Why Trump is the Forerunner for a New Era in Governance
Racist, misogynist, and anti-Semite, are only some of the terms that have been thrown at President Trump over the last year. And while many are doing their utmost to get Trump off the stage somehow, Oprah Winfrey is now being promoted as an alternative for 2020. “I thought, ‘Oh gee, I don’t have the experience, I don’t know enough,”’ she tells Bloomberg TV, “and now [referring to the election] I’m thinking, ‘Oh.'”
While mainstream media is continuously feeding everyone with all kinds of names that we should call President Trump, I am going to point out what I believe most people are missing. The fact that most pundits, politicians, and opinion leaders are constantly speaking against him shows something about the Trump phenomenon that the public, the government and the media fail to acknowledge, or can’t come to terms with.
In my view, that something has to do with a fundamental change I anticipate taking place very soon in how we run everything on the planet. The future is not going to be more of what we already know. And Trump, whether he is aware of it or not, is the precursor of that change.
How Did We Reach This Point?
In the past, governance was much clearer. Kings would rule every detail of their countries and populations. Surely, free speech wasn’t as developed as it is today. Punishments could have been horrifying and not a lot of people were in a position to make things better if they wanted to. But a good king took care of his citizens and wanted his kingdom to flourish and prosper.
Kings, however, were surrounded by many helpers. Their job was to help further the interests of the king, whether by consulting on strategy, maintenance of the kingdom, communicating to the public and so forth. But over time, they realized they have great power and they wanted to hold onto that power. And thus, early politicians were born: Dubious characters who suck up to the king, know their way around the lobby of the kingdom, gossip, plot and conspire, all for a single purpose — to maintain their positions of power.
This has been going on for approximately 200 years. Today, the politicians themselves are called “elected officials,” the method by which they can preserve their power is called “democracy” and what they put most of their time, energy and resources into is getting elected in the next term. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, it also meets the public’s interests.
Isn’t it about time we improve this system? I argue that the time has come and the shift is already starting to take shape.
Why Trump Is Outlandish
In a world that’s characterized by heightened egoism and inextricable interdependence at the same time, in a hyper-connected world where we have the technology to create abundance for all and yet we are closer to World War III, human society is groping in the dark for a new model by which to organize itself.
So who is Mr. Trump in this process? Beyond the showmanship skills he mastered over the years, Trump is driven by the DNA of a businessman. He’s the epitome of the entrepreneurial spirit that has nothing to do with the political world as we know it. And whether you see him as good or bad, racist or patriot, is irrelevant to that quality.
It’s because of this entrepreneurial quality that I see his rise to power as a precursor to a much bigger change in governance. Therefore, it’s only natural that he doesn’t fit any of the scales that the world is trying to judge him by. He is not politically correct. He doesn’t speak or write like a diplomat. He’s direct, vulgar and not in line with the “politics” we’re used to.
Trump is a builder who challenges himself by trying to make things prosper and flourish. And even when he fell into bankruptcy he managed to rise up again and break new records. And it is precisely this business-like pragmatism that I wish to highlight about Trump.
We’ve reached a point where the world is over-saturated with politicians who use empty words and so-called values as their ticket to power. Trump’s election indicates that acknowledgement within the masses, their disdain towards lovely speeches about ideologies and the desire for a pragmatic approach to solve problems.
Leaders of the Future
What the world needs today are results-oriented pragmatists, entrepreneurs, builders, innovators and optimizers in positions of power. Trump, in my view, is only the early bird of change. I could also easily see people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos occupying that role. The point is that we have to reinvent our politics, starting by replacing politicians with those infected by the “bug” of entrepreneurship.
However, there’s one important catch: businesslike leaders of the new world must feel as if their country is their business, the country’s success is their success, and the public piggybank is their piggybank.
This is where money plays a central role. It allows us to do what is almost impossible otherwise — to measure. When I say money, I don’t mean the Wall Street driven financial sector, which is a bubble occupied by a different kind of politician: one who knows how to play with numbers to bloat his bank account, without actually creating anything in the real world. Much of the financial world is a façade that will become obsolete in the future, but that’s another topic.
Economics is a reflection of human relations, and we have to rediscover the solid basis for how people relate to each other in society: What each of us gives to society and receives from it. Money is currently our most accurate tool to measure these relations. It can also help us focus on pure worthiness and take the air out of ideological bubbles contributing nothing to our social progress.
If the U.S. and Russia, for instance, negotiate their issues with the sole aim of getting the best deal for both countries, they will arrive at clear and practical conclusions for how they can best collaborate, instead of playing power games, which are great for politicians, but ineffective for true business people.
This pragmatic approach between person and person — or country and country — will be a fresh starting point for coping with a world that has become globally interdependent, in a century that’s destined to see tremendous change.
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