Say Goodbye to the Status Quo
Something big is happening. Bigger than anything we’ve seen in politics and culture since the end of the Second World War. And no one knows how it will all turn out.
Dramatic shifts in foreign policy – suspending most foreign aid and abandoning the traditional if inherently unworkable two-state solution in Israel – combined with equally dramatic shifts in economic policy by embracing tariffs and walking away from the gospel of free trade – have turned American politics on its head. The Republican party that had long supported a foreign policy based upon alliances, edges closer to isolationism, while the Democrat party supports continued support for Ukraine as it searches for its soul after stunning defeats in 2024. Is the Pax Americana era now over? Is NATO an anachronism on its way out?
The Trump Administration cut off several Congressionally-approved funding streams across multiple departments, citing executive power and sparking debate about who really has the “power of the purse.”
The US suggests it may try to take back direct control of the Panama Canal, floats the idea of buying Greenland and suggests Canada should become the 51st state.
The US Secretary of State meets with the Russian Foreign Minister to begin negotiating an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine without either Ukraine or our European allies at the table. At the same time, some of our European allies meet without the US to react to US plans to negotiate Ukraine without them. Then President Trump suggested that Ukraine was to blame for the Russian invasion.
Egypt announced its own plan for rebuilding Gaza without US involvement and without displacing Palestinian refugees.
A new Federal Department, DOGE, which isn’t really a Department at all, begins wholesale firings, spending cutbacks, and early retirements while unearthing billions in improper payments and ideological bias. In the face of many challenges to its authority, the only two federal court decisions handed down so far affirmed the Trump Administration and DOGE were affirmed.
This unprecedented amount of turmoil in and around our national government is directly responsive to promises made by President Trump during the 2024 Presidential campaign and supported by a majority of voters. Rooting out billions of dollars in improper expenditures must be weighed against the cost of withdrawing food and medical services as US foreign aid.
This list is not even complete, and yet it’s already long, as the new Administration is barely one month old. Every one on this list is in a state of flux, which is to say unstable. Which way will Ukraine, Russia, Israel, and Egypt go? When and how often will the Supreme Court make rulings or issue injunctions, and how will the Administration respond to them?
There’s a word that the tech community uses to describe something new that comes along that is so radical that it literally changes the status quo. An example is the smartphone. Cellular phones before the smartphone were just communication devices. Now smartphones are computers, GPS navigators, video and audio players and much more. Smartphones are disruptors. Permanent disruptors. Donald Trump is a disruptor. He is disrupting the status quo of economics, domestic politics, foreign policy and culture. Some call him the fox in the henhouse. Others call him crazy. And still others see him positively, as crazy like a fox. There is literally no one who truly knows what’s next.
Yes, something big is happening, and not just one thing. Multiple big changes for this country and the world are certain to happen in the near future, many of them permanent. Say goodbye to the status quo. And Donald Trump is why. In a Presidential term that has over 97% of its duration still to come, he is almost certain to be the most consequential President in American history.
