The Post-Trump era is approaching. Things will never be the same as they were before. Unless we plan rigorously now they will get worse. Goodness knows what we have learnt. Is it that Political Cooperation and Commercial Cooperation are different things? The EU debacle should have taught us that. The EEC was progressing very nicely until M Delors took it into his head that it should become the EU. Then the rot set in. The resulting history is still being written, though there are more indelicate ways to describe its progress. Now they are actually talking of ‘rescuing’ it. ‘Hope stings eternal’ as they would say if they’d thought of it.
Trade cooperation is the key to the planet’s survival. We need such heavy investments to control our climate + AI + food & water supply + coping with the next pandemic + assumed health entitlements + underinvested infrastructure maintenance that we can’t afford to waste money on wars or blockages of vital trade routes.
Political ideology has, in any case, run its present course to a point of governance stupidity where freedom is mistaken for licence and efficiency is misunderstood as autocracy. More ideological claptrap will appear. It will be better if we accommodate it on the basis of what we know, trade, rather than what we imagine we’re inventing, political genius.
The law in the West is arbitrary-generous to a fault now. It can afford to be a bit more arbitrary-mean until we have impressed the need for better behaviour. I am almost implacably against capital punishment but the need to reinsert discipline into the human structure is such that I would reintroduce it for some years for abuse of AI that damages people. Perhaps the lawyers can be persuaded to implement that rather than show us how to avoid it.
Tough times demand tough measures. Another one that I would introduce to democratic countries is compulsory voting. I would enforce it. In addition to the candidates on offer I would have a vote available for “None of the above”. There’s something essentially more active ticking that box than simply ignoring the poll.
Perhaps we could also abolish the concept of a General Election every five years and have a different constituency voting every N weeks. N is the number to ensure a five-year term for each parliamentary member. If we took the carnival out of elections we might have more serious thought applied to the future instead of today’s gas price.
There is much to be done, most of it fascinating and demanding. It’s a planet for all of us, not just for bosses.The right to participate is there not for the taking but for the earning. The resources to learn to earn are available to everyone. Let us see that they get them.
And let it be that they earn them, too.
Good morning
John Bittleston
Please add more ideas to the Post-Trump Era plan at [email protected].
25 May 2026
