2020 Foresight

Some years ago, I was in Chicago. My flight home was early in the afternoon so I decided to use the morning to take a brief look round the Chicago Art Institute. From my outbound journey I knew the rail link from the airport took about an hour (as far as I remember), so I left the gallery at about 11:30, waked to the station and got onto a train to the airport.

For whatever reason (longer than expected wait for the train, a slower train going west than east, misremembered timing...) I arrived only 20 minutes before my flight. I ran all the way to the gate, arrived in the nick of time, the last to board, and took my seat completely out of breath and (to the probably discomfort of my fellow passengers) drenched in sweat. But I made it!

So what did I learn? The literature on learning suggests that a positive result reinforces the antecedent behavior. So if one considered making the flight a positive outcome, then my visit to the gallery and my somewhat cavalier attitude to being early is likely to be repeated. Alternatively if one considers my discomfort and stress, then this was a negative outcome and the behavior that caused it is likely to diminish.

Assuming that (thank the Good Lord), Trump doesn’t move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January, the question we need to ponder is do we consider this to have been a positive or a negative outcome? On the face of it, it would seem to be rather positive, a seriously dogged bullet. But I think that would be wrong. Looking at averting disaster as a positive outcome means we are destined to repeat the same fiasco in another four (or possibly 8) years.

We should, rather, consider what led us to this point. Better, I think to face the fact that there are some serious problem of which Trump is the most visible and obnoxious manifestation. Slow or stagnant economic growth for all but the wealthiest and growing income inequality, a broken justice system with many minor offenders locked up for decades, latent racial animosity (see also Hillary's list of -phobias), a structurally corrupt political system (campaign finance, lobbying and the revolving door), out-of-control health care costs and rapacious drugs companies, concentration of oligopolistic corporate power, the conflation of money and free speech... The worst sentiments that the Republicans have spent the last 8 years fanning ferociously will be hard to extinguish; just putting out the flames will be hard enough.

And if we think we averted the Trumpocalpse, the incentive to fix any of this will be gone, and the history that is now being made may well repeat itself with a less inept character in the starring role in 2020. Then God help us all.