What you need to be doing now ahead of if Trump wins

If like me, you’re filled with trepidation at the prospect of a Donald Trump victory in the forthcoming US Presidential elections, you’ve got to start preparing yourself for both coping with a new nightmare reality, and secondly what practical steps you could take to ensure what he represents doesn’t manifest here in Britain.

To offer comfort and helpful support I share a rapid tour of history, philosophy, and pragmatic purpose.

A fascinating recent interview with mixed race historian David Olusoga in the FT highlights his challenge to the aphorism ‘we need to know our history so we can learn from it - and possibly avoid making the same mistakes’. He points to the “moral messiness of history”, how it is important “not to find the cartoon villains… but to focus on the messiness”, while warning of the perils of “needing everything to be perfect”.

He explores the issue of how a critic of a British imperialist history should regard the iconic figure of Winston Churchill. “Thank God Churchill, rather than Halifax, became prime minister in 1940” he says, “but at the same time, Churchill also held appalling views about the people of Africa: he said terrible things about the people of India, his attitude and his decisions around the Bengal famine are catastrophic.”

The lesson he draws is you don’t need for someone to be perfect to connect or respect any specific contributions they may make to your life or to history.

So how do we cope with complexity, ambiguity, the contradictions - what Olusoga recognises as the ‘messiness’ in our life, to face a possible post-Trump world?

In the Dublin Conversations ’57 ideas - how to create a fitter for purpose communications industry’ idea #7 highlights how to think deeper we need deeper philosophical foundations. It posits how Western world modern-day communications practice emerged in a society underpinned by a philosophy of liberalism. This is rooted in beliefs in meliorism - of the perfectibility of humankind, where actions have an implicit design to make things better. If we could communicate better, the liberal thinking presupposes, it would in turn create a better society.

‘Post-liberalism’ has emerged in response to the failure of liberalism to deliver the ‘end of history’, where Western liberal democratic thought was once claimed to triumph and pathway for the rest of the world to follow. (Do check out John Gray ‘The New Levithians: Thoughts after Liberalism’)

Faced with a crisis in confidence in its underpinning beliefs, in an era where our society faces existential threats, post-liberalism instead responds with an alternative driver for more purposeful social interactions. Rather than striving to achieve optimum actualization of a better world, we should be minded and guided by a goal of securing the least worst.

To critique new ideas is not about being how do they achieve an optimum response, but rather do they provide better than existing ways of enabling humankind to be fitter for purpose for tackling its immense challenges.

The Dublin Conversations’ core belief about its purpose is not to provide ‘The Answer’ but by creating an emergent space for new, better ways to emerge. This thinking is rooted in post-liberal philosophy. It’s not about creating the optimum best but securing the least worst. Hence, you could argue that the term ‘Comms’ is not the ideal label to describe a paradoxical world of greater convergence and fragmentation in communications - and beyond – practice. The term can however, serve as a better least worst option.

Which brings us back to the core question of facing up to a new era of the ‘free world’ led by Donald Trump and are we responsible in any way for the new reality we could face?

Trump’s rise owes much to social division in his society, an issue that’s easy to condemn, yet more challenging to explore of how culpable you are in fuelling its undercurrents.

I am currently collaborating on addressing the issue of social identity in contemporary Britain, particularly through our Modern Cockney Festival. My festival cofounder, Saif Osmani recently met someone, a white, middle-class artist, who asked ‘Why are you doing this?’ seemingly flummoxed with a subtext of how any worthy person could be interested in a community who seemingly were not relevant or appropriate to engage with.

The dismissive artist’s views were seemingly driven by what the Dublin Conversations identifies as being ‘dogmatically purposeful’; they possess a strong sense of moral validity in who they are, what they perceive as their purpose in making their world a better place - yet fail to arm themselves with the fundamental quality of ‘being open to understanding others’.

Saif and I believe in a narrative of celebrating how the modern Cockney, based on inclusive positive values, is open to all. How it is an evolving community containing diverse backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs, which is a powerful resource for inspiring overcoming adversity, tackling social prejudice, and building greater togetherness for anyone with an affinity with ‘non-posh Londoners’.

In learning how to cope with a victorious Trump and what to do next, do ask yourself, how guilty are you of thinking like the dogmatically purpose-led artist - and how much has this thinking contributed to the rise of Donald Trump (and populists elsewhere)?

What can you do different that secures the least worst in your inherently ‘messy’ world to stop it becoming even uglier?

Take stock from post-liberalism, avoid being dogmatically purposeful, embrace pragmatic purposefulness - which hopefully could proffer least worse ways to manage the pain of Donald Trump mark 2.