Deepseek

In a sense, one week into the Trump presidency, and the veil has already been lifted over what it is to expect over the next four years. As one Afghan proverb states, you can tell what the year will bring from its spring. If we look at what “Day One” was all about, for instance, it was a combination of demons from the past coming back to haunt everyone in the form of January 6, volatility in the global markets, gas prices actually going up as opposed to going down, the threat of trade wars, China overtaking America in the AI race, Republican infighting, and the beginning of a crackdown on migrants which could snowball into something bigger. Massive purges in government have also taken place within the span of a week.

The core theme leading up to the Trump presidency was the reversal of American decline. Trump was thought by some to be a messianic figure or a savior who could somehow reverse American decline. At best, America can perhaps extricate itself from costly foreign entanglements under Trump. But that is as far as America can go in terms of what Trump can achieve. American decline is largely a matter of cultural decline. And the reversal of cultural decline is something that is very difficult to achieve, if not impossible to achieve. How do you resurrect a culture once it has devolved into the level of “techno-agrarianism”?

For instance, the right-wing populist movement which brought Trump into power is a largely misinformed and undereducated group and thus a perversion of what was initially intended by the “Founding Fathers” at the very start, namely, an educated polity governing the society. Of course, liberals and neocons fast-tracked this cultural decline. But Trump and his people are not the type to reverse it. In fact, they are the type who can only make it worse. It then becomes a matter of getting everyone to focus on what is actually achievable and letting go of what is not achievable. What is achievable is spending the next four years extricating oneself out of costly foreign entanglements which has led to such an abysmal state. What is not achievable is the reversal of American decline, given that American decline is largely a matter of cultural decline.

The first week or the first hundred days of a presidency is usually when a president gets to enjoy a honeymoon period after having taken power. But one gets the sense that this honeymoon period is going to come to an end very soon, and that is if it has not come to an end already. It can only go downhill from this point forward. It is better to be realistic about what one should expect rather than being googly-eyed about it. And the reality is that the reversal of American decline is an audacious, if not impudent, undertaking and initiative which will only fall flat, given that American decline is largely a matter of cultural decline. And cultural decline is the result of a loss of complexity or complex thinking in society. For instance, the manner in which China surreptitiously overtook America in the AI race in a matter of days is proof of this cultural decline. AI is the height or peak of complexity or complex thinking in this day and age, and for China to make such rapid advances in this field and eclipse what America has achieved in this field thus far goes back to the issue of complexity or the loss of complex thinking which is at the heart of what we consider to be “American decline.” Complexity or complex thinking in a society actually has a religious impetus at the very beginning, and as that religious impetus erodes, so does the complexity or complex thinking which can thwart cultural decline. The fact of the matter is that in terms of culture, and in the end, decline is a matter of culture, the East has always had the advantage over the West. As a result, American decline is something we are going to have to live with for as long as Trump is president, and if it is something we are going to have to live with and are unable to change or reverse due to the loss of the religious impetus which led to American complexity and ascendancy in the first place, then the focus has to be directed towards what is actually achievable within this very narrow timespan ahead of us.