Looking at Trump's America through fresh eyes

To understand how the US is changing under Trump, one must venture beyond Washington, DC, into the heartland where his policies become personal.

- Bhagyashree Garekar

When covering the Trump presidency, it is easy to be consumed by the spectacle. To get distracted by the derision and condescension - as well as the fervent adoration - that Mr Donald Trump stirs up.

When he speaks, which he does more than any other US president in recent times, and at all hours of the day and night, Mr Trump is actually reaching two Americas within the nation, each very different from the other.

His voters, some 77 million of the 156 million Americans who voted in the November 2024 election, comprise the larger audience. And in his eyes the more relevant one.

Most of them buy into his idea that the United States has overextended itself in the rest of the world while neglecting the homeland. Some also agree that America is being taken advantage of by its friends and enemies. The former through sheer ennui, and the latter by deep design.

In fact, they believe that it is the very idea of America, an expansive concept broadcast as the exemplar for all humanity, that is to blame. It contained the seeds of its own unravelling, they point out, by claiming sole proprietorship of democracy and capitalism and, in the process, enabling the rise of a competitor, China.

The 47th president's other audience - of political operatives, bureaucrats, businesses and journalists - is smaller but more voluble. It is mostly sited in the sprawling, but overworn, national capital.

This is a world that recoils from Mr Trump's disdain of political correctness and his disruption of the status quo. To them, Mr Trump is an anomaly. He is a threat to sane and well-ordered life, where studied answers to deep questions are delivered with practised ease.