america always said, you have no other options, you cannot resist. nature is saying otherwise.
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the problem is that if you are so deluded about your country’s place in the world, and of course your own place in the country and in the larger world, which are all very deeply linked, so if your country is on top you’re on top, in many ways. and you want to obviously preserve that status. and so historical introspection is a luxury you cannot really afford. and that has been the case for decades and decades is that people in positions of power and influence have never felt themselves under any pressure to face up to these historical crimes that underpin their prosperity and their power and influence today. there was no imperative whatsoever.  
the only effective universalist ideology i can think of is non-violence. to start with that basis — the idea of non-violence — is already to liberate yourself from economistic ideologies. and i say this, you know, partly because what we have witnessed and are suffering the consequences of is this immense violence done to the natural world, to the environment. that’s why any program of reconstruction that doesn’t actually include this particular concern is doomed.  
and we know the direction in which (obomba) took the country, in a way, sort of, creating scope for far-right demagogues like dj trump. so the future of american democracy really cannot be entrusted to presidents or administrations anymore. i think the pressure for democratic reform has to come from a social movement of the kind that we’ve seen in the last few weeks in the (dis)united states.
 - pankaj mishra