The Avoidable Decline of the United States under Donald Trump

An extremely clever and personal reaction to Donald Trump’s daily scandals. An unsettling diary that may even serve to explain some of the mechanisms of European populism.

In November 2016, immediately after Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States, Robert Cohen began writing this diary, not least to keep his feet on the ground in face of the daily surge of disturbing news, the tsunami of decrees, tweets, declarations, withdrawals and counter-declarations from the White House. Cohen’s concept is based on a dual view of political and social processes. It combines the internal view of a Swiss and European person who has been living in New York for 35 years with the external view of a Swiss and European person, which the author continues to be.
The diary reveals how the author himself, the people around him and US society as a whole experience the day-to-day political developments. It often consists of spontaneous reactions to the events of the day. The notations focus on the impertinence with which the incumbent president lies and cheats on a daily basis, even though his antics continue to impress a large number of Americans.
This diary, which covers the first two years of Trump’s term of office, is sometimes spectacularly funny. It shows in a condensed and literary form that it is not the president himself who has triggered the current situation. Rather, the developments of the past decades have been leading us unerringly towards a figure of this kind.