The Trough of Disillusionment

From the next Big Idea club I heard “trough of disillusionment.” In 2016, Elon Musk promised driverless cars in two years. Apple spent almost $10B and ten years on that before giving up. But many people believed the hype and the great things that would come with it. Driverless cars failed to materialize and that created the “trough of disillusionment.”

Now we’re coming into a “slope of enlightenment.” Even though Uber and Lyft sold off their self-driving car divisions during the “trough” times Waymo is now providing about 450K rides a week and Tesla is piloting driverless robo taxis in Austin, Texas. And that’s the “slope” part of things. 

That’s technology; what about our current climate? When I saw the assination of a mother of a six year old by an ICE agent who brazenly strolled away after the murder I thought the trough couldn’t get lower. But when I heard the lies of the cosplaying dog killer, the man who loves his couch, and the cult leader, the trough went even deeper. 

The incompetence of the administration made their promises of ridding the country of the “worst of the worst” unlikely, but cult members believed. As they do and will continue to do but maybe some will recognize the trough and there may be a reckoning. 

I believe, or at least want to believe, that change is in the air. There are cracks in the orange shell that have some republicans showing the tiniest amount of backbone. Some have even (gasp) voted against the cult leader and his wishes. In addition, I get the sense that the cult-adjacent people are discovering that they’ve been lied to. The promise that tariffs will replace income taxes, affordability is a hoax, there’s nothing in the Epstein files, and much, much more seems to awaken some. It’s not enough and events in the past year have put me in the trough of disillusionment, but maybe another point of reckoning coming from Minneapolis can put us on the slope of enlightenment.