Donald Trump didn’t descend a golden escalator and transform America overnight. His rise reflected deep currents in US history — and moving on may take time.
The storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The second airliner smashing into the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. These milestones in US history loom like giant landmarks. Even in a polarized country, we consider these moments self-evident. Widely, almost universally, we view them as nation-altering events.
But does the US ever really change in an instant? And if so, can it change back just as fast?
For allies and natural friends of the country, that feels like an urgent question. President Donald Trump’s war on Iran and the global energy shock it’s generating is just the latest example of the president’s belligerence. Ukraine, Russia, NATO and Greenland have already strained the trans-Atlantic relationship, and the year started with the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US forces on Jan. 3. At home, two people were shot dead by federal agents as they protested immigration raids in Minneapolis.
All this has left the world wondering whether the US of the post-war era will ever return. For many Americans, thrown off balance by this chaotic tumble of events, the question of whether their homeland will revert to something nearing “normalcy” rises to the level of an existential dilemma.
Some of the most singular events from the past 250 years of American history suggest that the journey to a post-Trump world will be a long and maybe circuitous ride. History’s red-letter days, which we commemorate with anniversaries and retrospectives, often trick us into thinking they were catalysts for instant and profound change. They become a kind of shorthand in the retelling of a grand narrative of US history, one predicated on continuous progress, reform and improvement — what scholars would call a Whig interpretation of history.
honestly we need to stop acting like trump came out of nowhere. the tea party and fox news have been building this exact movement for years and we’re still pretending to be shocked.
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*Nick Bryant for Bloomberg News*
The storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The second airliner smashing into the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. These milestones in US history loom like giant landmarks. Even in a polarized country, we consider these moments self-evident. Widely, almost universally, we view them as nation-altering events.
But does the US ever really change in an instant? And if so, can it change back just as fast?
For allies and natural friends of the country, that feels like an urgent question. President Donald Trump’s war on Iran and the global energy shock it’s generating is just the latest example of the president’s belligerence. Ukraine, Russia, NATO and Greenland have already strained the trans-Atlantic relationship, and the year started with the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US forces on Jan. 3. At home, two people were shot dead by federal agents as they protested immigration raids in Minneapolis.
All this has left the world wondering whether the US of the post-war era will ever return. For many Americans, thrown off balance by this chaotic tumble of events, the question of whether their homeland will revert to something nearing “normalcy” rises to the level of an existential dilemma.
Some of the most singular events from the past 250 years of American history suggest that the journey to a post-Trump world will be a long and maybe circuitous ride. History’s red-letter days, which we commemorate with anniversaries and retrospectives, often trick us into thinking they were catalysts for instant and profound change. They become a kind of shorthand in the retelling of a grand narrative of US history, one predicated on continuous progress, reform and improvement — what scholars would call a Whig interpretation of history.
[Read the full essay here.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-03-27/why-the-us-can-t-simply-move-on-from-donald-trump?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc3NDYyNjE5OCwiZXhwIjoxNzc1MjMwOTk4LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUQ0pRNDRLR1pBS00wMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJEMzU0MUJFQjhBQUY0QkUwQkFBOUQzNkI3QjlCRjI4OCJ9.JMQU-Glfr70jx2sQLZNVKurZFr_qdd-9-ataLP3fosU)
honestly we need to stop acting like trump came out of nowhere. the tea party and fox news have been building this exact movement for years and we’re still pretending to be shocked.