Taking a Step Back and Taking a Long View of Reality

Zoltan Sipos

I will never forget what I felt as I watched the news in Times Square the evening of Tuesday, November 8.

I will never forget what I felt as I watched the news in Times Square the evening of Tuesday, November 8. That evening was the culmination of my three-week Marshall Memorial Fellowship journey through the United States, a journey that opened up my eyes to the amazing complexity of U.S. society.

Even though it is clear to me that I only saw small bits and pieces of what the United States is, I gained enough insight to have a general idea of the major divisions communities in the United States must overcome. My knowledge was based on conversations with policymakers and leaders across the country. A key takeaway was that Donald Trump had no chance of winning the presidential elections.

This was the ultimate conclusion of every dataset, every interpretation, and every insight coming from people I met and who understand the political system much better than I do.

On Tuesday evening, I found myself staring at the screen in Times Square thinking that one of my fundamental assumptions did not live up to the test of reality. I could not refrain from going further — if one idea proved to be false, what other conclusions that I assumed were solid during my journey might have been based on faulty data, biases, and wishful thinking with no connection with the reality? As a European, I found myself in the position of many U.S. elites, questioning my basic assumptions about how to interpret social and political life.

It was confusing and felt that the world as I knew it had come apart. Not only because of the winner, but because my understanding of the world and society relies on the belief that if data is interpreted with proper scientific techniques, one can understand the reality and can make projections for the future. If we — the so-called elites — fail to understand reality, then what is our purpose?

While this question may seem to echo innumerable shocked op-eds in the establishment press in the United States, it is just as important to let this rhetorical question resonate across the Atlantic, where many of us were also convinced that Trump’s apparent repudication of liberal democratic values would not win over average American voters. The U.S. presidential elections are just one warning sign that elites on both sides of the Atlantic are living in an enclosed world, more or less disconnected from many peoples’ everyday reality. I also never imagined that the majority of British voters would choose Brexit. I was wrong. I didn’t think that Russia´s hybrid warfare would be as successful as it is either. I also thought the small websites sharing manipulatory blogposts questioning the fundamental principles of our Western society would never be believed. Wrong again. Not to mention how wrong I was assuming that Europeans are too level-headed to follow populist politicians.

At this point, all transatlantic leaders must take a step back and take a long view of our relationship with reality. We could cut funding of the analysts (apparently they are useless, anyway), stop dismissing those who voted for Trump, and instead start an honest dialogue with those communities that feel left behind by our globalizing world. Their votes show clearly that they have problems that have not been addressed by traditional policies. Can we provide solutions for their problems that actually work? Can we bridge the huge divide between different classes, races, and nationalities?

If we do not act immediately, I am afraid that soon many in leadership positions across the transalantic community it will soon become totally irrelevant.

Zoltan Sipos, journalist and founder of Atlatszo Erdely in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, is a Fall 2016 European Marshall Memorial Fellow.

Read other blogs by Fall 2016 Marshall Memorial Fellows:

^{Photo credit: Evan Guest}