It will take a long time to recover from that. We will still be suffering for it long after the virus is tamed.
How did we get here? What drove the worldwide populist uprising? It's not like this event was unique to the USA, it happened all around the world, near simultaneously.
Did people get left behind by globalism and a few influential people in the limelight (Wall Street, Hollywood in America)? Politics started speaking towards a narrower and narrower sect of the populations, confusing the loudest for the most. Or was it hate weaponized by a different elite, who themselves felt they were being left behind? Sort of a chicken and the egg.
In America, it's easy to see why, if you're actually willing to pay attention to the complaints of the white working class. They are tired of being exploited for tax money while not receiving anywhere near the entitlements of other groups, tired of not being officially in the civil rights legislation, tired of their communities being flooded with foreigners that don't share their values, and tired of being replaced. Opiate crisis, brain-drain taking all the youth away from small towns, Walmart destroying Main Street, and other phenomena have combined to make much of America a desolate shadow of its former glory.
A lot of this is the direct outcome of policy decisions nobody agreed to. Nobody would have agreed to the 1965 Hart-Cellar act if they had known that the result would be the end of American culture as they knew it.
Such an uprising was inevitable and it will continue to get more strident as long as the actual concerns of these people are brushed off or claimed to be offensive concepts. It's not a matter of being "left behind", it's a matter of being replaced.
Starting a mansion on fire, knowing your tent hundreds of miles away is safe, and even if its not, a new tent is relatively cheap.
The tea party, occupy wall street, and the latest worldwide populist wave are different coin sides all rooted in the same feeling of victimization. It's a purposeful intent to crumble and erode institutions that have amassed wealth. The feedback loops of tax loopholes and lobbying, siphoning off and storing value, pretending their holdings dont cause others problems, are culpable.
Speaking as one who never was in any danger of voting for Trump, what would be my alternative? The warhawk spouse of a womanizing politician I tired of 20 years ago? IOW, same shit, different decade? And then we're all shocked that the populist candidate actually pulled it off this time? Maybe the world collectively asked, "what's the worst that could happen?" Well, now we know.
Yes, between the "warhawk" with eight years of ancillary experience in the White House, who served in the Senate and as Secretary of State, and the reality tv show host whose only political experience was failing at a previous presidential run, the former was still the most viable candidate for the job, even though her husband got a blowjob that one time.
Although I don't consider that to be legitimate participation in the political process, so much as an act of sabotage.
There's a difference between burning your own neighborhood down, and burning Wall Street / Washington / Hollywood / Silicon Valley down.
Lighting a fire doesn't affect everyone equally, it burns up who has the most wood. It's an attack proportional to inequality, not a uniform one.
Sen Clinton set the middle east on fire as Secretary of State. And then ran away before it blew up in her face leaving Sen John Kerry to clean up the mess.
Seriously there is something really shabby about the current political parties in the US. People forget Trump didn't just narrowly beat Clinton. He utterly trounced Jeb Bush.