Trump is Standing on the Wrong Side of History

Donald Trump is a spasm.

Now that our new president is in office and we’ve seen his Cabinet of old white billionaires and his “American carnage” inaugural address, it’s obvious he is the leader of one last, desperate push to stop the 21st century from unfolding.

But in spite of himself, Trump might end up being the best thing to happen to technological advancement since World War II—as long as he doesn’t start World War III along the way. If Trump bigly discredits the backlash against progress, it will accelerate the arrival of a future that’s going to be better than any of the bleak pictures he paints. Techies once so aligned against Trump might even end up perversely thanking him.

Already, in his earliest actions and statements as president (End trade deals! America first! in 1957 that rock ’n’ roll was a “brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression” that would never last.