Everything is great. All is sunshine. I am an eternal optimist.” It’s the fad of our TikTok times to appear perpetually cheery and hopeful. But everything is not great, the sun sets daily, nothing is eternal. If anything, everything is ephemeral, night brings darkness, and optimism often crumbles under the weight of history. British philosopher Roger Scruton warned: “Hope untempered by the evidence of history is a dangerous asset, one that threatens not only those who embrace it, but all those within range of their illusions.”
Palestine turns into an apocalypse. Hope is good, but denial, wishful thinking and false positivity are not. B positive is a blood group, not a cure or a plan of action. Damage-limitation and recovering from catastrophe require time, perseverance, unity and strategic thinking. How can nations solve a problem like Donald Trump? Who destabilises, provokes, calls some human beings “vermin” and wants to rid Palestine of Palestinians to create a luxury, oil-rich waterfront property.
“Our golden age has just begun,” trumpets Trump. History will probably call it “America’s orange age”, characterising fiery Trump with orange hair and matching spray-painted face. If Trump’s reign is a success, orange will come to symbolise sunny days. If it is defined by conflict, orange would represent hell’s fire. He would become America’s agent orange, the toxic chemical used by the US in the 1960s Vietnam war that deformed, poisoned and killed civilians. His critics hope that like the orange setting sun, he will soon be gone.
Imaging: Deni Lal
Respected historians do not believe a golden age is dawning. Instead, they see Trump presiding over a second Weimar Republic that collapsed in Germany in the 1930s under hyper-inflation, political instability and social unrest, with angry, fearful, polarised citizens. Says historian Robert Kaplan, “The global tide is turning back to autocracy, if not chaos.” He blames the liberal order’s failure for the rise of autocrats, populists and tech trillionaires who wreck the rule-based order. Declares Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “The postwar global order is obsolete.” In 1994, Kaplan predicted West Africa’s implosion. Mainstream media that praised the region as a “stable hub” smeared his assessment as “dystopian”. But the region quickly descended into civil war and military dictatorships. If Trump is orange, historians and philosophers are blue.
Trump’s pronouncements echo Greek historian Thucydides’ view: “The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.”
From his bully pulpit, Trump warns and threatens. He appears grim and grouchy, wrathful and vengeful. But his tariff quarrels quail. He paused punishment after Mexico and Canada offered what they had already agreed to. Trump claimed victory, both neighbours played along, rather than face his fury.
But Trump is a loser in his own war. This a not a global or American war, this is a Trump trade war. Appeasement makes tormentors hungrier, so affected countries seek new trading partners to reduce dependence on an unpredictable, unreliable superpower.
The US is rich, but its 340 million population is less than five per cent of the world’s eight billion, of which 10 per cent are rich consumers. Trump’s tariff terror continues, however, right now, the wannabe tiger looks like a paper tiger. But Trump is not a pussy cat who sees a tiger in his reflection. He commands the world’s deadliest, mightiest military and has a legion of mediocre, menacing minions who strike terror among dissenters, bureaucrats and political opponents.
It is time for counter offensive-defensive preparations, not false hopes. After all, orange comes before the ‘red alert’.
Pratap is an author and journalist.