After over a hundred and twenty years of being the nation referred to as God's own country , the dream land, the land of the brave and the free, the rainbow coalition, the land of limitless opportunity, the United States of America is facing an unparalleled identity crises as it heads into the 21st century and confronts the the reality that a bipolar world that in the early 21st century yielded way to a unipolar world is now giving way again to a multipolar world . There is nothing truer of the 21st century than the fact that constant change and willingness to adapt has become the reality of the hour and not just the day. It is a fact that a lot of Americans particularly the baby boomer generation are fighting hard to come to terms with the fact that the cultural and racial mix that had been the bedrock of US society for over a hundred years is now giving way to a coalition of a type not necessarily ascribed to the Rainbow that they have come to recognise.
America is confronting change in ways and dimensions that many are finding very hard to bear especially as it is affecting their political and economic well being. It is just natural and very human for folks to resist any form of change that touches on their wellbeing and diminishes their leverage in life and society. Urbanisation, globalisation and the world wide web and associated innovations have radically changed the face of the earth not just the United States. The information age and economic innovations of the last quarter century are simply saying to all to change or perish. For the poor and deprived, it comes as good news but for the rich and privileged for whom the prospect of change comes with the threat of a loss of privilege and benefits the prospect of change becomes daunting.
No group of people are feeling the scare more than the white privileged members of society for whom retaining the existing social order is a task that must be done. The fact is that the information age is creating a more egalitarian world where opportunities are opening up across a global spectrum to all who are willing and ready to participate. Information technology has reduced the world to a truly global village where skills and expertise are being freely traded just as easily as goods and services . Geography and boundaries are no longer able to insulate any society from the effects of globalisation. Donald Trump's dream wall may succeed in keeping out immigrant Mexicans but it will not succeed in keeping out cheaper and more competitive goods and services from streaming across the border and threatening American jobs.
Many times to regain competitiveness you have to remove the safety nets you have built around yourself that is denying you a capacity for honest self appraisal. If the generation of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders' insurgent supporters have ever sat down to honestly ask themselves as to how best to permanently adapt to the reality of an ever changing world they will soon come to realise that enduring change will not come through a political revolution that is only designed to obscure your view of stark reality but one that honestly helps you to make the fundamental changes that will enable you to regain competitiveness once more on a global level. Americans must never forget that the US came out of a Great Depression in the 1930's that wiped out close to a quarter of GDP in a space of five years to a period of growth and expansion albeit in wartime that saw the US economic expansion occupy close to 50% of global output by 1950.
That is the kind of mindset that the nation needs to galvanise and not a destructive set of values that undermines the very basic principle of American economic prosperity which is rooted in innovation, hard work and capacity to adapt to change in whatever shape or form that it is required in order to keep productivity on an upbeat level. Finally it must be remembered that the global wind of change that is straddling even the United States is not going to wait for any nation or society that is not ready to make the compromises needed to gain the headwinds. The recurring decimals remains that change and compromise remains the mantra for growth and relevance today in this fast evolving world. A Roman senator once appealed to his colleagues in ancient Rome 'we have succeeded in changing the world can we not change ourselves' ?
