US Elections and Trump Victory: Look Beyond Duality

So Donald Trump is the next president of the US. And already, social media is flooded with either cheering zealots or devastated detractors. In this article, my aim is to rise above the dualistic fray and propose a view that goes beyond a black and white narrative.

To this end, I will leverage Spiral Dynamics, which is a theory for human collective development.

Spiral Dynamics, developed by Don Beck and Chris Cowan, builds upon the work of psychologist Clare W. Graves. It’s a model of human development that outlines different levels (or "memes") of individual and collective consciousness. Each level corresponds to a specific worldview, values, and ways of thinking, evolving in response to life conditions.

Key Stages (Memes) of Spiral Dynamics:

Beige (Survival Sense)

-?????????? Focus: Basic survival, food, shelter.

-?????????? Characteristics: Instinctive, driven by survival needs.

Purple (Kin Spirits)

-?????????? Focus: Safety and belonging within the tribe.

-?????????? Characteristics: Superstitious, loyalty to clan, ritualistic.

Red (Power Gods)

-?????????? Focus: Power, dominance, and control.

-?????????? Characteristics: Egocentric, impulsive, authoritarian.

Blue (Truth Force)

-?????????? Focus: Order, rules, and structure.

-?????????? Characteristics: Authoritarian but principled, seeks absolute truths, and loyalty to higher causes.

Orange (Strive Drive)

-?????????? Focus: Achievement, success, and material gain.

-?????????? Characteristics: Competitive, entrepreneurial, rational, and individualistic.

Green (Human Bond)

-?????????? Focus: Community, equality, and shared values.

-?????????? Characteristics: Pluralistic, empathetic, consensus-driven, and ecological.

Yellow (Flex Flow)

-?????????? Focus: Systems thinking and adaptability.

-?????????? Characteristics: Integrative, self-actualized, focuses on understanding complex systems.

Turquoise (Global View)

-?????????? Focus: Global consciousness and unity.

-?????????? Characteristics: Holistic, sees the world as interconnected and interdependent.

How is this model linked to this election? Let’s try to fit Trump and Harris on this spiral, regarding their respective values and politics.

Donald Trump would likely be associated with Red and Orange stages.

• Red: His leadership style shows characteristics of dominance, a need for power, and self-assertion. This manifests in his confrontational rhetoric and authoritarian tendencies.
• Orange: His emphasis on material success, business acumen, and individualism ties him to the competitive, achievement-oriented mindset of this meme.

Kamala Harris on the other hand, would likely associated with Green and possibly Orange stages.

• Green: Emphasis on social justice, inclusivity, and collective well-being, aligning with progressive values and empathy.
• Orange: As a high-achieving professional, she also reflects the competitive and success-driven qualities of this meme, focusing on pragmatic solutions.

While Spiral Dynamics has been used to describe humanity’s global development, these stages can also be applied to the psychological development of every human individual.

1. Baby (Beige) – SurvivalSense

-?????????? Stage of Development: Newborns and infants.

-?????????? Focus: Basic survival instincts (e.g., food, warmth, safety).

-?????????? Characteristics: Reflex-driven, instinctual behaviors dominate. The infant relies entirely on caregivers for survival.

2. Toddler (Purple) – KinSpirits

-?????????? Stage of Development: 1–3 years old.

-?????????? Focus: Belonging, safety in familiar routines and environments.

-?????????? Characteristics: Strong attachment to caregivers and comfort in rituals (e.g., bedtime stories). Superstitions or magical thinking begin.

3. Early Childhood (Red) – PowerGods

-?????????? Stage of Development: 3–8 years old.

-?????????? Focus: Exploration of personal power, asserting individuality.

-?????????? Characteristics: Egocentric and impulsive. Children seek immediate gratification and test boundaries (“mine!”). They learn through trial, error, and confrontation.

4. Late Childhood (Blue) – TruthForce

-?????????? Stage of Development: 9–12 years old.

-?????????? Focus: Structure, rules, and sense of justice.

-?????????? Characteristics: Children begin to understand societal rules, moral codes, and discipline. They develop a clear sense of right and wrong, often rigidly adhering to norms.

5. Early Adolescence (Orange) – StriveDrive

-?????????? Stage of Development: 12–15 years old.

-?????????? Focus: Achievement, personal success, and goal-setting.

-?????????? Characteristics: Adolescents become more competitive and start focusing on individual achievements, often driven by the desire for recognition in academics, sports, or hobbies.

6. Late Adolescence (Green) – HumanBond

-?????????? Stage of Development: 15–18 years old.

-?????????? Focus: Community, inclusivity, and empathy.

-?????????? Characteristics: Teenagers often explore their identity through peer connections and social causes. They value fairness, equality, and emotional understanding.

7. Young Adulthood (Yellow) – FlexFlow

-?????????? Stage of Development: 18–25 years old.

-?????????? Focus: Systems thinking, adaptability, and personal growth.

-?????????? Characteristics: Young adults start to view life as interconnected. They prioritize self-actualization, balance personal goals with societal concerns, and adapt fluidly to changing conditions.

8. Adulthood (Turquoise) – GlobalView

-?????????? Stage of Development: 25 years and beyond (for those who reach it).

-?????????? Focus: Holistic thinking, global consciousness, and unity.

-?????????? Characteristics: Adults with a Turquoise worldview seek harmony across all aspects of life, emphasizing interconnectedness, sustainability, and collective well-being. They transcend ego-driven motivations and prioritize global and cosmic awareness.

Now that this theoretical background is set, let me tell you a story.

It’s the story of a young adult that is still living in his parents’ home. It is great time for him to start claiming his independence from his parents, but he seems reluctant to leave the parental nest. After all, it’s so cozy and convenient: mommy and daddy take care of the rent, wash his clothes, cook the food and so on. But his parents start to become annoyed. Given that their child doesn’t seem to want to evolve consciously, they seek to increase their child’s discomfort to push him to fly out of the parental nest. But the parents disagree on the approach.

One parent seeks to tighten control over their child: keep giving them pocket money, but start to investigate how he spends it, to ensure he doesn’t use it to do drugs, bring curfew time to 10pm and start mandating how he should behave in society more and more, punishing him if he misbehaves.

The other parent seeks to loosen the grip: stop providing pocket money, stop washing his clothes, stop cooking food, create an inhospitable home environment which will likely disgust the child and encourage him to leave.

Understand that this little story is directly related to the US elections. Kamala is the first parent, seeking to pass more laws and regulations, tighten the governmental grip on a number of issues such as blockchain, crypto-assets, freedom of speech and so on. Trump is the second parent, openly advocating for government “downsizing” which mirrors the attitude of a parent that stops providing for their child.

Human societies have been stuck in the “Orange-Green” stage for quite some time now. And in that scenario, the only way to push humanity to evolve further, is by electing governments and presidents who will make it increasingly uncomfortable to stay in that place. The transition that is ahead of us, is the transition from late adolescence to becoming young adults, as a society. We are meant to start to claim independence from pyramidal power structures (such as nation states and centralized governments) and into more fluid and decentralized power structures (Blockchain, DAOs – Decentralized Autonomous Organisations, self-governance, crypto-assets…) Symbolically speaking, when a human becomes a young adult and leaves the parental nest, he/she becomes a self-governing individual, no longer under the control of his/her parents.

In this election, society has chosen the “irresponsible/reckless” parent rather than the “ultra-controlling” one. In essence, the outcome of the elections would have been the same regardless. These two candidates simply represent two ways for society to give itself a kick in the butt to advance collectively in our development.

As for the attitude of Elon Musk, some kids prefer to have irresponsible/absent parents rather than ultra-controlling ones, in order to have the freedom to do whatever they want to do in the household. Other kids prefer to have an ultra-controlling parent because they are persuaded that they will be able to exert control over their parent and make sure that it’s always the other kids (the conservative ones) that get punished.

In both cases, though, it’s an immature and childish attitude. Eventually, once a child becomes a young adult, he/she stops relying on mommy/daddy to solve his/her problems, and takes his/her destiny in his/her own hands.

The main takeaway from this election, is that at this stage of our development, as a society, globally, in most countries around the world, if we fail to evolve past representative democracy, then we are bound to replicate this pattern: electing “bad” government officials in order to give ourselves a reason to self-organize and self-govern. It is time for humanity to move beyond the Orange-Green stages onto Yellow, and start experimenting with self-governance, solving problems collectively without going through centralized institutions like governments. It will take another re-write of the social contract: from tribal chiefs, to kings, from kings to ministers and elected representatives, and from ministers to a "liquid" democracy, where leaders emerge spontaneously depending on the issue at hand, via delegated staking, quadratic voting for collective decision making, and experimenting with new tools for consensus building and collective decentralized action.

?