I don't understand people who call Trump a Republican. He has no principles whatsoever, and he wasn't a Democrat either when he belonged to the Democratic Party. Trump is a symptom of a system that has stopped doing its job. Trump represents an attempt to offer simple answers to complex questions — answers that, by definition, do not exist.
The fact that America hasn't been broken overnight is a good thing. But that doesn't mean the system doesn't need reform. It's just that Trump, as a cure, has turned out to be worse than the disease itself.
There are enormous problems abroad: the UN doesn't work, the Hague Tribunal doesn't work, NATO doesn't work, and wars continue. Everything needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
There are enormous problems at home, too: school education is terrible, housing is expensive, racial problems remain unresolved, the war on drugs has been lost, and the Washington swamp is still there.
This is usually the point where some real estate broker from Brooklyn pops up with an indignant tirade: Who is this Russian living in impoverished Italy to lecture us?
Even the electoral system is about a hundred years out of date. Politics has far more than two dimensions: the economic (markets versus redistribution) and the social (freedom versus tradition). Add to these attitudes towards foreign policy, the state and technology.
Someone can support free markets and same-sex marriage, or favour a welfare state while opposing immigration. But the broker from Brooklyn thinks the world consists entirely of left-wing communists and right-wing fascists.
Instead of dividing Americans into two parties, the 2018 Hidden Tribes study identified seven "tribes" and found that roughly two-thirds of Americans belong to an "Exhausted Majority" that does not share the extreme positions of either side.
The fact that so many Americans turn out to vote is a good thing. The two parties have become very good at mobilising supporters through fear of the other party, but far less capable of reaching agreements on long-term change.
Political competition has become an endless contest over who is to blame, rather than a competition over who can actually fix things.
And this is where Trump comes in, saying: "They've all been lying to you. I'm different. I'll smash this system."
The less capable the system is of proving him wrong, the more convincing that promise sounds.
But the broker from Brooklyn is willing to overlook all of Trump's disgraceful behaviour, stupidity and staggering incompetence — so desperate is he for a simple, quick solution.
A solution that will never come.
It reminds me of a patient arriving at a doctor's office with a serious chronic illness, only for the doctor to suggest immediately stopping all medication and throwing away every medical device. Perhaps some of those treatments really weren't working. Perhaps the treatment was too expensive, the doctors made mistakes, and the hospital had long been in desperate need of renovation. But none of that means demolishing the hospital is a way to recover.
Trump will come, put everything in order and hand out a magic pill.
The broker from Brooklyn is ready to destroy every institution in exchange for that magic pill.
But institutions are not created because people are always intelligent, kind and competent. Quite the opposite. They exist precisely because people make mistakes, pursue their own interests, give in to emotions, abuse power and cannot always reach an agreement.
A good institution does not depend on the arrival of an ideal leader. It is designed so that the system can function even under a mediocre leader — and survive a bad one.
I hope Trump won't succeed in breaking America.
The most dangerous misconception today is that the choice is between Trump and a return to the old order.
That is a false choice.
The old order is what produced Trump in the first place.
Change. We are waiting for change.
