Two months after the second Trump administration, the United States is in pure chaos mode. Tens of thousands of workers are fired one week and the next recording the next. Rates do not rise and descend on strategy, but on one man’s IRE. Deportations fly in the midst of judicial orders and take care of the country to a constitutional crisis. The only constant is the volatility itself.
On paper it can be surprising. A central premise of Donald Trump’s appeal is that he is a peak businessman. Same with Elon Musk. The elevator: Through the mere power of their combined skill, America will be saved from “bankruptcy” – or worse. However, there are not many case studies in Harvard Business School, suggesting that the maximum instability is the way to success.
There is a lot of Occam’s razor to work here: the US Waves Wild because the president and de facto CEO is a combination of self-ministry and incapacitated. But between and between the absurdities, something darker takes up. Inherent to every chaotic act is a challenge. Each outrage is a test.
Meanwhile, the uncertainty has international consequences. Tourism has dropped, as potential visitors cancel their travels to a country that is increasingly, openly hostile to non -citizens, cancel. Europe is recycling itself in the light of an increased potential for conflict, as Ukraine becomes the turning point on which dozens of US and Europe’s solidarity can turn. Allies considered sharing less intelligence with their US peers, given the Trump administration’s increasingly cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin.
It’s a heel turn worth a WWE Monday night raw plot line. But the US is not selling spectacle. Its value lies in its reliability. Instead, it is now volatile, unpredictable. It’s messy. International politics is a relationship business; Donald Trump seems to be planning to undermine America’s relationships around every turn. (Well, except after Moscow.)
There is the slash-and-fire approach to budget, an apparent race to create a minimally viable government. The operative part of a turnaround plan is the ‘plan’ part. If you fire as many people as quickly as possible – without any apparent consideration for real skills or value they bring to the role – it does not qualify as a plan. It’s just more instability.
The good news is that many of these employees are reinstated, as the gears of the judiciary slowly but surely turned. But that the reinstatement itself can be temporary, depending on what higher courts say. And even if these workers do come back, how motivated they will be to stay now that they know how their employer views their value?
More to the point, who would work for the US government in the current state? The public service does not pay well, but at least you feel that you serve a higher call with a side order of job security. The only calls currently being served are Donald Trump’s retaliation tour and Elon Musk’s amateur Hour AI Jamboree. In the end, they will no longer be in SpaceX interns to rent.