America, the Metric System, and Trump

(Originally posted, September 16)

I always find it fascinating that the United States is basically the only nation on Planet Earth that hasn't adopted the metric system. I have spent much of my adult life living in nations that use the metric system and it is so incredibly amazing how much easier it is to use, if only you adapt for a few days and put your mind to it.

Once you get over your initial resistance and stubborn mindlessness, it is such a joy to work in multiples of 10 rather than in multiples of 3, 12, and 5280. It's not just ease of use and its logical simplicity that makes the metric system superior: if the U.S. were to adopt the metric system, even when considering the initial cost of conversion, most studies indicate that, in the longer term, the U.S. economy would gain billions of dollars from being in sync with the rest of the world.

There's only one reason America doesn't adopt the metric system: most Americans would rather remain trapped in an outdated past than make the effort to transition to a better future, because it would require a little work and a change of mindset.

So, what does this resistance to the metric system have to do with Donald Trump?

Donald Trump is like our antiquated system of measurement. Outdated. A relic of centuries past. Something lesser and inferior to other alternatives out there--a pathetic attachment to a warped vision of the past. Trump and the old measurement system are both attractive to those who are fearful of the changing world and resistant to new realities. 62 million people voted for Trump because they were afraid of the changing demographics of America and frightened of the changes that happen in a chaotic world where few jobs are safe and ways of life are never secure.

Donald Trump is proof that America is actually a very fearful country. The notion that we are a country of dynamic trailblazers may have been more true at one time in our history, but Trump is proof that, outside of a few bustling urban areas of progress and progressiveness, the U.S. is a fundamentally backward-looking country. Trump and our clinging to old ways of measurement, just to name a couple regressive American relics, indicate that American individualism is often more a function of our wanting to be isolated in our own little houses in our own individual cars, away from perceived threats. Just as many of our pioneering ancestors were searching for escape, looking for homesteads isolated from society, not integrated with the rest of the world, the Trumpian tribe of Americans is similarly retreating from facing the future by looking to simple, but ultimately unproductive, answers from the past to comfort them. (Besides, it should always be noted that any nation that accepts human slavery, then racial segregation for 90% of its history should never be considered forward-looking or progressive.)

In fairness, there are two tribes in America: the builders of walls and the builders of bridges. Currently the builders of walls are in control as evidenced by Trump, the stubborn refusal to adopt metric measurement, the rise of American Neo-Nazis, and the presence of a hundred other reactionary features in current American life. Whether those of us who wish to build bridges--we who wish adapt and progress, not only in the way we measure things, but also in our refusal to build walls and to accept the intolerance and bigotry of the Trumpists--will ultimately regain control of our nation's destiny is up to us who care. And we must begin now, one action, one meter at a time.