The first time Barack Obama ever mentioned Donald Trump in a speech was the first big one I wrote with him, a ▶2005 commencement at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He wanted to frame America’s history as a choice between two competing stories – one where we act like we’re all in this together, and one where it’s everyone for themselves. Obama called the latter Social Darwinism, which he said is “especially tempting because each of us believes we will always be the winner in life’s lottery, that we’re the one who will be the next Donald Trump, or at least we won’t be the chump who Donald Trump says: ‘You’re fired.’”
I’ve been thinking about how these competing stories have evolved over the last two decades, especially as we begin a debate next year about where America goes after Trump.
When Obama gave that speech, there was still hope that globalization and technology would make the world feel smaller – that greater connection would reveal our dependence on one another and lead to more cooperation on problems none of us could solve alone. Instead, we’ve lived through endless wars, a financial crisis, a pandemic, climate disasters, mass migration, and now the prospect of another technological upheaval – all of which have definitely made the world feel smaller, but also more unstable. Uncontrollable. Dangerous. And when people feel threatened, the impulse to widen our circle of concern competes with a much older instinct: protect what’s yours. Look out for yourself. Take care of your own.
That instinct is central to the story told by leaders in places as far flung as Putin’s Russia, Modi’s India, Netanyahu’s Israel, and of course here in Trump’s America, where perhaps its clearest articulation has come from the President’s potential successor, JD Vance…
