In Ed West’s viral post, “Doomscrolling ourselves to death,” the contrast between Truman and Trump is interesting:
Marriott contrasts Harry Truman, who ruled America during the peak of literacy, with the current incumbent. Truman ‘was the son of a livestock dealer in Independence, Missouri. And yet as an earnest and bespectacled schoolboy he spent great tracts of his time in the local library. “Watched over by a plaster bust of Benjamin Franklin,” Truman made his way past all the familiar landmarks of a twentieth century autodidact self-education: The Bible (which he claimed to have read through twice by the time he was twelve), Plutarch’s Lives, the complete works of Shakespeare, Plato’s Republic, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Eventually, he read every single one of two thousand volumes stored in Independence’s library — including all the encyclopaedias. It’s an inspiring story but not at all a unique one.’
Donald Trump, meanwhile, is so averse to reading that aides recall that he cannot even make it through one-page memos; his speeches are notably repetitive and characterised by taunting and braggadocio, a reversion to the norms of the oral age. He is an almost Homeric figure, perhaps the first post-literate western leader.
Yet by every metric, America is more dominant and successful than ever before. America, post war, has only solidified its global lead, whereas other countries are too weak to put up much resistance even if hostile to the US, or have retreated. Even the mighty China has basically stalled since 2010 as far as being a major global player, being crippled to some degree since Covid. Europe is in even worse shape, having missed out entirely on the 2000s tech boom. Russia is a shadow of its Soviet-era strength and no longer evokes fear. Just go down the list–and the US is not only first, but second place isn’t even trying at this point.
This juxtaposition of America’s dominance combined with a president who eschews intellectualism is evidence of “optimality.” America, as it turns out, does not need that smart or intellectually curious of a president when the private sector is so strong, and intellect and expertise has been outsourced to a network of think tanks, universities, or funded by the private sector. Trump can consult some of the smartest people with a phone call. So what’s Trump’s role? To project strength and confidence, and to extend America’s global reach. This was seen with the war on Iran, which although hasn’t gone as well as Trump had hoped, is a recent example of America asserting its dominance. Or the ousting and extradition of Maduro.
It’s also interesting how highly educated leadership can coexist with widespread corruption. Latin America offers examples of leaders who are well versed in history yet notoriously corrupt. Same for Italy. Some were matriculated at prestigious universities abroad before returning home to govern their countries, not uncommonly with disastrous results. Trump’s corruption is more like dumb people voluntarily buying the worthless coin he endorsed once in 2025 and never spoke about again. It’s not quite the same thing as true corruption. It’s more like an endorsement deal than a favor. His family being enriched by this is not much different from Michael Jordan being enriched because people buy his overpriced Nike shoes from his endorsement of them. Had Trump directly used federal/taxpayer money for direct investment in crypto assets, this would be much closer to Latin-American style correction, as he would directly benefit, but he hasn’t.
America does not need to win, but rather it can plant its flag. It can say to the world, “If we don’t like your leadership, we will do something about it.” And that is a threat backed by military force, which no other country has taken upon itself to do so (even in 2003 with Iraq, other countries followed America’s lead and made much smaller contributions). This is why the “world police” concept is so accurate. That is the main role America serves, secondary to being an exporter of culture. Without America, the rest of the world can act with impunity, as other countries lack the resources or inclination to do anything beyond their borders (save for possible regional examples such as Taiwan and China or Ukraine and Russia). WW2 kicked this off, which conceivably could have been won by the Axis powers had the US not gotten involved. From that point on, the US transformed into a global superpower.
Now enter the mid-to-late 1970s. It’s commonly argued that Reagan and Greenspan ushered in the modern era of American “financialization,” but much of the groundwork was actually laid under Jimmy Carter. There were two important developments: First was deregulation, most notably the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, followed by moves to deregulate transportation and banking. These reforms represented an important break from the more heavily regulated postwar economy and anticipated the broader deregulatory push associated with the Reagan era.
Second was aggressive monetary policy under Paul Volcker, whom Carter appointed Federal Reserve chairman in 1979, whose tenure set a precedent of the Fed taking a more proactive role in economic shocks. Under Volcker, the Fed raised interest rates aggressively to combat inflation, a pattern that was copied in 2022–2023. This marked another break with the economic policy of the preceding decades. Under Ronald Reagan, Alan Greenspan pledged liquidity the next morning following the 1987 market crash, continuing the trend of the Fed taking a more active role. In this sense, the Carter years were an important transitional period in America’s movement toward the economic and financial regime that would dominate the following decades. Similarly, in 1998 and 2008, the Fed, with the help of smart experts at the Treasury Department , orchestrated bailouts of the financial system.
Carter also invented the modern election cycle, by being the first to campaign in 1976 in Iowa, a practice that has continued ever since. Network TV also gained in popularity, with NBC, CBS and ABC being flagship stations at one point capturing 90% of the American audience, who now had TVs, which, alluding to the above article, led to the “dumbing down” effect the author decries. But this has not hurt America’s dominance. Overall, America traded well-rounded leaders for domain expertise, a strong private sector (e.g., America now a world leader in AI), and proactive policy–both foreign and financial. Get the smartest people in the world and let them figure it out, even if the leadership at the same time feels pretty dumb.