Contemplating the (former)

United States of America …as of 2025

by WAK Coe

 “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise”.  “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread….winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” ―  Isaac Asimov.

And so, what does that, perhaps, tell us about America under Trump Mark 2? “Almost nine out of ten voters who supported Donald Trump for US President believe that America’s values, traditions and future economic prosperity are under threat“.

Round one: “Overall, whites with a four-year college degree or more education made up 30% of all validated voters. Among these voters, far more (55%) said they voted for Clinton than for Trump (38%). Among the much larger group of white voters who had not completed college (44% of all voters), Trump won by more than two-to-one (64% to 28%)…”.

Round two: “College-educated and college-aged voters overwhelmingly favoured Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, exit polls show. The divide in the political preferences of college-educated voters and those without a college degree has grown in the last decade, concerning higher education leaders who have said the gap reflects political polarization. They say the divide could fuel perceptions that colleges are out of touch with average Americans and shows a need to ensure that higher education is accessible to people from all backgrounds. While college-educated voters were more likely to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris than Donald Trump across all demographics, that gap is greatest among white voters and men….”.

But what of the man himself? “Without Ivana, There’s No ‘The Donald’ …  Both had an easy way with the truth; Donald fiddled freely with numbers when pitching deals, and before Ivana met Donald, she had what she called “a Cold War marriage” — i.e., an unconsummated, fraudulent union — to get an Austrian passport and move to Canada. Both were hardnosed about money; just before their April 1978 wedding, Donald presented her with a tight-fisted prenup prepared by his lawyer, Roy Cohn, and Ivana refused to go ahead with the ceremony until it was made marginally less stingy…”. Then, in the 2005 video, Trump could be heard boasting that “when you’re a star” you can “do anything” to women, including “grab them by the p—-.”

Saying one thing but meaning another: Polysemous? There is an old joke about a café and its prices: the customer complained: ”Your sign says ‘popular prices’ but a cup of tea just cost me £6!?”  “Well,” said the owner, “they are popular with me!”

But, moving on, as Alvin Ward Gouldner assured us, “Context is everything’ and “The former prime minister told the BBC that US President Donald Trump’s policy of American “isolation” was creating a power vacuum that would embolden nations like Russia and China. Sir John, who was PM from 1990 to 1997, said “…the gains made since the collapse of the Soviet Union were now being reversed – and that there was “no doubt” Russia would invade elsewhere before long. He said that “ugly nationalism” growing concurrently was making for a “very unsettled time”.

“In an address to the Munich Security Conference, the US vice-president criticised the cancellation of a recent election in Romania, the prosecution of an anti-abortion protester in the UK and the exclusion of far-right and far-left German politicians from the event itself. “The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” Vance said. “And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values….” European officials were alarmed by what they saw as Vance’s attempts to link US security backing for the continent to his comments about freedom of speech and democracy.

Russia and China amongst them, “Alexei Navalny is dead. Russia’s most famous political prisoner was probably better known in the West than he was popular in his own country. But in recent years, his movement had mobilised large numbers of people – mostly young Russians, spread right across the country – to protest against the ruling elite….”.

“Navalny’s moral gauntlet: The death of Navalny deprives Russia not of a potential future leader but of a moral alternative. When he returned to Russia in 2021, Navalny knew what awaited him: arrest, trials, and years of detention, with perhaps no prospect of ever regaining his freedom”.

“In most liberal democracies, publications such as Hong Kong’s Apple Daily are usually seen as the unfortunate price to be paid for the right to freedom of expression. But with mainland China tightening its control over the territory, the tabloid was a pillar of that freedom, and now it is gone.”

Meanwhile, in 2025, elsewhere, other victims are enduring the antisemitic (?) America that is emergent;  “Mapping 1,800 Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank since October 2023 An average of four incidents of settler violence have taken place each day in the occupied West Bank since October 7. As global attention focused on the brutal Israeli military offensive in Gaza, settler attacks, as well as deadly raids by Israeli forces, intensified in the occupied West Bank in the past 15 months. From October 7, 2023, to December 31, 2024, at least 1,860 incidents of settler violence in the occupied West Bank were recorded – an average of four a day, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). With 411 incidents, the Nablus governorate saw the highest number of settler attacks, followed by 410 incidents in Ramallah and 362 in Hebron.”

“The President has also been very bold about his view of what the future for Gaza should be – not the same tired ideas of the past but something that’s bold and something that frankly took courage and vision in order to outline.  It may have shocked and surprised many, but what cannot continue is the same cycle where we will repeat over and over again and wind up in the exact same place. Related to that, the President has been very clear:  Hamas cannot continue as a military or government force.  And frankly, as long as it stands as a force that can govern or as a force that can administer or as a force that can threaten by use of violence, peace becomes impossible.  They must be eliminated.  It must be eradicated….. …. In the case of Lebanon, our goals are aligned and the same: a strong Lebanese state that can take on and disarm Hizballah” but  Israeli troops stay inside south Lebanon after withdrawal deadline. “The common theme in all of these challenges is Iran.  It is the single greatest source of instability in the region”…”. 

So, to Vance et al: “There are none so blind as those who will not see”? John Heywood (c. 1497 – c. 1580) was an English writer known for his plays, poems, and collection of proverbs. 

It resembles the Biblical verse of Jeremiah 5:21:

‘Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not’.

In 1738, it was also used by Jonathan Swift in his ‘Polite Conversation’ and was first attested in the United States in the 1713 ‘Works of Thomas Chalkley’. The full saying is: “There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.”

“…there’s a profound realisation that the old “transatlantic partnership”, the solid alliance between Europe and America, is broken. Over the past few days, many European leaders’ worst worries about their relationship with President Trump’s team were confirmed…” When Trump calls Zelensky a dictator whilst praising Putin, I wonder if he ever watches the BBC.