I was blessed to be in America in the first week of November 2026. Because I witnessed one of the most dramatic revivals of a pummeled and castrated democracy. Its surreal and swift deconstruction had begun on 23 January 2025.
Within days, President Donald Trump’s cowboy-cum-mafia raids neutered 250 years of a painstaking, robust democracy. Tariffs disrupted decades of stable trade relationships. Lawless federal agents killed, kidnapped, and deported citizens with utter disregard for any “due process.” Political families, led by POTUS’s, exploited insider access to enrich themselves by billions of dollars.
America-led global institutions like the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), World Health Organisation (WHO), Paris Accord, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) were dismantled in the wink of an evil eye. Assassinations, wars, and annihilation got wreaked in Iran, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia, Strait of Hormuz, and across a swathe of West Asian kingdoms. American “exceptionalism” was disfigured into “rogue-ism.”
But a proud, democracy-loving people extracted their bitter revenge via the ballot, shellacking the spineless Republicans into near-term oblivion. It strangely triggered a distant memory—1977 in India—when Indira Gandhi’s ruling Congress was similarly punished for the Emergency.
Now, aboard Air India 102 from John F Kennedy to Indira Gandhi International Airport, I am forced to think of the recent convulsions—not identical, but tangential—suffered by Trump’s America and Narendra Modi’s India, the oldest and largest democracies on earth.
Searing truths and wounding lessons rear up from the democratic rubble, as relevant for today’s America as for contemporary India. Here they are—not ranked by importance—but uttered in a stream of conscious learnings from the Blue-nami.
1. Beware of the echo chamber
Today’s powerful, authoritarian leaders are trapped in a digital echo chamber. They behave like social media celebrities, parading millions of followers as “evidence” of popularity.
Unfortunately, they succumb to an algorithmic feedback loop which is constantly reiterating their narrative—or viciously rubbishing it. The raw, bitter truth—often critical and somewhere in the middle—gets buried in this tsunami and counter-tsunami of yay and nay.
It’s imperative for outsized leaders like Trump and Modi to turn off the social media noise and pick up signals from real people, via honest, fearless interactions with rational critics.
2. Ideology can brainwash a few; for most, 'It’s the economy, stupid'
Over-reliance on a proselytising, provocative, polarising rhetoric—i.e., Make America Great Again (MAGA) for Trump and Hindutva/nationalism for Modi—has a rapidly diminishing resonance, especially if people are hurting in the wallet.
Once again, overwhelming social media noise that amplifies the rhetoric—by MAGA legions for Trump and bhakts for Modi—creates a false “endorsement.”
Most ordinary people suffer in silence as spiking prices, stagnant wages, and joblessness unleash misery. And when it comes to the hustings, they punch a brutal vote, leaving overconfident politicians reeling in shock.
3. Do not violate 'due process', because justice needs to be 'seen to be done' for people to keep faith in democracy
I can bet that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vigilantism, which completely ignored “due process” in kidnapping, killing, and deporting even bona fide citizens, filled ordinary Americans with a quiet fear. People got consumed by an unspeakable terror—“if today it’s them, tomorrow it could be me.”
A similar revulsion gripped India’s middle class when they saw young people being mercilessly hit by batons, pellets, and tear-gas shells at Jantar Mantar. There was no justice or “due process” in those mad moments of violence.
While many middle-class Indians bravely registered their disapproval on social media, the majority perhaps just clenched fists and bit lips. But the dread, in America and India, was palpable. And it screamed through the anonymous ballot in the US.
4. Beware of betrayals and insensitively broken promises; people feel cheated
Trump had made two solemn promises to the American people—“I will bring down prices. I will stop and keep us out of others’ wars.” He blatantly—almost sadistically—reneged on both.
Whimsical tariffs and trade wars imposed billions of dollars of additional taxes on hapless consumers. Military misadventures dislocated critical supply chains, transmitting bigger price shocks at grocery stores and gas pumps. Instead of penitently apologising and explaining his actions, Trump chose to mimic Marie Antoinette’s arrogance—“take the suffering, because it’s for your future good.”
But when people saw him obsessing over his atrociously expensive grand ballroom, gold-bedecked Oval Office, and other egregious trivialities, they felt insensitively betrayed. They were in pain, but he was giddily indulging in unhinged fantasies and fox-trotting with trillionaires. They wanted revenge. They wanted to equally humiliate him. They did.
5. People hate brazen corruption, either political or financial; they don’t like being taken for granted
People were shocked when they learnt that Trump’s family had earned over $2 billion in one year, largely from questionable crypto deals. They did the math—over $ 1million in every single hour!
This kind of presidential profiteering was unheard of and unprecedented. It stank to heaven. Trump compounded this with political misdemeanours like naked gerrymandering and favouritism, shoving deserving candidates to put cronies on the ballot.
Even diehard MAGA-followers felt taken for granted. Ordinary folk simply felt invisible, un-existing, inconsequential. They wanted to reassert and stamp their presence, their existence. They did.
6. Democracies resurrect if some institutions fight to keep their spine; autonomous federalism is the poison antidote
American democracy survived because several institutions stood up to the onslaught, even as others fell like ninepins. Many judges stayed stoically anchored to their constitutional oath, outlawing bad orders. A few news organisations and intrepid journalists refused to bend.
America’s storied federal structures, with autonomous states, each powerful and resourceful, pushed back hard against Washington’s excesses. American democracy survived.
These are tough, direct lessons for India. For ambivalent, uncertain judges. For powerful chief ministers and provincial satraps, whether from the ruling or opposition parties. For the Election Commission and its specious Special Intensive Revision (SIR). For toady journalists. Get a spine. Tread the righteous path.