The central issue that determines the American Experience is how Trump will deal with the federal government's long-standing and rapidly growing bankruptcy that's on the north side of 100 Trillion dollars. 

A trillion isn't just a hundred million or a thousand million, but a million million. A hundred trillion is a figure that fatigues the mind and defies the effort of the brain to define it. But, that is what our representatives in DC have spent...most of it since the turn of the century...to keep the US as boss of the world.

Our government has been digging this debt pit since LBJ's war in Viet Nam along with his War on Poverty at home made it convenient for Nixon tp replace the gold system for responsibly settling international debt, with a fiat system that settled debt with easily printed paper. Everyone loved Nixon's economic engine that had a gas pedal but no brakes...and Congress saw to it that the road ahead had no red lights and no speed limit on spending. So, the US embarked on a "spend as long as they'll accept these paper dollars instead of money."

Hard on the heels of the green light for government spending came the PetroDollar, which let the US bring in everything the world had to offer (including money) in exchange for US IOUs...T-Bills...Treasury notes. 

The US had a good thing going for decades. It was living on an expense account footed by the other 195 nations of the world. And, we've run up an enormous tab...one that our GDP can't begin to pay for. We're in hock so much that we even have to borrow money to pay the interest on the vast sum we owe.

Several years ago the foreigners (foreign nations mostly) stopped loaning the US their money after they began to realize the US could never repay its debt. Realizing they'd never get their money back, they stopped or greatly reduced their purchase of Treasury Notes or Bonds that promised payment with interest.

When that avenue of support dried up, the Fed and the Treasury simply agreed to print whatever amount of fiat dollars that the government needed. Since computers became common all over the world, currency doesn't have to go through a printing press. Instead, a few keystrokes on a Treasury computer can magically create electronic "credits" which can be swapped back and forth as if they were money.  

Now, realize that a paper dollar has no value in itself...NO intrinsic value in the first place. It's much like the coupons we clip from the Food Section of the newspaper, because the fine print on each coupon will say that the coupon can be redeemed for perhaps a hundredth of a cent, but who wants to clip a hundred coupons for a penny? My point is that a fiat dollar (one the government says we must use) isn't worth much. It isn't backed by anything of value (remember Nixon removed any link with gold in 1971). So, what happens when millions, billions, and trillions of worthless slips of paper (dollars) are used to settle debt--to pay for things? 

As you read this, Venezuelans are showing us what it looks like, as they carry backpacks full of currency to the grocery store. They have more paper currency than they have food.  And the food stores no longer count currency...they just weigh stacks of it on the scales used for weighing bananas. 

When individual, corporate, and governmental overspending leads to debt, things get out of balance. If debt can't be repaid, credit is curtailed. Nothing more gets bought until what was previously bought is paid for. Credit is getting to be a problem. Lenders wisely refuse to loan more money to borrowers who can't pay what they already owe.

This slows the velocity of money...how fast money cycles through the economy's markets...and the slowdown, reaching a crawl, becomes an economic depression.

So, how will President Trump deal with a government that spends trillions of dollars more than it takes in? How will he deal with 195 nations which are vying with each other in a contest to minimize the value of their currency? How will he deal with a negative balance of trade without making it unprofitable for other nations to trade with the US? How will he create more US jobs producing more US products for US consumers who have been maxed-out on their credit cards for years, and who would have to hock something to come up with as little as $400 cash? How will he pour more promised billions into "defense" when the military, like every other operation of government, exists on borrowed/created money? How will he deal with the fact that the government is the largest employer in the US, and that the cost of government adds nothing to the nation's GDP?

Will Trump swallow hard and continue the "can kicking," that sees debt problems kicked further into the future to an implosion at some more distant point in time when nobody wants the US dollar? 

Will he say, "Enough is enough," and close the books, leaving trusting lenders holding the bag? Will he negotiate US indebtedness down--not to pennies on the dollar--but more like fractions of a penny on the dollar--and demand a longer pay-out period of perhaps fifty years? 

For thousands of years gold and silver have been monetary metals, and both are valued much higher than fiat (paper) dollars. The government and central banks invented "futures" in gold and silver that allow them to manipulate "paper metal" prices to make dollars appear more valuable than they are. So, will Trump peg the value of the dollar to gold priced at, say, $5000 or $10,000 per ounce in order to pay off Trillions of dollars in debt? 

These are the issues that will define the Trump Presidency...not the protests and protesters who are grabbing the current headlines in an anti-Trump media. If Trump can pull rabbits out of a hatful of debt, if he can prevent banking failure, if he can create plentiful employment...and households flush with cash, if he can show his doubters that their fears are unfounded, if he can make this country happier and healthier in the next four years, a second term will be his for the taking.