’s remark, made during his first presidential campaign, that he could shoot someone in the street and “not lose any voters” turned out to be surprisingly accurate. The “president’s” atrocious personal behavior, his criminal acts, the appointment of incompetent clowns to high office, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein – nothing has had the effect of showing more disgust to Trump supporters than the liberal alternative. That seems to be changing.
As the Second Law of Thermodynamics states, a closed system – a kitchen that remains dirty – gets increasingly disordered. The only way to slow it down, or reverse it modestly, is to open up the system by filling it with new energy. Trump and his crew are doing everything they can to keep the political system shut by barring the door to new energy, mostly, for now, desperately trying to redistrict in their favor — Trump recently chastised Republican state senators in Indiana who rejected his phony efforts there by successfully backing their challengers in the last local election.
And recent court rulings on redistricting have added several potential Republican seats to the November midterm elections. In late April, the Supreme Court struck down the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had enfranchised America’s black population. Section 2 of that Act was intended to ensure that precincts with a majority of black voters were not divided into precincts with a majority of white voters. If they were, the Act regarded this as race fraud. April’s Supreme Court decision, however – Louisiana vs Callais – ruled that efforts to ensure that black-majority districts could not be segregated were themselves a racial slur. This has now opened the door to a mad rush by some conservative states to redistrict in favor of the Republicans.
But although the unfortunate democrats have not harnessed any new consequential energy in the face of this entropic onslaught, the energy of social and daily life does not cease. Just as in the ocean tiny eddies containing microscopic marine life have the macro effect of making the entire planet thrive, Trump’s disorder is turning the mainstream currents of American existence into a slow tide of revulsion against him. Gerrymandering stands little chance against the common sentiments that ultimately sway voters.
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Call it the usual toad effect. Beyond the general political atmosphere, no matter how dark and confusing, people want to be happy, or at least have hope that they can be happy. They are not increasingly happy or hopeful. Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 34 percent in some respected polls, making it among the lowest for any sitting president in modern times. In part this is a response to Trump’s continued disengagement from the country he claimed to want to make great again. His overseas adventures, culminating in the ongoing debacle in Iran, strike the average American as an expression of ego, not the national interest.
No one misses the fact that while the unbalanced Trump sends American troops to care for the world, he is also obsessed with his new ballroom, new buildings of his grandeur like the great triumphal arch in Washington and efforts to rename train stations, airports and national monuments after him. It was one thing to shout about Trump, like a Wall Street Journal Once the editor of the opinion told me, “because it gets in the eyes of the liberals”. It’s another thing to hold true to such contrarianism when it becomes clear that it is the result of a diseased ego, and not merely a performance that precedes the serious dawning of a new golden age. In America, where ego reigns supreme and is therefore either a blessing or an anathema, derailed egos don’t love themselves for long.
Militant political promises that have a galvanizing effect when made at a rally, or tweeted to the masses, lose their steam when people return to their everyday lives. It’s just as easy for the right to raise people up over claims that undocumented immigrants rape and kill, as it is for the left to achieve the same effect by declaring that all white people are inherently racist. Life looks different when the clouds of abstract agitprop part.
Trump’s grotesque excesses, once fueling long-simmering resentments, have now begun to cast a shadow over the ordinary pleasures of ordinary life. One is getting into a college you like. The DEI policies that followed colleges and universities before Trump cracked down on them could indeed be unfair. But when spring rolls around and parents find out if their child has been accepted by the schools they’ve applied to, no one talks about DEI. Families are talking about the overwhelming process of getting into the schools they’ve dreamed of — compared to who uses a bathroom or plays a sport, how history is taught, whether literature and art are “politicized” are as important as whether a particular college or university has enough parking. As Trump’s Iran folly catches the attention of the world, his administration is undertaking a complex legal initiative focusing on whether the all-female Smith College admitting biological males as female violates anti-discrimination laws. Of course Maga doesn’t care about Trump’s attack on the elite Smith College. But he’s starting to wonder what’s in it for them in the fight against trans people. They still can’t pay for a dentist.
Slowly but surely, Trump is upsetting the little eddies of everyday stability. In February 1961, JFK launched his national physical fitness campaign, declaring that “brave souls and tough minds usually reside in fit bodies.” It was a good idea to get Americans off the couch just as television was taking over. But it may not have been a coincidence that Kennedy began America’s involvement in Vietnam just three months later. Last summer, Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted exciting videos of them performing push-ups and pull-ups. Hegseth has spoken to the military about the importance of creating a warrior culture, which is like the Pope speaking to a room full of Catholic priests about the importance of going to church.
So it may also be no coincidence that, last December, the Trump administration made registration for the draft, which had been voluntary, automatically enrolling men using their Social Security numbers or driver’s licenses after they turn 18. Reinstating the draft would require congressional approval. But even this small but energetic step in that direction casts a shadow over ordinary life. Since, in the past, most draftees have come from the Maga heartland, even the staunchest Trump followers can take down their signs on the Maga lawn. After the start of the Iran war, in cities not far from my city, many of them already did.
Add to these subtle distortions of ordinary life the fact that Trump is not only alienating but infuriating his generals by putting American troops at risk for no good purpose, using up precious ammunition, giving a strategic advantage to America’s enemies, and driving out America’s allies. In the Cold War thriller, Seven days in Maya rogue American general plots a right-wing coup to overthrow a liberal American president he considers dangerously weak. Entropy has no ideology.
(Further reading: Britain and America: the abusive relationship)
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