The Trump administration assumed power in the thick of public fury, following five years of brutal despotism, economic decline, and many years, if not decades, of declining trust. The intensity of the public mood is rarely reported by legacy media without condemnation. The denials of regime failure by the entire establishment in every sector has only caused incredulity to grow and spread.
No matter how much you think people are angry, you are likely underestimating the level of public disgust with the regime, not just in the US but all over the industrialized world.
In 2024, it reached such a fevered pitch that the seemingly impossible happened with the election of a former president who had been subject to nonstop media demonization, lawfare without precedent, and even assassination attempts.
The attacks only helped him. Trump’s party was swept into power. That includes control of a Congress with many members who seem to be unaware of the urgency of the moment.
Under such conditions, this cannot be the end of the story. There is a long history of reformist governments failing to act fast enough to quell public demand for change. It is typical that such governments underestimate the fire behind the historical forces at work. They come to believe that the problem is fixed by a personnel change, whereas the real issue is systemic and comprehensive.
The classic case is Russia, 1917.
The government of Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970) ruled Russia for only eight months, following the toppling of the Romanov monarchy and before the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917. It was supposed to be an agent of calm reform; it ended as a parenthesis between the old regime and the new.
Kerensky was a lawyer, a reformer, and a non-communist supporter of labor-led social democracy. Active in anti-government protests and denunciations for years, Kerensky seemed like the right man for the job. He had one foot in the old world and one in the new.
On taking power, he found himself in the position of making judgments about the pace and path of reform efforts. He had to deal with a collapsing economy, revolutionary fervor among the workers and peasants, and grave suspicion toward the whole of the ruling classes, the military in particular.
He proclaimed Russia to be a Republic of the Western variety and had every intention of holding elections and shepherding into being a new type of ruling regime in Russia. The war would end, land would go to the peasants, inflation would stop, and people would find their voice in government.
Just not yet. It had to be orderly, in Kerensky’s view.
His mistake was in thinking that he was in charge of the motion of history. He made a fateful judgment in thinking it was all about him and not the movement that gave rise to his position. He decided to continue the war and make one final push for victory. That included an intensification of conscription in the midst of inflation. That decision ended in disaster.
Hellbound and Down 