“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”     Leonard Cohen

Is the glass half full or half empty? It’s the age old question. There has been much handwringing about an authoritarian takeover of the world and even of the United States. A few recent cracks in the veneer belie that hypothesis. The so-called Axis of Evil (Russia, China, Iran and North Korea) is, according to an analysis by Fareed Zakaria “in much worse shape than it was four years ago.”

The MAGA coalition is not as impervious to fracture either as it appeared just a few weeks ago. Some of President Trump’s nominees are getting the cold shoulder in the Senate.

Thirty eight Republican Congressmen recently voted against a Trump sponsored spending bill.

The rhetoric of division that dominated the election has been tempered by a renewed focus on coming together for the good of the country partially as a result of the assassination of a corporate CEO and continued school shootings that dominate the headlines.

Will “the light get in?” That remains to be seen.

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell has defended vaccines and opposed isolationism in opposition to the policies of the President elect. It’s too early to tell if McConnell and his wing of the party will temper the MAGA faithful.

Stock prices and cryptocurrency experienced significant declines last week quite possibly in response to the real possibility of tariffs and deportation of a significant portion of America’s labor force.

A significant fault line has developed between the President Trump who added eight and a half trillion to the national debt in his first term and the Trump appointed DOGE team of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy who have set a goal of cutting two trillion from the budget. The burning question is what David Copperfield tricks can be used to reconcile Trump’s proposed tax cuts with the DOGE budget cuts without touching Medicare and Medicaid. Poor Pete Hegseth over at defense may have to forego a couple of late night trysts. Unless, of course, tariffs are a cure all in which case China will pay just like Mexico paid for the wall.

The cracks in the MAGA wall may be no more than tiny hair fractures soon to be patched up by the rising power of America’s oligarchs. But the cracks could be more than that. Unlike some on the Left, I’m not as depressed as I was a month ago. My optimism may prove to be naive and foolish. At my age I might not even live to find out but I hope I do and I hope it isn’t. I know, hope is not a plan but it could be “the concept of a plan.”

The problems that led to the election of Donald Trump are not easy to fix because a lot of them are the result of free trade, massive foreign imports and technology – automation and increasingly AI. None of these things are likely to disappear in a heavily interconnected world economy. Furthermore the divisions between rich and poor have been with us since the beginning and have been growing during my entire lifetime. Both the Republicans and the Democrats have a difficult job on their hands. Democracy works but it’s a sort of Rube Goldberg machine that causes both wonder and frustration.

To the extent that existing laws and regulations are dismantled there may be consequences in the next election. A country as diverse and large as America doesn’t move in one single direction. There are always counterbalancing forces brewing in the background.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose as the French say. Actually, I prefer the Arabic expression which dates from before the 8th century: the dogs bark but the caravan moves on.