Leaving America
I am leaving America with a heavy heart. It is no longer the place I thought I knew. It is as if the crackpots that could always be found in the niches of a country so spacious have taken over the reins. It is a place where fear is up, and empathy is down. Where the borders between truths and lies are no longer visible, where extremism has gone mainstream and cruelty is accepted as the cost of political change.
Where neighbors used to talk over the garden fence and across the political divide, silence has crept in. I never met so many Americans who did not want to talk, be it out of fear or out of shame: the federal workers in Washington who were suddenly sacked but still hoping for reinstatement; the medical researchers who’s programs were being cut who’d better say nothing; academics who just did not reply to an interview request; the Mexican immigrants watching their kids play on a baseball ground in Georgia who preferred to remain silent; or the foreign students on a campus in Mississippi in fear of being deported. Others just felt ashamed to speak to a foreigner about the state of affairs in their home country. The staff at America’s great institutions, stemming from an age where communality was promoted, is terrified by the impending cuts of funds or grants: local librarians, park rangers, journalists at National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Corporation are worried about their future and that of their institution.
There is fear on all sides. Some fear the alleged hordes of South American criminals crossing the border in Texas of California. Others are anxious when Haitian immigrants refurbish the empty shops in the center of a run-down mill town in Pennsylvania. Parents are worried about their children “being indoctrinated” by left-wing or “woke” propaganda at school or university.
To me, this was an America, which had changed considerably. The patriotism that could be arrogant or generous in the past has given way to a narrow and aggressive nationalism. The dream of social advancement has been replaced by a fear of falling. Disadvantaged members of the dwindling white majority see the world as a zero-sum-game where the decline of their group must be the gain of “the others”.
Trump’s America is torn between manufacturing nostalgia and fear of Artificial Intelligence. In the Rust Belt and West-Virginia I talked to former industrial workers who were dreaming of a return to coal at a time when the career path of their children is being threatened by AI. Whilst in Washington politicians of both parties don’t have the faintest idea how to deal with the next technological revolution.
More than once, I felt like the “Uncle from Europe” when pointing out negative side effects of policies my interlocutors had voted for. They were blasé about it as if they had checked out of a life based on details and facts. The mentioning of large-looming issues concerning climate or capitalism seemed to be taboo. One friend called the condition “wilful ignorance”.
My journey was accompanied by a total disconnect between the dystopic judgments of the liberal commentariat I read every night and the blissful ignorance of conservatives I encountered during the day. Where well known economists and illustrious columnists regularly predicted the collapse of the stock market or the international order most rural inhabitants of middle America just shrugged their shoulders and located the problems elsewhere. Maybe they were just too smart to closely follow Donald Trump’s daily diet of outrageous statements which disturb intellectuals and Democrats who can’t help but believe what somebody said.
For the voters of Donald Trump contradictions did not matter since the pride to have made a drastic statement at the ballot box seemed to be well worth the cost of suffering later. Some would rather have Medicaid cut than their dental hygiene improved, out of pride not to be dependent on government handouts; as long as these handouts where also denied to others. At times I found it difficult to follow the emotional logic of Trump supporters. I detected traces of self-harm.
As it has always done, religion helps people to overcome challenges, to ease contradictions and to supplant logic with belief. Listening to white religious politicians in Washington and folks in local churches I found their literal understanding of the Bible yet flexible application of their faith often perplexing. For ultra-conservative Republicans in Congress religion has become the last refuge of the scoundrel. When they run out of answers and arguments in Congressional hearings or TV-interviews these devout defenders of the Trump-Administration often revert to their Christianity and God’s will. And the Christian voters who I met on my way equally applied religion as tool to escape reality with all its annoying contradictions. Thus, Trump’s religious failings, which should have put him in what they thought of as hell, were being excused as actions of a sinner who would soon see the light.
Language mattered to people in different ways. For conservatives the suggested use of a signalling pronoun was just one word too much leading them into the camp of right-wing culture warriors. For liberals the counterattack on “woke” language was seen one more step on the way to fascism.
On X I would follow the doom sayers and trolls of the MAGA movement, warning of “invasions”, the “deep state” and the emasculation of men and offering nationalist solutions and revenge. In Main Street I would encounter citizens who were just tired of politics having voted or not. “Flooding the zone with shit”, as MAGA-entrepreneur Steve Bannon had called the ultra-right’s media strategy to usurp power, has clearly worked. It has emboldened the conservative extremists and depoliticized the rest.
What people told me was often a cheap copy of the prefabricated phrases spit out and repeated ad nauseam on right-wing Fox TV or left-wing MSNBC - strong opinions based on fears or wishful thinking. “Something needed to be done” – “The Democrats were giving all that money away” – “The borders had to be closed” – “Tariffs will make America Great Again”. Or I listened to the liberal broadcasts, lying less but still failing journalistic standards and blaming Trump for everything the Democrats did not manage to do, like getting rid of Joe Biden in time.
When I set out for America, I was under the illusion I could ask people questions about their life and would then understand why they acted the way they did. But in many cases, they turned the question about what happened to them and their country around: “You tell me”, they answered. There seemed to be a lot of confusion at the bottom of their refusal to reflect.
When I asked how people felt the most common answer was “being overwhelmed”. Many inhabitants of the back country are overwhelmed by obesity, the sheer size and precarious conditions of their bodies, by the most visible health crisis beyond opioids and loneliness.
I was also struck by the ever-present signs of addiction, screaming at you from supermarket shelves, restaurant menus, diet programs and TV commercials that promise immediate relief, be it through pills, preachers or the right-wing politics of pride and punishment, of cruelty and redemption, of promise and fantasy. It sometimes felt like travelling through a country on the drip of drugs and political fantasies.
If there is one book that has helped me understand some of the phenomena I encountered on my journey it’s “Fantasyland” by Kurt Anderson. Written during the election campaign, it explains and encapsulates America’s penchant for magical thinking from its protestant beginnings to today’s “fantasy-industrial complex” with Donald Trump as its “apotheosis” - the reality star who can promise his followers everything without being taken to account.
Anderson takes the reader to an America “created by true believers and passionate dreamers, by hucksters and their suckers – which over the course of four centuries have made us susceptible to fantasy…” He chronicles this history of make-believe from the Salem Witch Trials to the showman and circus promoter P.T. Barnum, from Hollywood to Scientology, from Walt Disney to Billy Graham, from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.
Anderson’s summary: “Mix epic individualism with extreme religion; mix show business with everything else; let all that steep and simmer for a few centuries; run it through the anything-goes 1960s and the Internet age; the result is the America we inhabit today, where reality and fantasy are weirdly and dangerously blurred and commingled”.
This was a fitting description of the world I travelled through: where the polarization of religion had led to the polarization of politics, with the Grand Old Party has become the party of white Christians; where my interlocutors “voted with their churches”; where students decide what news to believe by consulting influencers online; and where even the debased politics of innuendo and hate have become entertainment.
On the other side of the political divide the question beckons: What happened to the Democrats? They are shell shocked for sure. They had lost the working class over time by ignoring bread-and-butter-issues, as I heard many times driving through the Rust Belt. With their identity-based politics, moderate Democrats told me, they cut the connection to the life and grievances of voters between the coasts and did not even notice to what extent they had become the party of the elites.
The Democratic Party misread Obama’s presidencies as a celebration of progress achieved. Because it was and it was not. I talked to white voters for whom Obama was the President who shouldn’t have been. Because, in their words, “it was too early to have a black man in the White House”. And I spoke to black voters for whom Obama was the President who could have been. But he just acted, they said, as any other inhabitant of the White House. Without the issue of “race” and the victories of Barak Obama, many agreed, Trump would not be President today. As a result of this misperception, Democrats took the first Trump Presidency for an aberration. And then, by not telling Joe Biden to go when it was time, they made his Presidency an interlude instead.
Up to their loss in November 2024 Democrats did not understand the depth of cultural alienation, how their moral righteousness on issues of identity grated with people outside of large cities, how so-called “wokeness” could be seen as a threat to a more traditional understanding of life. Even many conservative Americans had accepted gay marriage and other legal changes on matters of gender. But when it came to the introduction of pronouns into official communication or to trans athletes showing up at their daughter’s sport events the reluctant acceptance of “the other” turned into a furious backlash and a defensive return to a binary world.
Now there is a deep generational divide among Democrats about the future route their party should take. Every Democrat under the age of 35 I met would argue for a turn to the left, going with a progressive young leader like Alexandria Octavio-Cortez (AOC), the smart, eloquent Congresswomen from New York who in April was pulling leftish crowds touring the country with her “anti-oligarchy campaign”. Whereas middle-aged and older Democrats are still arguing that it would take a moderate like Joe Biden, only younger, to win the next election. Beyond this rift, there is no vision to recapture a solid majority of the population.
I saw engaged Democrats marching in their city and protesting with their placards against the ultra-right Republican Representative in their small town. But I did not meet one grass root organiser or activist who could formulate what I thought was convincing strategy to win back the working class and independent voters, or even registered Republicans. There is no sign of a Democratic populism that can shift the political ground. I did not talk to one Trump voter who would switch to the Democrats in case the Trump fails with his controversial policies. Such is the abhorrence of Democrats in conservative Middle America.
Still there is justified hope that the Democrats can win the mid-term elections in 2026 if their party runs better campaigns and candidates and some Republicans stay away. If Trump’s tariffs cause more inflation, if the infighting between the tech oligarchs and the MAGA movement escalates, the Democrats might be able to win back one or even both chambers of Congress. Much of this will depend on what political path Republican Senators and Congressmen/women will take.
And even if Democrats win back the Senate or the House in November 2026 a lot of institutional and mental damage will have been done. They will have to operate in a country during a painful return to reality where many judicial guardrails have been removed and the lack of empathy has become part of virtual and real life.
“What happened to America and why”, this was the question I had set out to find answers for. There were many replies, but one typical response by my interlocutors captures the situation better than all factual explanations. “We don’t know, but something had to happen!” This “something” came along in the figure of the well-trained con artist Donald Trump. It was a historic coincidence of a populace deeply unhappy about its falling fortunes in the real-world meeting America’s most talented huckster who was satisfying his ever-growing narcissism in the Internet-driven world of political fantasies.
Half of America was ready to be hoodwinked by the reality star who promised the world with rebellious gusto but without guaranties. Did his voters know that his promises were not serious but fake? Well, it did not matter. Voting for Trump was like going to a wrestling match: you know it is fake, but you enjoy its simplicity and performed violence anyway. The question remains what happens when the political wrestling match is over?
What is the scenario for a return to reality? The Trump-Administration will most likely self-destruct. Sooner or later its realm of fantasy will collapse from incompetence, corruption and its own contradictions. The signs could be seen when the charlatans in his cabinet started to appear in front of Congressional committees, when the Trump family moved into the crypto sphere and the rift between the Tech oligarchs and the MAGA crowd started to widen. Yet Donald Trump can always trigger the immigration issue to mobilise the passion of his base and win over a sizeable number of voters. Those might not share most of his policies but would agree to defending the country against what his administration will then call an “insurrection or “the enemy within”.
Behind these scenarios lies the ultimate question, not only of interest for the US: What happens when right-wing populists fail in a political system in which the rule of law has been weakened, where the public sphere has degenerated into an "information oligarchy" and the distinction between truth and lies has been completely eroded? Will there still be a way back to some form of liberal democracy, or can the chaos of populist failure only be filled with new and possibly fascist illusions?
Travelling almost 3.000 Miles through the American heartland where a large majority voted for Donald Trump, I met many people driven by fears and fantasies, quite a few with sympathies for a strongman, but nobody who would favour an autocratic system.