Letter to my American Friends

There is a natural psychological impulse to downplay what is happening in the United States. It is hard to accept that we may be entering dystopian times. Some people are too complacent to mobilize and instead look for excuses. Others look for excuses to keep voting for Trump, or to continue supporting European parties that sympathize with him, or that see it as natural to ally with parties promoting similar policies.

In an effort to remain balanced, I want to reflect on how bad Trump 2.0 really is, why there is still hope, and why this matters — even for us Europeans.

How bad is Trump 2.0? Unfortunately, what is happening is not entirely un-American. There are precedents: racism, violations of human rights, segregation, McCarthyism, and the extermination of Indigenous populations. Violence, racism, imperialism, and repression are undeniably part of U.S. history. Still, many of us believed that these phenomena were being left behind with the civil rights movement and the end of the Cold War.

Trump himself, however, is unprecedented and far worse than his predecessors: the trash-talking, bullying, racism, corruption, threats to — and violations of — freedom of speech, attacks on science, culture, and global public goods, the imperial impulses, and the sycophancy, narcissism, and idolatry surrounding the “king" and the first lady. This spectacle feels closer to the Roman emperors of the decadent era than to any sane contemporary democratic leadership (and I do not count Milei, Bukele, or Orbán among those leaders).

His occasional hostility toward other authoritarian regimes — Iran, Venezuela, Cuba — should not mislead us. One cannot play the good cop in just carefully selected places abroad and the bad cop at home.

Of course, there is also the United States that liberated Europe from fascism and launched the Marshall Plan. And it is true that we do not see mass killings on the scale of Iran, thanks to institutions that still act as constraints: the media, protesters, churches, and courts. But we already see innocent people being killed or arbitrarily detained.

This is not Hitler — but waiting for perfect historical parallels would be a grave mistake. The outcomes may differ, but the psychology of the tyrant and his supporters looks disturbingly familiar (January 6th should still echo loudly in our minds).

People may disagree on how to label what we are witnessing, but not on the direction of travel. John Burn-Murdoch asks whether we are seeing shocking events without durable change: How steep is Trump’s democratic backsliding? Others are less hesitant.

Why there is still hope? If there is hope that the United States will not be lost to democracy forever, it is not because of any residual humanity in Trump or his inner circle. It is because of the strength and diversity of the resistance — collective, institutional, and individual.

We see it in parts of the mainstream and independent media that continue to tell the truth (try watching Amanpour on CNN, or reading the Substacks of Paul Krugman and Timothy Snyder). Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Minneapolis is a beautiful tribute to those who resist — and who have, at least temporarily, forced Trump to retreat.

There is hope because many intelligent, principled people in the U.S. are resisting. Unfortunately, the most powerful and wealthy do not seem to be among them. Those who resist may not control the tectonic forces of inequality and brutality that drive the worst forms of capitalism, but they oppose them. I have been fortunate to meet — and remain friends with — some of these people during my PhD in Florence, through visits to New York, Madison, Berkeley, and elsewhere, and through collaborations in Europe, including the remarkable CORE Project, partly led by U.S. academics.

They are among the smartest and most generous people I have ever known. Their universities and research centers are not perfect, but they remain among the most important global public goods we have. Many of the resisters come from these institutions. They remind us that theories of free-riding and collective-action failure tell only part of the story.

Why this matters? Some people tell me I pay too much attention to what happens in the United States. But it remains — by many measures — the world’s largest economy, with unparalleled cultural influence, and still the dominant force in the social sciences and in my own discipline, economics.

Things may never be the same between the U.S. and Europe. Still, we must continue to resist together, and we must stay connected.

This is not to ignore the many challenges facing European democracies (I promise they are a priority for many of us). But when I was younger, I learned that developments in the U.S. often reach Europe a few decades later — and now the delay may be much shorter.

We want a divorce from the Trump regime, not from our American friends.

From the Mashreq to Tony Blair’s Gaza—and Back?

When I explain my support for a one-state solution in Israel/Palestine, reasonable people often respond that it is an interesting yet entirely infeasible idea. Those same reasonable people, especially when they hold political office, tend to fall back on the officially endorsed two-state solution, despite its demonstrable unfeasibility. Of course, the one-state solution is not my invention. It has been defended by thinkers such as Hannah Arendt and Tony Judt in the past, and more recently by Shlomo Sand, Omri Boehm, and many young Palestinians and Israeli Jews.

The Arab-Jewish historian Ilan Pappé argues in Israel on the Brink that the one-state solution is not only feasible but likely to emerge from the collapse of the current Israeli state under Netanyahu and the far-right theocratic forces supporting him. According to Pappé, this collapse will be driven by three forces: the deepening internal divisions within Israeli society, growing international pressure in response to apartheid and genocide, and the ideological estrangement of American Jews from the present incarnation of the Israeli state. New generations—eager to forge a different kind of politics and deeply skeptical of old nation-states—may seize this moment to move beyond the failed “peace orthodoxy” of the two-state solution.

In Pappé’s account, the existing state would be replaced by a decolonized Palestine: a democratic polity in which different ethnicities, languages, and religions coexist, and in which Palestinians expelled in 1948 and afterward can return to their land. Such a decolonized Palestine could also, in theory, emerge not only from collapse but from deep reform of the Israeli state—or from a process somewhere between reform and collapse. The final chapters of Pappé’s book offer an optimistic vision of Palestine in 2048, a century after the Nakba, where peace and coexistence have taken root.

The failure of the peace orthodoxy, combined with Israel’s ongoing internal and moral collapse, is what makes the one-state solution not merely desirable but feasible. An egalitarian state would reconcile the right of return with the right to stay. What Pappé calls “Historical Palestine” would acquire a new name and coexist with its neighbors in a renewed Mashreq for the twenty-first century. The Mashreq—the eastern Mediterranean region of the Ottoman Empire—was, according to Pappé, once a vast space of coexistence and relative tolerance among ethnic and religious communities, before victorious imperial powers imposed rigid nation-states that divided populations along ethnic lines.

Whether Pappé’s optimistic vision can emerge from the current reality of a single apartheid state remains an open question. It is unclear whether the alliance of Netanyahu and Trump represents the final attempt to impose a colonial mindset—or merely the opening phase of an even more dystopian future. The dismal spectacle of Tony Blair serving on an executive committee tasked with “rebuilding” Gaza—alongside Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and without meaningful participation by Palestinian communities or the United Nations—suggests that what was once known as the peace orthodoxy has mutated into something far darker.

The contrast with the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland could not be more striking. There, the international community and all local parties worked together to craft an agreement that relativized the nation-state in order to build something better—not a vast private condominium. What has happened since to the mindset of one of the architects of that agreement remains a mystery to me.

Global Federalism as Part of the Resistance

In Rodrik’s trilemma, we must choose two of the following three: hyperglobalization, national sovereignty, and democracy. Rodrik himself opts for national sovereignty and democracy, with some qualifications—he allows for limited forms of international coordination, what he calls “global traffic lights.” In his latest book, "Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World"—a brilliant work offering compelling proposals for modern industrial policy—he insists that the fight against the insurgent far right will not be won through new forms of global governance, but through national and local policy experimentation.

Rodrik’s ideal is the Keynesian world of Bretton Woods, which paved the way for shared prosperity in the developed world after the Second World War. Yet we now live in a profoundly different context.

Rodrik acknowledges that climate change represents a crucial departure from the postwar world, but he maintains that more should be expected from national initiatives than from ambitious global agreements such as Kyoto or Paris. Indeed, much progress has been achieved at the local and national levels. Still, the scale of what remains to be done is vast, and it is difficult to imagine meeting this challenge without some form of global federalism.

We also face a new technological landscape dominated by global multinationals wielding immense political power—companies increasingly intertwined with an aggressive, transnational neo-fascism led, at present, from the White House. It is hard to see how such forces can be resisted without coordinated global action.

The great Italian economist and political scientist Massimo Morelli, in joint work with Eugenio Peluso, argues that current realities go beyond the simplified logic of Rodrik’s trilemma. The rise of nationalist populism, they contend, poses a fundamental threat to liberal democracy:

“The limitation of Rodrik’s trilemma lies in its narrow conceptualization of democracy, defined solely through the lens of ‘mass politics,’ while overlooking the crucial pillars of liberal democracy, such as the protection of rights, checks and balances, and the separation of powers. When we consider this broader notion of democracy, the three trends—deglobalization, democratic crisis, and nationalism—appear interdependent and mutually reinforcing, thereby undermining the trilemma framework.”

Morelli and Peluso conclude that their analysis “challenges the idea that sacrificing globalization alone can preserve democracy. The commitments made by populist leaders go far beyond trade protectionism and include a broader agenda that erodes the institutional safeguards of democracy itself.”

In the closing pages of his book, Rodrik suggests that the left should reclaim patriotism—distinguished from nationalism. I accept that some words are less dangerous than others. Still, it would be far better to restore dignity and identity to vulnerable groups through stronger public services and robust re- and pre-distributive institutions—including transnational mechanisms such as fiscal harmonization, starting in Europe through the EU—than by pandering to their prejudices.

Amartya Sen, who experienced the destructive power of identity politics in his childhood in India and explored these issues through social choice theory, issued a powerful warning in "Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny" (great subtitle!)  about the dangers of succumbing to the “us versus them” temptation in democratic societies.

These are undeniably difficult times for global federalism. Yet Rodrik himself argues that hyperglobalization is a form of neoliberalism—and he is firmly opposed to neoliberalism. Sometimes progress against neoliberalism takes the form of positive reform; at other times it takes the form of resistance. National social democracy once preserved markets while expanding welfare states. Today, we need a transnational version of social democracy: a form of global federalism that retains the benefits of global markets and institutions—none of which are going to disappear—while embedding them within a system of global safeguards and protections.

Retreating into the comfort of local identities or nation-states is not a viable option.

A New Balance Between Technocracy and Progressive Politics

As the historian Timothy Snyder has argued, post-truth is pre-fascism. It follows that resisting neo-fascism requires a commitment to truth. This struggle must involve scientists—the professionals of truth—including, crucially, the best social scientists. Social science is complex, and its debates are often shaped by vested interests. That is why the emphasis must be on the best research, conducted with transparency and supported by intelligent political leadership.

Prophets of the so-called “dark enlightenment,” such as Peter Thiel, insist that capitalism and democracy are incompatible. Thiel has stated explicitly: “I no longer think that freedom and democracy are compatible.” In his vocabulary, however, “freedom” effectively means capitalism—a usage reminiscent of Pinochet and his supporters, including Chicago School economists, who spoke of freedom while disregarding democracy.

Thiel may be right about the tension between capitalism and democracy. Many would therefore argue that we must choose democracy and constrain capitalism accordingly. There is little doubt, however, that Trumpists have chosen capitalism—“freedom,” in their terms—over democracy.

This reality pushes science and scientists into the front lines of resistance against the dark enlightenment: telling the truth about migration, climate change, vaccines, human rights, and universal justice, while militantly opposing conspiracy theories and scapegoating.

In the past, technocracy was seen as an ally of the right—a means of protecting investments and “sound policy” from left-wing populism. Today, however, the social groups that support the right appear to place more trust in illiberal democracy than in technocrats, many of whom—especially in the social sciences—have shifted leftward. Hence the Wall Street Journal editorial board’s endorsement of the unitary executive theory during Trump’s second administration.

In this context, it is significant that the center-left economists behind the so-called London Consensus now advocate a new balance between politics and technocracy. Diane Coyle, for example, argues that in the current geopolitical environment competition policy must become more politicized. Given network externalities and scale economies in new technologies, governments may increasingly be forced to choose among potential monopolists.

At the same time, the current wave of neo-fascist movements directly threatens several bastions of liberal and progressive media—CNN, major French and Italian outlets, and the BBC, among others. Consistent with their broader agenda of dismantling pluralistic democracy, the so-called “broligarchy” is working to seize control of both traditional and social media.

This organized attack on democracy is also an organized attack on truth and rational debate. Those who defend truth and open discourse must respond with the coordinated support of the best available talent. And this support must be explicitly political if we are to win the battle for public opinion.