22 | SAM MAGAZINE 2/25 KOLUMNI WHILE EVERYONE SEES that the country has changed very quickly, relatively few Americans accept the reality that some changes are already permanent or that at least some changes will last well past the Trump presidency. They cling to an overly simplified notion that current events are only social experiments -- if they don’t work out, then we can go back to the way things were before or maybe try something else. There’s no going back History has proven that Americans’ self-confidence is partly from just luck but also partly well-deserved optimism. America’s position in the world has sometimes been less than ideal, but it’s been stable. Not this time. Trump’s brazen imperialism and his aggressively irrational tariff trade war are different. In a few months, he has managed to destroy any global trust in America that took generations to build. That won’t come back anytime in our lifetimes. American commitments are no longer credible Trump’s blatant lies worked surprisingly well for him to win the election, but his insistence that “Ukraine started the war against Russia” just doesn’t cut it. People from other nations also watch Trump’s goons vilify dark-skinned immigrants without regard to whether they are legal U.S. citizens, detain them as supposed criminals and gang members with no evidence at all, and then send them off to prison camps in the USA and elsewhere. An irrevocably changed America – Bold not beautiful Tom A. Lippo is a Finnish-speaking American lawyer. Educated at Yale, the University of Jyväskylä and Stanford Law School, he is the founder of FACT LAW, an international law firm established in 1985. FACT is the first law firm with ofcf es in both Finland and the United States. Tom has been a lawyer in Washington, DC based on Capitol Hill for over 40 years. One of the few things that Americans can agree upon nowadays is that the Trump presidency has transformed the nation. Some see his bold moves as steps in the right direction while others see them as abominations. Still others choose to take a “wait and see” approach, hoping that Trump’s actions have created only temporary tribulations that will someday turn into good outcomes. If not, then Americans will decide in future elections to go in a different direction.
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