As a new report shows Beijing dethroning New York as the world's billionaire capital, Donald Trump's resounding victory in Nevada says something about America's collective psychological state.
Americans don't want to be Mr. Nice Guy anymore - they just want to kick some butt again. In 1980, when "Let's make America great again" was first coined by Ronald Reagan, that meant intimidating the Soviet Union with a massive arms buildup. In 2016, Mr. Trump has recycled that to mean beating China in global trade.
This is a welcome development - it exposes who we really are and what we're really made of, because it disabuses us of all the stale platitudes, zombie-like sloganeering, increasingly empty and bankrupt ideas and ideals, and too-long-cherished myths that have prevented us from thinking and acting upon a realistic appraisal of ourselves.
The earthquake shaking up the American sociopolitical landscape is, at its root, a great nation clamoring to be great in a firm normal way again, not in some mushy exceptional way.
Whatever he eventually accomplishes, Mr. Trump has already struck at the heart of the ideological stranglehold that has crippled and paralyzed our domestic political culture with the predictable consequence of a yawning gap between our supersized international ambitions and our actual shrinking international profile.
You may be repulsed by his style, his overly flexible attitude towards his own personal integrity, and his quasi-demagogic streak, but you can't deny the obvious: he knows we're sick and tired of armchair intellectual debates and thin-skinned partisan bickering, because we want to see our supposedly wonderful system finally produce some RESULTS - FOR OURSELVES, never mind for the Chinese, the Russians, the Syrians, or the Ukrainians.
For too long our elites have assumed that not only could there be nothing possibly wrong with our own system, but that all of history was inexorably marching towards a universal adoption of our system. This is why they crafted a foreign policy of "invade the world" via our unrivaled military yet also "invite the world" with looser borders. It's why even "conservative" Bush-43 pushed for amnesty for illegal immigrants, whilst even "liberal" Obama pursued a far more aggressive foreign policy than his lackluster results would suggest. The gathering consensus now, of course, is that we've simply overreached abroad even as we've left home field undefended - it is the angry awakening to this reality that has fueled the wave which has carried Mr. Trump to his present heights.
At this point in time, Trump is the accurate representation and personification of where we stand as a nation - and where America stands in the world. This outweighs whatever particular flaws he may otherwise carry. What matters in the end is how well our next president reflects our collective mentality and consciousness.
And not incidentally, this is what the rest of the world also needs from America: an honest, introspective self-reappraisal. If we don't know where we ourselves are heading, how can we lead anyone else?
The so-called "Washington Consensus" may not be dead yet - but it's most certainly up for review and possible major revision. China has a key role to play in any shift that takes place in the coming years, and a Trump presidency, believe it or not, is probably just what Beijing needs to carry out its own much-needed restructuring. There's no better impetus to get your own house in order than a new business partner who won't let you squeeze him - indeed, who probably wants to squeeze you instead.
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