Trump Froze Time

The Donald Trump era seems wild. Lots of things happen. He seems to make the world more dangerous and unpredictable. But if you zoom out a bit, it becomes clear that the main theme of Donald Trump is stasis. With the rise of Trump and Bernie Sanders in 2015 real movement on the country’s unresolved problems seemed unavoidable. Rage at the oligarchs over Iraq and the anemic & unfair recovery from the 2008 financial crisis was certain to force a reckoning.

The Trump era has been all about avoiding that reckoning. His level of chaos and stupidity was the only way to keep the US public distracted enough to allow the Oligarch grift to continue unmolested. Nothing has changed. Or at least nothing has improved. Thanks to Trump’s do nothing Sturm und Drang a whole generation of politicians has missed its chance to have an impact.

Today’s podcast is about the Farcical idea that Marco Rubio should run for president in 2028. I have no sympathy for Rubio, who has some repellent views of his own, but it’s undeniable that he’s a victim of Trumpian stasis. 2016 could have been his year. In his mid 40s, with a well regarded senate career already behind him, he was a fresh young face. After Trump’s 12 years dominating US politics, 2028 will be the last Presidential election before Rubio reaches his 60s. You can listen to our podcast condemnation of Rubio here, or you can read on to learn more about Trumpian stasis.

The 2016 Election should have changed everything. Donald Trump made sure it changed nothing. The War on Terror should have ended with the 2016 election, both Trump and Sanders ran against it. Thanks to Trump we’re more immersed in the Middle East than we have been at any point since 2009, and our strategic position in the region is probably worse than it’s been at any point since the Nazis took Tobruk in 1942.

The 2016 election demonstrated that the US public was sick of pro-war fundamentalism. In Trump’s first term, instead of a stock-taking of the insanity and corruption of the hideously failed war on terror, the Pentagon was able to quietly switch policy to starting wars with Russia and China as the news industry went to war against Trump. Biden’s term, really just another Trump term, didn’t solve anything either, as multiple regions fell into the Pentagon generated chaos of “great power competition”.

Despite running on a peace platform in 2024, Trump instantly jumped into bed with the militarist Deep State, with a failed war in Yemen in March 2025, an attack on Venezuela in January 2026, and this absurd war with Iran that will be the main story of the rest of his 2nd presidential term.

Folks who believe politicians when they say things can be forgiven for thinking Trump would be anti-war. Those who thought Trump would do anything to combat corruption were just out of their minds. The US public always cares far more about the economy than they do about foreign policy. Voters in 2016 felt hurt and betrayed by Iraq and the War on Terror. They were enraged by the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

By 2016 it was clear that the Wall Street architects of the 2008 crisis were richer than ever, while some parts of the country had never recovered at all. Under any other president, even Hillary Clinton, there would have been some kind of reckoning. Tax hikes, even minor ones, hearings, investigations, regulations, any incremental change for the better could have diminished voter rage at pro-business fundamentalism.

In 2016 it was clearly time for some incremental changes to make Capitalism work better. Instead Trump delivered another two tax cuts, and truly staggering levels of personal corruption. Biden’s small attempts to improve things prompted our idiot billionaire class to jump on the Trump train, prompting an orgy of deregulation that’s burning the country down and giving the public diarrhea. Unsurprisingly, this stasis has yielded a culture where socialism is growing in popularity and the assassins of healthcare executives are folk heroes.

Trump has served his purpose. The unstoppable force of 2016 reform energy has been delayed up by the immoveable force of Trumpian chaos. This last oligarch delaying strategy is fading, however. The anger of the 2016 has only built as it’s been frustrated. The Republican party is desperate for another standard bearer who can gum up the works as much as Trump has.

Marco Rubio is not that guy. Maybe he had something to offer back in 2016, when the problems were smaller, and he might have offered something that looked new. His role in the second Trump administration as the most establishment figure on the team makes that impossible. He’s not a young politician anymore, he’s most of an elderly one. His time has passed. Donald Trump ate it.

You can listen to today’s podcast on Spotify, or watch it on YouTube below.