Is the surprising Trump victory going to be like a James Bond martini where the world ends up being shaken but not stirred?  Will the ‘Despicable Me 2’ Gru and his Minions lead the post-truth world across an event horizon into a black hole?  For SMAC’s look at this conundrum, read on.

The effect of the second election of Donald Trump to President could possibly be best described by William Yeats’ appropriately named poem, The Second Coming written 125 years ago about the human catastrophe of WWI:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The MAGA maggots on the one hand, and bleeding-heart liberals on the other, are emblematic of the strong left/right divide in America which leads one to ask, what happened to the sensible centre? It’s the Despicables versus the Deplorables. The Despicables seek the certainty of the old ways and revere kragdadigheid* like we had in the old SA, while the Deplorables wish to die on the Hill for every latest issue.

The conservatives view Trump with an evangelical fervour almost as a demigod and his second presidency almost like a second coming. He is here to cast out all the things they despise – illegal immigrants, abortions, gay and especially transgender rights, liberal education, restrictions on the abuse of federal land for oil drilling and pipelines, withdrawal from international treaties on climate change, federal control of the money supply and much, much more. Probably with Elon Musk on point, Trump will seek to rip the Federal Government apart and scatter it around the country to induce employees to leave voluntarily. He is already talking about closing the Department of Education and has earmarked Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary. This is a powerful position for someone who shot her dog because it didn’t want to listen to her. I would quiver if I were her husband.

In a normal presidency, the president probably has a reasonable moral character (forgetting Nixon of course) and tends to colour within the borders. Also there’s normally some check on his power, be it the House, the Senate or the Supreme Court. In Trump’s case, he is amoral and completely untethered. His only concern is the adulation he will receive for his actions. But worst of all, the Republican Party is replete with Trump toadies and are in line to control the House and the Senate. Then to back their decisions up, there is a 6-3 split among the Supreme Court Justices in favour of conservatives with three of them undercooked Trump appointees and two totally conflicted by big business. To crown it all, the Republicans have the Project 2025 playbook – a how to do it manual to remake America in their own fundamentalist Christian image and ‘gerrymander’ the system to ensure Republican dominance for years to come. Who knows, but Presidential term limits might be up for grabs.
In the extended run up to the elections, Trump freely gave life to his demagogic tendencies and, instead of opprobrium, many quarters avidly supported his freewheeling stream of consciousness, particularly Faux News who were sycophantic and lavish in their coverage and praise. This is fertiliser to the Trump brain and emboldens him to double down. Many of the far right and Christian fundamentalists are not stupid and they fully appreciate all of Trump’s failing’s both intellectual and moral, but they see him as the great disruptor and out of the Gotterdammerung a new order will arise which they will have shaped. For this they are prepared to sell their souls to King Con.

At best, the liberals consider Trump to be a demagogue; at worst a Hitler wannabe with Project 2025 his personal Mein Kampf and the Proud Boys his Brown Shirts. The chances are good that there will be a completely and possibly a permanently rejigged USA.

There is likely to be a new world order too with trade wars everywhere as a death spasm of the USA whose global pre-eminence is waning with the inexorable rise of China. He is likely to throw Ukraine to the wolves as a European problem as he doesn’t particularly like them and Zelensky who stiffed him before. Although he doesn’t want wars, with Chinese expansionism eyeing up Taiwan and the Philippine islands in the South China Seas, he might find himself dragged into one there.
Time will tell whether it is for the good or bad, but one thing is for sure, there will be rough times ahead.

• Kragdadigheid is a good old Afrikaans word and refers to heavy handedness, firm and resolute action