PBS Frontline Documentary – Divided
States of America
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/divided-states-of-america/UPDATE: An Uncertain Future Ahead
John Cassidy of the New
Yorker writes:
“On Thursday
evening, Jason Furman, the chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic
Advisers, tweeted out a picture of himself leaving his office for the last
time, with the message “Turning out the lights.” Whether it was deliberate or
not, Furman’s message echoed the words of Lord Edward Grey, the British foreign
secretary, who remarked to a friend, in August, 1914, “The lamps are going out
all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
Grey’s words,
spoken on the eve of the First World War, are sometimes seen as an elegy for a
halcyon period of globalization, peace, and prosperity. Listening to Donald
Trump’s dark, inward-looking Inaugural Address, on Friday, it was easy to
believe that we are at another historical turning point.
Perhaps the
trepidation and fear over Trump taking over as President will turn out to have
been overdone. Let us hope so. But there can be no doubt that these feelings
are genuinely held, and not just in the United States. Around the world, there
is still astonishment that such an inexperienced, volatile, and disruptive
figure could become America’s President. Indeed, Trump’s elevation has raised
foundational questions not just about the future of democracy in this country
but about the entire American-led global order that has been in place since the
end of the Second World War”