Trump Is Breaking Our National Addiction to Pessimism
James Czerniawski /
The United States has been suffering from a crisis of the imagination for a long time. When Donald Trump first came on the political scene with the “Make America Great Again” slogan, it looked like he was part of the problem. MAGA was nostalgia bait, but Trump continues to govern with more optimism about the future than most Americans are even comfortable with.
According to Pew data released in December, the American psyche is engrossed in “futurephobia.” When asked which time period they would choose to live in if given the chance, 45% of U.S. adults said they would leap into the past, with 1 in 5 yearning to go back 50 years or more. Meanwhile, 40% would cling to the present and the status quo.
If life were a poker table, almost everyone would check or fold.
Only 14% of Americans would take a shot on the future. The skeptics who want to pause or retreat are responding to genuine fear and a sense of loss, whether it’s the decline of community, pessimistic economic prospects, or feelings of obsolescence in the face of artificial intelligence.
Trump’s “MAGA” motto intentionally spoke to this malaise while still offering an unapologetic, high-octane kind of optimism embedded in his policy agenda. A key ingredient of Trump’s politics is not apologizing for the past, because most people look back on it fondly, one way or another.
MAGA’s starting point was to appreciate the past and recapture parts of it in the future. That’s the best kind of nostalgia.
In his book “Past Forward,” Clay Routledge argues that nostalgia is “the past isn’t the true destination; it’s just where we go to grab supplies for the trip.” The president’s critics have focused for 10 years now on his ability to signal nostalgia and neglected the part of Trump’s character that is fond of building skyscrapers.
Overly nostalgic people don’t knock down the White House’s East Wing. His administration recognizes that to save the American dream, we have to build new things.
In energy, the administration is embracing the ambitious goal of making America an energy powerhouse. Back in May, the president signed an executive order aiming to quadruple U.S. nuclear capacity to 400 gigawatts by 2050. Meta recently announced a new infrastructure project that would yield 6.6 gigawatts of nuclear energy. Energy Secretary Chris Wright was correct in his response, “It takes a massive amount of electricity to generate intelligence.”
It has allowed for the powering of next-generation technology while simultaneously trying to keep a lid on energy prices for consumers. For the Trump administration, it’s about reinstituting a culture where companies are encouraged to think big again. It has done this by dismantling a litany of regulatory hurdles that have stalled energy infrastructure projects.
It has gone all-in on a high-energy future.
On tech, the precautionary principle, which crept out of Brussels and into the Biden administration, has largely been cast out. There’s less carnal fear over technology. Look at Trump’s announcement of the Genesis Mission for November, which would leverage the power of AI to double research and development productivity over the next decade. That means faster production and lower prices of goods and services for consumers.
If you ever wondered why “flying cars” haven’t happened, look no further than the inflexibility of federal aviation rules. Even here, things are being loosened up. A longstanding federal ban on civilian aircraft exceeding the speed of sound over land was lifted in June, allowing for more supersonic flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration has been directed to establish noise-based standards rather than blanket speed limits, which clears the way for potential 90-minute flights between New York and Los Angeles. Still, no Jetsons cars, but this is what it looks like when the government isn’t scared stiff by progress. Unimaginable things can happen in transportation if the government signals an openness to allowing change.
Of course, there’s still the final frontier and the Artemis II mission. The Trump administration is setting hard deadlines for astronauts to return to the moon in 2028. They aim to establish a permanent lunar outpost by the end of the decade, which must be a delight to former presidential candidate and moon base enthusiast Newt Gingrich.
Artemis II is in final testing with Feb. 2 as a dress rehearsal for launch, an adventure that offers Americans an opportunity to grow beyond fondness for the past and to get excited about tomorrow.
Fear of the future is natural, but it does not have to be our destiny. MAGA may have started as a nostalgia movement dedicated to remembering why we should be proud of being Americans, but Trump is more focused on the future than any administration in recent history.
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