American Nation have socially experienced very difficult times since The Civil War of 1861. We cannot forget the days of the assassination of Martin Luther King and J.F. Kennedy, the street battles over Civil Rights and Vietnam. These days we feel worse because it is much more divisive. There is a serious and scary breakdown within the nation mainly between the public and the institutions. Back in those days there were three strong forces holding us together which are missing today. A growing middle class, the Cold War and two sane political parties, Republican and Democrat.

Today, the nation in general and the political parties have lost their sanity, the social gap and conflicts among The Americans and between the public and the institutions is getting deeper and unmanageable every single day, such as between the white colors and the blue colors, the educated and non-educated, the rural and small town Americans and “globalized” city slickers, the white working class and those who embrace multi-culturalism, between men and women. There are so many fields of dispute and there are so many fronts. In short American Dream is sadly turning to American Nightmare. For much of the period after The World War II, most Americans felt that they would be in the middle class and their kids would follow. There was something called a “high-wage middle class with middle-skilled jobs”.

In early 2000’s most high wage, middle-skilled jobs disappeared and replaced by high-wage, high-skilled jobs and low-waged, low-skilled jobs. That has fractured the middle class. The end of Cold War gave the confidence that no foreign enemy cements us together in any way and save a brief period after 9/11, The two Political Parties have lost their ways. In conclusion, we have moved from “partisanship” to “tribalism” which does not allow for political compromises. It’s sad to see how “The American Constitutional System” collided with “Extremism” and “Tribalism”. In a tribal world it’s ‘rule or die’, ‘compromise’ is a sin, enemies must be crushed and power must be held at all costs.

Let us now remember and review in a summary what have I written same period in 2019 under the heading of “Trump’s Tariffs and De-Globalization”The cooling of the global trade started to be felt even before U.S. Tariffs recently applied on China came into force.

The initial implementation of U.S. tariffs on China covered USD 34 Billion and China is applying retaliatory tariff implications on an equal amount of US Exports.

Trump’s surprise victory in November 2016 brought together a wave of Nationalist movements around the World, such as Brexit in United Kingdom, a far-right politician’s threatening and almost successful presidential race in France and conservative/nationalistic movements in other European countries.  All these movements are the unavoidable results of rising protectionism, in economic terminology “de-globalization “.  That is not, however, to say that free trade will disappear and multinational corporations will have to close their doors. This is going to happen on a case by case scenario. For example; while certain types of Chinese exports to USA is punished another hand will be extended to allow big Chinese corporations to operate in USA, but protectionism will always be there as a watchdog.

In short, Protectionism is the main derive behind de-globalization or it is indeed the de-globalization itself. We may think that economic reasons are solely deriving the nations towards such conservative movements. No, we should not look for the reasons of protectionism and/or de-globalization in pure economic environment.  There are psychological, personal and even national pressures behind it. For example; a Harvard Economist Dani Rodrik says; democratic national sovereignty and global economic integration run by multinational corporations are mutually incompatible. Perhaps the World has now reached the maximum level of globalization compatible with maintaining nation states.

If people were just looking for themselves, their view of globalization would be determined by the industry in which they have been working. Those who are in industries with a high concentration of exports should be more favorable to an open economy. In actuality, however, people’s attitudes about free trade and offshore outsourcing, are not related to the economic considerations of individuals and industries in which they are employed. Researches indicate that this fear – I mean the fear of protectionism -and skepticism are closely related to the individual’s psychological worldviews based on three very important sets of beliefs.

These are:

ISOLATIONISM: According to researchers, the skeptic people think that United States should stay out of world affairs and avoid getting involved in foreign conflicts. They are not eager for the United States to work with other nations to solve global problems such as global warming, hunger and pollution.

NATIONALISM: Again, skeptical minds in U.S. think that the United States is culturally superior to other nations. They think the World would be better if people elsewhere were more like Americans. (Please make a note that this is not my opinion it is directly quoted from a research done by The Political Science Department of The University of Pennsylvania)

ETHNOCENTRISM: Skeptics tend to divide the World into racial and ethnic groups and think that the one they belong to is better than the others.

All these three worldviews are closely related to level of education. The more years of schooling people have, the more likely they are to reject anti-globalization attitudes.

According to U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Labor Department Bureau 2014 data, 72 % of The U.S. Population at the age of 27 does not have a College Degree.

I trust this does well explain today’s U.S. approach to Global trading and it very well explains the political power Trump has been recently gaining. With this poor level of education, I am afraid we need to wait for generations to come not only a couple of years to reach a healthy, peaceful and prosperous World free from nationalistic, pragmatic and skeptical feelings.

Now, let us evaluate 2020 election results and where will these results take USA in the foreseeable future. The voter’s turnout in 2020 elections reached a record level of 67% for the first time since 1900 when the voter turnout was 73% to elect William McKinley as the 25^th President of USA. One of the major reasons for this higher turn out in 2020 is undoubtedly the introduction of mail in voting. About 80 Million voters used their votes by mail. Biden came out to be the winner of the election by winning 51% of the electoral votes whereas Trump remained at 48%. Unlike many expectations in USA Biden did not win the elections with a big majority. At the end almost 77 Million voters used their votes for Trump. The main reason behind Trump’s defeat was his inability or unwillingness to fight  against Corona.  As of this date, more than 12 Million Americans got infected by Covid-19 and 300.000 have lost their lives. Somebody has to be held responsible for this outcome.

This recent elections was not just a presidential fight between Trump and Biden, it was a fight between the alienated and tribalized layers of the community who lost their mutual respect and hate each other. It was in a way an election between Federalists and anti-federalists layers.

It is correct that Biden/ Harris team promise a revitalization of The Nation, they promise to bring back the lost values such as social, cultural and human rights, to bring back the social responsibilities and mutual respect between the social classes and re-establish the so called “The American Constitutional System”. But, unfortunately USA has lost this opportunity. The crystal glass is already broken. The sane, responsible, consistent, constitutional, the old fashioned US Public who was the God Mother of “The American Dream” started to collapse into pieces and the social system is in a serious declination.  Unless the education level increases, the mutual respect between social classes comes back, personal and social rights re-settle, sane and responsible representatives are elected, alienation, separationism and ethnocentrism will grow like an avalanche and the adverse effect of the collapse of All Mighty USA to itself and to The World will be disastrous.