USA in the Rear View<\/a> is online in English only. I could quibble about a few points, but only a few.<\/p>\n
\n“Degenerate oligarchy” has been my long-standing, two word diagnosis of ills in American leadership.<\/p>\n
In the United States, America’s oligarchic elite has traditionally come from its network of Ivy League and other top-ranked universities. This is horribly unfair, of course, but what seems most relevant to me now is that this de facto system isn’t working well.<\/p>\n
If I were a serious student of America’s problems, I would be less interested in the milieu that begot symptom-of-problem Donald Trump than in whatever culture spawned the core-of-problem Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, G.W. Bush and the neocons. Blaming the populist Trump for his own success is like a fifth-a-day alcoholic who blames cirrhosis on an uncooperative liver. The Republican rank-and-file wouldn’t have abandoned oligarchy candidates for the populist if G.W. Bush hadn’t launched the Iraq War.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump returns to the White House in nineteen days. I feel I ought to express an opinion. My corner of the online universe is tiny, infinitesimal, but I am still an expat in Europe, number myself among those Americans who left their native land largely out of disaffection with U.S. politics. And I have… <\/p>\n
Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expat"],"yoast_head":"\nUSA in the Rear View #2 - Expat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An American expat in Spain reflects on the return of Donald Trump to the White House.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/transitophile.com\/chango\/usa-in-the-rear-view-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"USA in the Rear View #2 - Expat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An American expat in Spain reflects on the return of Donald Trump to the White House.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/transitophile.com\/chango\/usa-in-the-rear-view-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Tim Adams\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-01T08:28:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-01-01T08:30:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tim Adams\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tim Adams\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/transitophile.com\\\/chango\\\/usa-in-the-rear-view-2\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/transitophile.com\\\/chango\\\/usa-in-the-rear-view-2\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Tim Adams\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/transitophile.com\\\/chango\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ad8751e401bdc8efc601320ef9b03a30\"},\"headline\":\"USA in the Rear View #2\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-01T08:28:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-01-01T08:30:07+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/transitophile.com\\\/chango\\\/usa-in-the-rear-view-2\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":266,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/transitophile.com\\\/chango\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ad8751e401bdc8efc601320ef9b03a30\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Expat\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/transitophile.com\\\/chango\\\/usa-in-the-rear-view-2\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/transitophile.com\\\/chango\\\/usa-in-the-rear-view-2\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/transitophile.com\\\/chango\\\/usa-in-the-rear-view-2\\\/\",\"name\":\"USA in the Rear View #2 - 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