Hope, control, and Donald Trump ############################### :date: 2016-09-22T10:17:57 :status: draft :category: faith :tags: politics, UnitedStates, hope, control, desertStream I was listening to this debate_ on NPR with the resolution “Blame the elites for the Trump phenomenon”. The discussion was absolutely fascinating and in the end I am not really sure what position I would stand on. I saw a lot of points on both sides, and of course (as usual) I was discouraged how the resolution was badly defined. However, I saw one point which seemed to me ignored by everybody. It seems to me that in the root of many of our problems is the lack of hope. The world is in the middle of the enormous changes and we are not sure whether we will make it to the other side (or if there is any other side at all; will this craziness continue forever?). For normal person it would help if she (or he) had at least a minimal hope that the people in power, elites, had at least some idea how to get through these times. And she is again and again being persuaded that they don’t. `Iraqi war`_ (whoops, WMD were not there … some hundreds of thousand dead and some trillions dollars down the drain, not mentioning Russia and Venezuela dictators on the rise, Iran democratization destroyed, and Islamist radicalism ignited), 2007 monetary crisis (which I still blame on the crazy Mr. Bush and Mr. Greenspan irrationally exuberant monetary policy), etc. .. _debate: http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/blame-elites-trump-phenomenon .. _`Iraqi war`: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War