We’ll soon see whether Americans want to live in a climate of aggravated uncertainty
By Herbert Rothschild
In recent years “disrupter” has become a trendy word. In places like Silicon Valley it carries a positive valence. If you want to make a successful pitch to venture capitalists, you’d do well to boast that your technology or product will disrupt the market even if, in reality, it’s likely to make only a modest change. Stretching of the term has its parallel in the use and abuse of “paradigm shift.” PR flacks thrive on such hyperbole.
It’s true, though, that as the rate of technological change increases exponentially, market disruption has become commonplace. The internet has facilitated the most disruption, from retailing to banking to newspaper publishing. Some innovations in manufacturing, such as 3D printing of footwear or lab-grown diamonds, hold the same potential. We’re going to see more and more such change.
It’s worth noting, however, that “disrupter” and “disruption” traditionally has borne a negative connotation. The word brings to mind children who disrupt classes, protesters who disrupt meetings, storms that disrupt air traffic. While commerce may thrive on innovation, most people prefer predictability.
Upon taking office, President Donald Trump immediately established himself as the Great Disruptor (perhaps my coinage will stick). That his disruptions will hurt everyone in this country and many abroad isn’t in doubt. His illegal executive order on Jan. 27 to pause disbursement of almost all federal funding struck, among so many others, every state and municipality and the hospitals and nursing homes serving Medicare patients. A federal judge ordered a halt to the pause through Feb. 3, and Trump rescinded the order.
The next day, Feb. 4, again by executive order, Trump suspended the flow of funds from the United States Agency for International Development. This suspension has led to a near-total freeze on U.S. foreign aid. It has disrupted organizations providing essential services like HIV/AIDS care, child health services, education programs and food security initiatives. Contractors and NGOs are struggling to survive, with some facing bankruptcy.
If there is one market that hates disruptions, it’s the stock market. This past Monday, when Trump announced that he was about to impose a 25% across-the-board tariff on products from Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff on products from China, there was a huge sell-off of stocks listed on U.S. exchanges. By midday, the S&P 500 had lost almost 2% and the NASDAQ composite plunged 2.1%. Then, Trump announced that he was postponing the tariffs on Mexico. The markets partially rebounded. The S&P 500 was down 0.8% at close of trading and the NASDAQ was down 1.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was down 665 points at its lowest, finished down 123 points.
A climate of aggravated uncertainty means high volatility. That spooks ordinary investors. Indeed, it spooks everyone who must think about the future, whether it be investment committees of corporations or workers thinking about their 401(k)s. Huge numbers found the Trump show entertaining while he was on the campaign trail. But as with crashing cars and exploding buildings in movies, they are unlikely to be amused when he smashes things they depend on.
One of the two underlying causes of Trump’s political ascendancy is the anxiety so many people feel with the pace of change to which we’re being pressured to adjust. Making those adjustments is very challenging. It’s significant that Trump supporters on the whole have significantly less educational attainment than those who oppose him. The one change they can most easily understand is the demographic change, and Trump has been masterful in concentrating their focus on it. His promise has been to restore white people and men to their traditional primacy of place. “Make America Great Again,” in its vagueness, holds out the promise of an even more general restoration of a time when, presumably, his followers were in charge of their lives.
But Trump cannot deliver on his promise of restoration. His disruptive actions serve no vision of a world of greater simplicity and security. Indeed, he’s unable to foresee even the immediate consequences of his actions. People may be disturbed by the brave new world that disruptive technologies like AI promise to usher in, but we’ll like even less the chaos Trump has already begun to deliver.
The second underlying cause of Trump’s ascendancy is the enormous disparity of income and wealth that began in the later 1970s and was facilitated by Republican and Democratic policymakers alike. Just as I sympathize with the anxiety induced by the ever-increasing pace of change, I sympathize with the resentment provoked by this injustice. Still, I have difficulty understanding how Trump succeeded in convincing almost 50% of U.S. voters that he would restore economic fairness, especially after his first term. Maybe they didn’t care that the biggest beneficiaries of his tax cuts were the very wealthy as long as they got a small break.
People respond to images, though, and Elon Musk is quickly becoming the face of Trump’s second term. If the disruptions hit people hard and they attribute the pain to Trump’s deference to the world’s richest person, the focus of their anxiety and resentment may shift away from immigrants and people of color. The results of the midterm elections of 2026 will let us know if that shift occurred.
Herbert Rothschild’s columns appear Fridays. Opinions expressed in them represent the author’s views. Email Rothschild at [email protected].
