What The Hell Is Going on?
A primer to understanding our world in the age of Trump
Cameron Cowan
About the Author
Cameron Cowan, M.A. is the former host of The Cameron Cowan Show. He is a writer, thinker, and human being enjoying the sights and sounds of the Washington D.C. area.
Acknowledgements
Patricia Tyson (for picking me up off the side of the road)
Nina Rice (your editing work was invaluable)
Delilah Kieffer (for your generosity)
RJ Stewart (for teaching me the book business)
Mom and Dad (for always being helpful to your crazy artist/son)
All the reporters who do the amazing work everyday that makes books likes these and a free democracy possible.
What the Hell is Going On? A primer to understanding our world in the age of Trump
Copyright 2019 by Cameron Cowan and Widgery Omnimedia
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any other information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the author: cameronjournal.com
1st Edition
ISBN: 978-0-578-54953-8
Printed in the USA
cameronjournal.com
Forward
Our world is a seemingly crazy place. On the one hand, the lives of people are improving all around the world. More people have access to healthcare more than ever before and weve seen improvements in drinking water, disease management, and life expectancy around the globe. The world of 2020 is much better than the world of just 20 years ago. However, this has come at quite a cost, especially if you live in a developed country. Wage stagnation and income inequality has taken their toll at hollowing out economies and personal futures. Things that people once took for granted, like well paying employment and access to housing, have been wiped away. The heartland of the United States, the midlands or England, and other rural areas, once dominated by industry, have seen towns disappear as the jobs that supported them were moved overseas to foreign countries. The modern global economy is more integrated than ever before. This has led to a fascist backlash that has taken the form of Brexit, Donald Trump, and right-wing movements on the continental Europe, in places like Austria and Italy.
There are long-term trends in retirement plans, corporate debt, sovereign debt, and birth rates that paint a troubling picture for the world economy moving forward. Capitalism has reached its zenith in this century and it isnt exactly the shining example of freedom and equality that many thinkers would have you believe. Capitalism has changed our world in numerous ways that we are only beginning to understand and experience. It has created outsized problems that most societies, even progressive European societies with its strong social safety net, cannot begin to solve.
Technology has changed our lives in ways that we could only imagine decades previously. While social networks have brought us closer together, their lack of regulation and free-for-all nature have allowed lies, hate, and deception to spread quickly to billions of people. Social media has toppled governments, started genocide, and has affected elections throughout the world. That power is contained especially in the smartphone. People are able to carry the internet, a wealth of information and powerful communications, in their pockets, accessing them wherever they are located. More so than anything else, this constant connectivity amplifies whatever is blended through it.
This economic output has come at a cost. Ecologically, the planet has never been worse. There are worrying trends in temperature and climate changes that we do not fully understand and often are not fully prepared to manage. Agriculture and our relationship to the natural world is changing. A renaissance in energy has changed the landscape in North America and elsewhere. A relaxation of regulation on emissions promises more of the same.
However, while things might seem dire, there is great hope. There are specific and strategic things that nations can put in place now to reverse these trends and create a container for success in the future. The only thing that is lacking is the political will to do so. The solutions are evident.
My goal in this book is to take some of the signature essays from The Cameron Cowan Show and use them together to give the reader a picture of what exactly is going on in our world. One of the biggest things I believe in is context. Events only matter when you understand what came before and what they might be leading to in the future. When you understand where we are, it gives us tremendous insight into the future and answers the important question of why things are they way and to truly understand what is going on.
The world is confusing and hopefully this book will empower the reader to understand it better and be able to navigate the news, world events, and their own futures with the necessary information to stay informed and to have the background to understand the news in context.
In this book, I have updated and revised the original essays and Ive added some more information about different parts that would have been impractical for online reading. The essays are grouped by broad topic. Feel free to jump around in the book. You do not need to have read the previous work to understand any of the essays; they stand alone.
Have fun with this book and if I have done my job, you will have a much better understanding of what the hell is going on.
Introduction
If you are reading the daily news on your favorite device then the world might look quite dire to you. It seems like there are a variety of problems. As of this writing, we live in a world where the President of the United States is scandal ridden, the economy seems to be doing well but the wealth is not shared, and the environment seems like it is on the verge of collapse. There is a crisis in the insect population and in the overall climate. There is a crisis within the economy, especially when the labor participation rate, those actually working, is so low. Right now we have a tax system and an economic system that privileges the wealthy and those who control capital. The nation does not work for the general population who make, on average, $50,000 per year. We have a system that prioritizes those who make many multiples of that. It seems that everywhere, there are innumerable problems and policy makers are helpless to solve them.
This book was spawned out of a question someone asked me personally, What the hell is going on? Why is it the richest, most powerful nation on earth cannot feed all of its citizens, keep up roads and bridges, educate its children, and keep the water and air clean?
I want to remind the reader as we go through these problems, there is not a single problem discussed in this book that we cannot solve. We dont have to wait for technology to develop or hope that something breaks through. We can solve these problems today. However, we lack the political will, as a people, to elect people in power at the local and federal level who are committed to solving these problems in a real way. We lack the resolve to make tough decisions and come up with radical solutions to move forward for the whole nation.
Context
In the 2 years of The Cameron Cowan Show, my focus was always on giving people context to what was going on. So much of our news seems to exist in a vacuum. It is very hard to understand problems without fully knowing how we got here. Many people have no idea of history beyond their own lived experiences. However, when it comes to public policy, it can take years for a situation to develop regardless if that situation is considered good or bad.
