The Ugly American and the Burning of Rome

A novel about the Cold War, "The Ugly American"  published in 1958, detailed the failures of American foreign policy in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, but the title came to mind the past few days.  There is a certain amount of déjà vu in the election of Donald Trump, as unexpected as it was for some of us, and despite his losing the popular vote.  I read the novel as a teenager in the form of an old discarded paperback, lying around the house, I have no idea how the novel got there, we were living in Hong Kong at the time.  The distinct image that stays in my mind so many years later -- insular Americans going abroad insisting that the only way going forward was the way prescribed by the USA; and this contrasted with the Soviets' astute ability to assimilate themselves into the culture and peoples they were trying to influence.  The whole point is moot it seems in 2016, but if the Cold War was about democracy versus authoritarian dictatorships, then the next four years, not only in the USA, but in France, Germany, Hong Kong, many parts of the world, may see democracy more and more placed in a position of compromise, when fear, anger, and desperation allows for increasing loss of civil liberties.

Here in France, the police have been demonstrating -- angry that they are unable to "do their jobs" because of apparent restrictions to their ability to "police" and to defend their personal safety.  I wonder if they do not wish to have the freedom, as in the US, to fire their guns at will, perhaps they wish to have the freedom given by the Patriot Act, to spy and survey indiscriminately.  I do not doubt that a great number of people, even if it may not be the majority of the population, would trade some of their personal liberties for a presumed "safety net" against further acts of terrorism.  A question that comes to mind is whether a population's submission to a police state would necessarily mean more safety, more normalcy, and more complacency.

The protests against the election of Donald Trump in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, will no doubt die down, but the embers of discontent will burn on.  From The Occupy movements to Ferguson and Black Lives Matter, the anger and discontent of people's and groups living in The UNited States will only reignite when the next inflammatory incident occurs; and all this under a President Trump's "Great America," a pseudo 1950's version of the USA, seen through the lens of old Hollywood B movies, and recolored to fit modern HDTV screens.  When Caligula became emperor of the Roman Empire, did the Romans predict that their world would eventually give rise to Nero, just one emperor away?