Chaos & calm in a world of churn

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM IGNORED OR DEMONISED FOR TOO LONG IS NOW THE BULL-ELEPHANT REMAKING EVERYTHING

- VAMSEE JULURI

WHENDONALD TRUMP announced his candidature to run for president a second time, it seemed improbable for many Americans that he could be reelected. Since then, much has changed.

What has disappeared most of all is a sense of certainty that the next day would be like the previous one. Trump, it is said, has upended the world order. Alliances and agreements have been remade. Tariffs and visa-barriers erected. Friends and enemies and ‘frenemies’ from around the world show their places brashly on live streams, like faces in a hall of mirrors.

In 2016, serious men and women thought the US elections would pass like a circus going through town. They were wrong. In 2021, they thought the act of ‘cancelling’ a former president on live TV and social media would mean he would never return. They were wrong again.

Those watching from the margins of everything, though, can see everything.