"The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters", Antonio Gramsci
I recall vividly that I was in New York City when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were locked in their historic contest for the American presidency in 2016. Within diplomatic circles, media houses, academic institutions, and policy forums, the expectation of a Clinton victory seemed almost axiomatic. Trump's candidacy was widely regarded as an aberration, a populist spectacle that would ultimately yield to institutional gravity. Yet beyond the confident rhythms of Manhattan, I sensed a different current.
Beneath the surface of elite complacency and certainty, there existed a deeper reservoir of unease, of economic anxiety in the industrial heartlands of America, cultural resentment in communities that felt bypassed by globalisation, and a growing distrust of institutions perceived as distant and self-contained. The signs were not dramatic; they were diffuse, subtle, and easily dismissed. But they were real.
I remarked to colleagues that Trump might well prevail. When the results confirmed that intuition, it became clear that what had occurred was not merely an electoral surprise. It was the visible eruption of structural forces long in gestation. The rest, as they say, is history -- but it is a history that continues to unfold with dramatic insistence and palpable consequences.
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What many described as abnormal in 2016 has since revealed itself to be something more enduring.
The Trumpian moment was not simply a deviation from the liberal international norm; it marked the transition into a post-normal condition in which the norm itself has fractured. The abnormal presumes a stable reference point to which politics will eventually return. The post-normal suggests that the reference point has shifted irreversibly -- perhaps even shattered altogether.
For decades after the Second World War, and especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the liberal international order rested upon a constellation of assumptions that appeared unassailable. Globalization would deepen interdependence. Democracy would expand across continents and resolve conflict. Multilateral institutions would arbitrate disputes. State sovereignty would be respected. American leadership would remain both indispensable and benevolent. These were not merely policy frameworks; they became ideological certainties.
The Trumpian recalibration unsettled that certainty. Multilateral commitments were no longer sacred but conditional. Trade agreements were treated as negotiable contracts rather than solemn compacts. Alliances were assessed in transactional terms. Immigration, once celebrated as an emblem of openness, was reframed as a threat. Withdrawal from international agreements signaled not isolationism, but reprioritisation. The language of universal mission gave way to the language of national interest.
This shift echoes an earlier moment in American history. When Richard Nixon assumed office in 1969, the United States was burdened by the war in Vietnam, domestic upheaval, racial polarisation, and economic strain. Nixon responded with recalibration rather than retreat. He opened diplomatic relations with China, adjusted alliance expectations, and restructured global finance by ending the dollar's convertibility into gold. His moves appeared disruptive at the time, yet they represented adaptation to structural constraints rather than abnormality.
The Trumpian shift similarly reflects structural recalibration -- though in a more fragmented and technologically accelerated environment. Unlike Nixon, who maneuvered within a bipolar Cold War framework, Trump operated in an emerging multipolar system characterised by rapid information flows, social media amplification, and intense domestic polarisation. The environment itself had changed. The deeper transformation is epistemological as much as geopolitical.
We have entered what scholars describe as a post-normal age -- one defined by volatility, distrust of expertise, erosion of institutional authority, and the weakening of established orders. Facts compete with narratives. Institutions compete with personalities. Diplomacy competes with spectacle. Rules appear negotiable. Policy cycles accelerate even as political legitimacy fragments.
In such a climate, unpredictability becomes systemic rather than episodic.
The United States did not withdraw from the world, but its engagement became more transactional and explicitly conditioned upon American interests. Commitments were weighed against immediate returns. Strategic competition with China became the organising prism through which global affairs were viewed. Economic nationalism gained bipartisan resonance.
The consequences reverberated globally. As Washington recalibrated, other actors advanced. China expanded its Belt and Road Initiative. Russia asserted regional influence in Eastern Europe. Middle powers hedged their alignments. Multipolarity ceased to be a theoretical forecast and became operational reality, reflected in frameworks such as BRICS and other emerging alignments. In parts of the Sahel, regimes distanced themselves from Western influence and expelled long-standing partners such as France, asserting a new, if uncertain, conception of sovereignty.
The Trumpian transition presented both opportunity and risk. Opportunity lies in diversification -- though not all states possess equal capacity to achieve it. A multi-polar world allows engagement across multiple centers of power without exclusive dependency. Strategic autonomy becomes more feasible. Yet volatility carries danger. Trade wars disrupt markets. Sanctions ripple through financial systems. Energy price fluctuations transmit external instability into domestic economies.
The Trumpian moment also catalysed broader Western introspection. Economic inequality, cultural fragmentation, and political polarisation were not uniquely American phenomena.
Across Europe, nationalist currents questioned immigration, integration and supranational governance. The liberal assumption of inevitable democratic convergence weakened even within the European Union itself. What emerged was not global collapse but fragmentation -- a landscape in which norms are contested rather than presumed.
It would be misleading to treat this period as an aberration destined to vanish with electoral turnover.
Structural elements will persist. Strategic competition with China commands bipartisan consensus in Washington. Economic resilience and supply-chain security remain enduring priorities with most countries. The post-normal world is thus not defined by chaos alone, but by contested legitimacy.
Institutions function, yet their authority is debased or debated. Alliances endure, yet their expectations are renegotiated or abandoned. Norms remain codified, yet their interpretation becomes selective and discretionary.
For Africa, and particularly for Nigeria, the lesson is not to romanticise the previous order nor to fear the emerging one. It is to strengthen internal capacity. In a volatile environment, domestic resilience becomes the ultimate guarantor of sovereignty. Democratic transparency must be deepened to withstand external pressure. Development must prioritise productive capacity. Demography must be harnessed as dividend rather than destabiliser. The diaspora must be integrated as a strategic asset in national affairs.
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Strategic autonomy is not ideological defiance; it is prudent adaptation. Engagement must be broad, but dependency must be narrow. Partnerships must be diversified, but sovereignty must be preserved.
History teaches that world orders evolve under pressure. They do not collapse overnight; they transform through recalibration. The liberal order that expanded after 1991 is not disappearing, but it is adjusting to power diffusion and domestic constraint. Its universalist confidence has moderated. Its missionary certainty has softened but will become weaponised in the face of resistance.
From the abnormal shock of 2016 to the post-normal permanence of systemic adjustment, we are witnessing the maturation of a new global condition. The Trumpian new world order is less an architecture than a landscape -- fluid, disruptive, competitive, and yet strategically pragmatic.
The question before nations like Nigeria is not whether this transition is desirable. It is whether we understand it clearly enough to navigate it wisely. In transitional epochs, foresight matters more than nostalgia. Resilience matters more than rhetoric.
I sensed in New York in 2016 that something deeper was unfolding beneath the surface of electoral drama. What appeared improbable was in fact inevitable once structural undercurrents were recognised. That insight remains relevant today. The abnormal has passed. The post-normal is here. Nations that grasp the depth of this transformation will not be overwhelmed by it. They will shape their destiny within it, not by drifting with the tide, but by steering their course with clarity and certainty.
