The upcoming 2020 presidential election in the United States of America hasn’t as much to do with getting rid of Trump as it does with changing the face of America. And I don’t mean the colour – red or blue. The historic money-grubbing theme which has predominated political argument is being replaced by what the so-called conservative Republicans would prefer to abrade as socialism but what Americans of every stripe have recognized as humanitarian – health care, climate change, energy alternatives, employment fairness, equality between men and women, toleration of sexual diversity and gun control.

Though Trump and his league of obsequious Congressional and Senatorial supporters have maintained centre stage throughout this dangerously comical entertainment the bulk of Americans – some hesitantly, others fervently – are irrevocably moving from what they see at last as a cheap sideshow and the grandstand of a maniac. At first the rejection of Trump began as whispered lip pursing. Trump’s sordid words and lascivious associations were then tolerated as predominantly “human” indiscretions. The subsequent frequency of literary and oratorical minority insinuated the emerging picture of a petty bully and questionable businessman. Trump’s vulgar expressions and shallow orchestrations are plainly discernible as theatrical with little foundation in either truth or policy.

The repeated view of the current political landscape is one of perpetual divisiveness:

Democrats now mobilize a “coalition of transformation” centered on the young, nonwhite, and college-educated white voters comfortable with these changes—most of whom are clustered in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. Republicans, in turn, rely on a “coalition of restoration” centered on groups of voters who feel most uneasy about, and even threatened by, these changes: disproportionately older, non-college-educated, and evangelical whites who live outside of metropolitan centers.

This conclusion however is inaccurate as it is based upon the out-dated view of America as a nation of separates: white and black; rich and poor; religious and atheist; gay and straight; educated and uneducated. America has not whitewashed its face; rather it has enriched it with the mix of colours, wealth, employment, orientations and beliefs. Nor is it sufficient to dismiss the absurdity of Trump’s act in government as surviving on the strength of the economy or employment. Nobody in their right mind believes Trump has somehow spirited the American financial position. Wall Street has never been beholden to government much less to any one president.

The other inescapable reality is that capitalism in the past fifty years has been governed solely by banks and insurance companies. This is initially a paradox. The banks are founded upon axiomatic principles; namely, contracted interest rates. Insurance companies are based upon risk; namely, beating the odds. Mathematical truths and gambling odds have seldom been equated. In neither case is it certain that people will pay their mortgages nor that they will die when expected; but the chance that they will is greater than that they won’t. Meanwhile the banks and the insurance companies play games about doubling the price of homes and halving the rates of interest; offering diminished insurance coverage at increased costs; and using your money and your health to finance the collateral burgeoning industries of credit cards (24% interest rates) and drugs (addictive and anaesthetizing). The banks and insurance companies – and the lawmakers they support – have every reason to be concerned. The entire face of capitalism is being diluted not only by the beehive theory of corporate responsibility but also by the patent disinterest in egregious consumption which has by design and self-interest fuelled the financial and insurance industries. The bigger the diamond, the more it costs to buy and insure!

The populace is awakening to the disappointing reality that their putative influence in life is akin to that of a herd of sheep. The millennials – for all their refusal to embrace the standards of the post-war firebrands – have promoted a new way of doing things, not just Trump’s meaningless “Make America Great Again” but the tangible advocacy of health, climate, technology and equality. These written projects go far beyond the caricature of Pence and his line of minions. The Trump banner will be taken down as a worthless symbol.

The goal of Americans is neither Democrat nor Republican. The real change they would like to see is the employment of learned leaders who have diverted themselves from self-absorption and gratification; and who have instead opted for ways to perform a service in fulfillment of their job. The hard truth is that after watching a TV comedy, the television is eventually turned off and people go to bed. And when they awake in the morning they don’t want to go back to watching the same comedy show; they have to go to work – white or black; rich or poor; religious or atheist; gay or straight; educated or uneducated!