.
And not even the wisest can know what world is being born.
It is a testament to the power of the order that emerged following the Second World War that the term ‘post-war’ is instantly understood with no confusion as to which war is being referred even as that war, its evils, its heroism, and its terrible cost, passes out of living memory. Soon there will be none alive for whom that global struggle is a memory, and it will live only in textbooks, documentaries, and retold narratives. More importantly, the structures erected following the war are now beginning to crumble.
A lot of the destruction of that world order, one that had been laid upon a foundation of law, both national and international, and alliances can be laid at the feet of Donald J. Trump and his backwards, idiotic, and vainglorious mentality. A man who meets the clinical criteria for malignant narcissism coupled with the intelligence of a stunted teenager and the morals of a grifting carnival barker should have never risen to occupy the most important post on Earth. He did not achieve that posting by himself, no there is great culpability to be spread around, some obvious and direct, such as the men with far greater intelligences who saw their duty to the nation and set it aside for their own comfort and prosperity some not so direct, such as the reforms of the 60s that sapped the strength of political parties until they grew so weak as to be unable to fend off attacks from within. Now, with this low IQ, self-dealing, vengeful little man helming our nation’s course into the future, those institutions that have guided and safeguarded the world since the end of the war are falling like rusting relics. Trump alone did not kill off the post-war order, cultural movements around the world contributed to that, but a just, smart, and principled American president may have been able to provide the leadership in these dark times that could have saved and strengthened them, but that ship has sailed and it has sunk.
A New World Order will emerge and not I nor anyone else can know what it will be. We can hope and fight for one that is driven by law and justice and a respect for human life in all the many forms that it can take but that is far from an assured outcome. The time of change has been given to us and it is only us that will shape it into reality. It is a terrible and terrifying responsibility.
