What am I thinking about right now? I am thinking how sorry I am that President Trump does not have a nose that grows every time he tells a lie. Because, as you know, if he did, his nose would now extend from the White House all the way to Mar-a-Lago. Why, you ask, would I want him to have a nose like that? I guess I could give you a number of reasons, but today I am thinking about this one:

I have noticed that Trump, in making the decisions he makes, seems remarkably short sighted. You tell him you have a problem and he wants your vote, he will immediately tell you what he is going to do to fix your problem (often one that he himself has caused), without thinking of the long term (or even mid-term) effects of his cure. And you ask why this is? It’s because Trump obviously can’t see beyond the tip of his nose. So, if the tip of his nose extended all the way to Palm Beach, he would, I assume, be able to make decisions based on much longer range thinking.

I am working my way through William Taubman’s lengthy Gorbachev. I am half way through. Gorbachev is now in charge and is finding that glasnost, or openness, is not always helpful to leadership, and that his perestroika, or reform, movement faces strong opposition from conservatives on the right (okay, in political terms, I guess they are leftists, but in sociological or psychological terms, they are conservatives and the equivalent of right wingers in America) led by Ligachev and Gromyko, and by those who want more reform on the left, led by the charismatic, but already unstable Yeltsin. These leftist reformers are those who, again, in political terms are on the right, wanting a system even more akin to our capitalism, but psychologically are leftists. I know that is confusing, but….think about it.

Continuing on this line, think of Gorbachev as a typical artis80 reader. Moderately liberal, politically cautious, seemingly pragmatic and so forth. If that is you and you lived in the USSR in the 1980s, you would think that Gorbachev was on the right path and you would wish him luck. And eventually, you would be disappointed. The political class in your country just wasn’t with you sufficiently, and Gorbachev was over ambitious and self confident.

So we have three points to make. First, Gorbachev had the right ideas. Second, the ship was too big to turn around so quickly. Third, he was so ambitious and self confident that he did not recognize this until it was too late. The result? Utter chaos and Vladimir Putin.

Now, move to the United States.  We have our own Gorbachev in Donald Trump. Their political thinking is totally different, but Trump, like Gorbachev, wants to change the political system of his country, and tear down existing institutions to do it. He is also facing opposition from all sides. And the ship he is attempting to turn is also very large. But his ambition and self confidence, like his Soviet counterpart, are equally large.

Trump will most likely fail. We know that. But what then? Will we be able to return to those wonderful days of yesteryear, or will that will that prove too difficult? Is it possible that we too will be caught up in our own chaos, a chaos we can not today know how to end, because we don’t know what it will contain?

Donald Trump is not the only one who cannot see beyond the tip of his nose. You don’t see American politicians or political thinkers or political journalists or pundits talking much about the post-Trump reconstruction that must take place. About the America of the post-Trump future. And by the time they do, we may be in our own Time of Troubles (to use another phrase from Russian history) and may discover that the strongest, not the best, man will come out on top.