Trump in the White House: An Interview With Noam Chomsky
Monday, 14 November 2016 09:56 By C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout | Interview
Noam Chomsky speaks in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on March 12, 2015. (Photo:
Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación Argentina)
On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump managed to pull the biggest upset in US
politics by tapping successfully into the anger of white voters and
appealing to the lowest inclinations of people in a manner that would have
probably impressed Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels himself.
But what exactly does Trump's victory mean, and what can one expect from
this megalomaniac when he takes over the reins of power on January 20, 2017?
What is Trump's political ideology, if any, and is "Trumpism" a movement?
Will US foreign policy be any different under a Trump administration?
For more original Truthout election coverage, check out our election
section, "Beyond the Sound Bites: Election 2016."
Some years ago, public intellectual Noam Chomsky warned that the political
climate in the US was ripe for the rise of an authoritarian figure. Now, he
shares his thoughts on the aftermath of this election, the moribund state of
the US political system and why Trump is a real threat to the world and the
planet in general.
C.J. Polychroniou for Truthout: Noam, the unthinkable has happened: In
contrast to all forecasts, Donald Trump scored a decisive victory over
Hillary Clinton, and the man that Michael Moore described as a "wretched,
ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full-time sociopath" will be the
next president of the United States. In your view, what were the deciding
factors that led American voters to produce the biggest upset in the history
of US politics?
Noam Chomsky: Before turning to this question, I think it is important to
spend a few moments pondering just what happened on November 8, a date that
might turn out to be one of the most important in human history, depending
on how we react.
No exaggeration.
The most important news of November 8 was barely noted, a fact of some
significance in itself.
On November 8, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) delivered a
report at the international conference on climate change in Morocco (COP22)
which was called in order to carry forward the Paris agreement of COP21. The
WMO reported that the past five years were the hottest on record. It
reported rising sea levels, soon to increase as a result of the unexpectedly
rapid melting of polar ice, most ominously the huge Antarctic glaciers.
Already, Arctic sea ice over the past five years is 28 percent below the
average of the previous 29 years, not only raising sea levels, but also
reducing the cooling effect of polar ice reflection of solar rays, thereby
accelerating the grim effects of global warming. The WMO reported further
that temperatures are approaching dangerously close to the goal established
by COP21, along with other dire reports and forecasts.
Another event took place on November 8, which also may turn out to be of
unusual historical significance for reasons that, once again, were barely
noted.
On November 8, the most powerful country in world history, which will set
its stamp on what comes next, had an election. The outcome placed total
control of the government -- executive, Congress, the Supreme Court -- in
the hands of the Republican Party, which has become the most dangerous
organization in world history.
Apart from the last phrase, all of this is uncontroversial. The last phrase
may seem outlandish, even outrageous. But is it? The facts suggest
otherwise. The Party is dedicated to racing as rapidly as possible to
destruction of organized human life. There is no historical precedent for
such a stand.
Is this an exaggeration? Consider what we have just been witnessing.
During the Republican primaries, every candidate denied that what is
happening is happening -- with the exception of the sensible moderates, like
Jeb Bush, who said it's all uncertain, but we don't have to do anything
because were producing more natural gas, thanks to fracking. Or John
Kasich, who agreed that global warming is taking place, but added that "we
are going to burn [coal] in Ohio and we are not going to apologize for it."
The winning candidate, now the president-elect, calls for rapid increase in
use of fossil fuels, including coal; dismantling of regulations; rejection
of help to developing countries that are seeking to move to sustainable
energy; and in general, racing to the cliff as fast as possible.
Trump has already taken steps to dismantle the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) by placing in charge of the EPA transition a notorious (and
proud) climate change denier, Myron Ebell. Trump's top adviser on energy,
billionaire oil executive Harold Hamm, announced his expectations, which
were predictable: dismantling regulations, tax cuts for the industry (and
the wealthy and corporate sector generally), more fossil fuel production,
lifting Obama's temporary block on the Dakota Access pipeline. The market
reacted quickly. Shares in energy corporations boomed, including the worlds
largest coal miner, Peabody Energy, which had filed for bankruptcy, but
after Trump's victory, registered a 50 percent gain.
The effects of Republican denialism had already been felt. There had been
hopes that the COP21 Paris agreement would lead to a verifiable treaty, but
any such thoughts were abandoned because the Republican Congress would not
accept any binding commitments, so what emerged was a voluntary agreement,
evidently much weaker.
Effects may soon become even more vividly apparent than they already are.
In Bangladesh alone, tens of millions are expected to have to flee from
low-lying plains in coming years because of sea level rise and more severe
weather, creating a migrant crisis that will make todays pale in
significance. With considerable justice, Bangladesh's leading climate
scientist says that "These migrants should have the right to move to the
countries from which all these greenhouse gases are coming. Millions should
be able to go to the United States." And to the other rich countries that
have grown wealthy while bringing about a new geological era, the
Anthropocene, marked by radical human transformation of the environment.
These catastrophic consequences can only increase, not just in Bangladesh,
but in all of South Asia as temperatures, already intolerable for the poor,
inexorably rise and the Himalayan glaciers melt, threatening the entire
water supply. Already in India, some 300 million people are reported to lack
adequate drinking water. And the effects will reach far beyond.
It is hard to find words to capture the fact that humans are facing the most
important question in their history -- whether organized human life will
survive in anything like the form we know -- and are answering it by
accelerating the race to disaster.
Similar observations hold for the other huge issue concerning human
survival: the threat of nuclear destruction, which has been looming over our
heads for 70 years and is now increasing.
It is no less difficult to find words to capture the utterly astonishing
fact that in all of the massive coverage of the electoral extravaganza, none
of this receives more than passing mention. At least I am at a loss to find
appropriate words.
Turning finally to the question raised, to be precise, it appears that
Clinton received a slight majority of the vote. The apparent decisive
victory has to do with curious features of American politics: among other
factors, the Electoral College residue of the founding of the country as an
alliance of separate states; the winner-take-all system in each state; the
arrangement of congressional districts (sometimes by gerrymandering) to
provide greater weight to rural votes (in past elections, and probably this
one too, Democrats have had a comfortable margin of victory in the popular
vote for the House, but hold a minority of seats); the very high rate of
abstention (usually close to half in presidential elections, this one
included). Of some significance for the future is the fact that in the age
18-25 range, Clinton won handily, and Sanders had an even higher level of
support. How much this matters depends on what kind of future humanity will
face.
According to current information, Trump broke all records in the support he
received from white voters, working class and lower middle class,
particularly in the $50,000 to $90,000 income range, rural and suburban,
primarily those without college education. These groups share the anger
throughout the West at the centrist establishment, revealed as well in the
unanticipated Brexit vote and the collapse of centrist parties in
continental Europe. [Many of] the angry and disaffected are victims of the
neoliberal policies of the past generation, the policies described in
congressional testimony by Fed chair Alan Greenspan -- "St. Alan," as he was
called reverentially by the economics profession and other admirers until
the miraculous economy he was supervising crashed in 2007-2008, threatening
to bring the whole world economy down with it. As Greenspan explained during
his glory days, his successes in economic management were based
substantially on "growing worker insecurity." Intimidated working people
would not ask for higher wages, benefits and security, but would be
satisfied with the stagnating wages and reduced benefits that signal a
healthy economy by neoliberal standards.
Working people, who have been the subjects of these experiments in economic
theory, are not particularly happy about the outcome. They are not, for
example, overjoyed at the fact that in 2007, at the peak of the neoliberal
miracle, real wages for nonsupervisory workers were lower than they had been
years earlier, or that real wages for male workers are about at 1960s levels
while spectacular gains have gone to the pockets of a very few at the top,
disproportionately a fraction of 1%. Not the result of market forces,
achievement or merit, but rather of definite policy decisions, matters
reviewed carefully by economist Dean Baker in recently published work.
The fate of the minimum wage illustrates what has been happening. Through
the periods of high and egalitarian growth in the '50s and '60s, the minimum
wage -- which sets a floor for other wages -- tracked productivity. That
ended with the onset of neoliberal doctrine. Since then, the minimum wage
has stagnated (in real value). Had it continued as before, it would probably
be close to $20 per hour. Today, it is considered a political revolution to
raise it to $15.
With all the talk of near-full employment today, labor force participation
remains below the earlier norm. And for working people, there is a great
difference between a steady job in manufacturing with union wages and
benefits, as in earlier years, and a temporary job with little security in
some service profession. Apart from wages, benefits and security, there is a
loss of dignity, of hope for the future, of a sense that this is a world in
which I belong and play a worthwhile role.
The impact is captured well in Arlie Hochschild's sensitive and illuminating
portrayal of a Trump stronghold in Louisiana, where she lived and worked for
many years. She uses the image of a line in which residents are standing,
expecting to move forward steadily as they work hard and keep to all the
conventional values. But their position in the line has stalled. Ahead of
them, they see people leaping forward, but that does not cause much
distress, because it is "the American way" for (alleged) merit to be
rewarded. What does cause real distress is what is happening behind them.
They believe that "undeserving people" who do not "follow the rules" are
being moved in front of them by federal government programs they erroneously
see as designed to benefit African-Americans, immigrants and others they
often regard with contempt. All of this is exacerbated by [Ronald] Reagan's
racist fabrications about "welfare queens" (by implication Black) stealing
white people's hard-earned money and other fantasies.
Sometimes failure to explain, itself a form of contempt, plays a role in
fostering hatred of government. I once met a house painter in Boston who had
turned bitterly against the "evil" government after a Washington bureaucrat
who knew nothing about painting organized a meeting of painting contractors
to inform them that they could no longer use lead paint -- "the only kind
that works" -- as they all knew, but the suit didn't understand. That
destroyed his small business, compelling him to paint houses on his own with
substandard stuff forced on him by government elites.
Sometimes there are also some real reasons for these attitudes toward
government bureaucracies. Hochschild describes a man whose family and
friends are suffering bitterly from the lethal effects of chemical pollution
but who despises the government and the "liberal elites," because for him,
the EPA means some ignorant guy who tells him he can't fish, but does
nothing about the chemical plants.
These are just samples of the real lives of Trump supporters, who are led to
believe that Trump will do something to remedy their plight, though the
merest look at his fiscal and other proposals demonstrates the opposite --
posing a task for activists who hope to fend off the worst and to advance
desperately needed changes.
Exit polls reveal that the passionate support for Trump was inspired
primarily by the belief that he represented change, while Clinton was
perceived as the candidate who would perpetuate their distress. The "change"
that Trump is likely to bring will be harmful or worse, but it is
understandable that the consequences are not clear to isolated people in an
atomized society lacking the kinds of associations (like unions) that can
educate and organize. That is a crucial difference between today's despair
and the generally hopeful attitudes of many working people under much
greater economic duress during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
There are other factors in Trump's success. Comparative studies show that
doctrines of white supremacy have had an even more powerful grip on American
culture than in South Africa, and it's no secret that the white population
is declining. In a decade or two, whites are projected to be a minority of
the work force, and not too much later, a minority of the population. The
traditional conservative culture is also perceived as under attack by the
successes of identity politics, regarded as the province of elites who have
only contempt for the ''hard-working, patriotic, church-going [white]
Americans with real family values'' who see their familiar country as
disappearing before their eyes.
One of the difficulties in raising public concern over the very severe
threats of global warming is that 40 percent of the US population does not
see why it is a problem, since Christ is returning in a few decades. About
the same percentage believe that the world was created a few thousand years
ago. If science conflicts with the Bible, so much the worse for science. It
would be hard to find an analogue in other societies.
The Democratic Party abandoned any real concern for working people by the
1970s, and they have therefore been drawn to the ranks of their bitter class
enemies, who at least pretend to speak their language -- Reagan's folksy
style of making little jokes while eating jelly beans, George W. Bush's
carefully cultivated image of a regular guy you could meet in a bar who
loved to cut brush on the ranch in 100-degree heat and his probably faked
mispronunciations (it's unlikely that he talked like that at Yale), and now
Trump, who gives voice to people with legitimate grievances -- people who
have lost not just jobs, but also a sense of personal self-worth -- and who
rails against the government that they perceive as having undermined their
lives (not without reason).
One of the great achievements of the doctrinal system has been to divert
anger from the corporate sector to the government that implements the
programs that the corporate sector designs, such as the highly protectionist
corporate/investor rights agreements that are uniformly mis-described as
"free trade agreements" in the media and commentary. With all its flaws, the
government is, to some extent, under popular influence and control, unlike
the corporate sector. It is highly advantageous for the business world to
foster hatred for pointy-headed government bureaucrats and to drive out of
people's minds the subversive idea that the government might become an
instrument of popular will, a government of, by and for the people.
Is Trump representing a new movement in American politics, or was the
outcome of this election primarily a rejection of Hillary Clinton by voters
who hate the Clintons and are fed-up with "politics as usual?"
It's by no means new. Both political parties have moved to the right during
the neoliberal period. Today's New Democrats are pretty much what used to be
called "moderate Republicans." The "political revolution" that Bernie
Sanders called for, rightly, would not have greatly surprised Dwight
Eisenhower. The Republicans have moved so far toward a dedication to the
wealthy and the corporate sector that they cannot hope to get votes on their
actual programs, and have turned to mobilizing sectors of the population
that have always been there, but not as an organized coalitional political
force: evangelicals, nativists, racists and the victims of the forms of
globalization designed to set working people around the world in competition
with one another while protecting the privileged and undermining the legal
and other measures that provided working people with some protection, and
with ways to influence decision-making in the closely linked public and
private sectors, notably with effective labor unions.
The consequences have been evident in recent Republican primaries. Every
candidate that has emerged from the base -- such as [Michele] Bachmann,
[Herman] Cain or [Rick] Santorum -- has been so extreme that the Republican
establishment had to use its ample resources to beat them down. The
difference in 2016 is that the establishment failed, much to its chagrin, as
we have seen.
Deservedly or not, Clinton represented the policies that were feared and
hated, while Trump was seen as the symbol of "change" -- change of what kind
requires a careful look at his actual proposals, something largely missing
in what reached the public. The campaign itself was remarkable in its
avoidance of issues, and media commentary generally complied, keeping to the
concept that true "objectivity" means reporting accurately what is "within
the beltway," but not venturing beyond.
Trump said following the outcome of the election that he "will represent all
Americans." How is he going to do that when the nation is so divided and he
has already expressed deep hatred for many groups in the United States,
including women and minorities? Do you see any resemblance between Brexit
and Donald Trump's victory?
There are definite similarities to Brexit, and also to the rise of the
ultranationalist far-right parties in Europe -- whose leaders were quick to
congratulate Trump on his victory, perceiving him as one of their own:
[Nigel] Farage, [Marine] Le Pen, [Viktor] Orban and others like them. And
these developments are quite frightening. A look at the polls in Austria and
Germany -- Austria and Germany -- cannot fail to evoke unpleasant memories
for those familiar with the 1930s, even more so for those who watched
directly, as I did as a child. I can still recall listening to Hitler's
speeches, not understanding the words, though the tone and audience reaction
were chilling enough. The first article that I remember writing was in
February 1939, after the fall of Barcelona, on the seemingly inexorable
spread of the fascist plague. And by strange coincidence, it was from
Barcelona that my wife and I watched the results of the 2016 US presidential
election unfold.
As to how Trump will handle what he has brought forth -- not created, but
brought forth -- we cannot say. Perhaps his most striking characteristic is
unpredictability. A lot will depend on the reactions of those appalled by
his performance and the visions he has projected, such as they are.
Trump has no identifiable political ideology guiding his stance on economic,
social and political issues, yet there are clear authoritarian tendencies in
his behavior. Therefore, do you find any validity behind the claims that
Trump may represent the emergence of "fascism with a friendly face?" in the
United States?
For many years, I have been writing and speaking about the danger of the
rise of an honest and charismatic ideologue in the United States, someone
who could exploit the fear and anger that has long been boiling in much of
the society, and who could direct it away from the actual agents of malaise
to vulnerable targets. That could indeed lead to what sociologist Bertram
Gross called "friendly fascism" in a perceptive study 35 years ago. But that
requires an honest ideologue, a Hitler type, not someone whose only
detectable ideology is Me. The dangers, however, have been real for many
years, perhaps even more so in the light of the forces that Trump has
unleashed.
With the Republicans in the White House, but also controlling both houses
and the future shape of the Supreme Court, what will the US look like for at
least the next four years?
A good deal depends on his appointments and circle of advisers. Early
indications are unattractive, to put it mildly.
The Supreme Court will be in the hands of reactionaries for many years, with
predictable consequences. If Trump follows through on his Paul Ryan-style
fiscal programs, there will be huge benefits for the very rich -- estimated
by the Tax Policy Center as a tax cut of over 14 percent for the top 0.1
percent and a substantial cut more generally at the upper end of the income
scale, but with virtually no tax relief for others, who will also face major
new burdens. The respected economics correspondent of the Financial Times,
Martin Wolf, writes that, "The tax proposals would shower huge benefits on
already rich Americans such as Mr Trump," while leaving others in the lurch,
including, of course, his constituency. The immediate reaction of the
business world reveals that Big Pharma, Wall Street, the military industry,
energy industries and other such wonderful institutions expect a very bright
future.
One positive development might be the infrastructure program that Trump has
promised while (along with much reporting and commentary) concealing the
fact that it is essentially the Obama stimulus program that would have been
of great benefit to the economy and to the society generally, but was killed
by the Republican Congress on the pretext that it would explode the deficit.
While that charge was spurious at the time, given the very low interest
rates, it holds in spades for Trump's program, now accompanied by radical
tax cuts for the rich and corporate sector and increased Pentagon spending.
There is, however, an escape, provided by Dick Cheney when he explained to
Bush's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that "Reagan proved that deficits
don't matter" -- meaning deficits that we Republicans create in order to
gain popular support, leaving it to someone else, preferably Democrats, to
somehow clean up the mess. The technique might work, for a while at least.
There are also many questions about foreign policy consequences, mostly
unanswered.
There is mutual admiration between Trump and Putin. How likely is it
therefore that we may see a new era in US-Russia relations?
One hopeful prospect is that there might be reduction of the very dangerous
and mounting tensions at the Russian border: note "the Russian border," not
the Mexican border. Thereby lies a tale that we cannot go into here. It is
also possible that Europe might distance itself from Trump's America, as
already suggested by [German] Chancellor [Angela] Merkel and other European
leaders -- and from the British voice of American power, after Brexit. That
might possibly lead to European efforts to defuse the tensions, and perhaps
even efforts to move towards something like Mikhail Gorbachev's vision of an
integrated Eurasian security system without military alliances, rejected by
the US in favor of NATO expansion, a vision revived recently by Putin,
whether seriously or not, we do not know, since the gesture was dismissed.
Is US foreign policy under a Trump administration likely to be more or less
militaristic than what we have seen under the Obama administration, or even
the George W. Bush administration?
I don't think one can answer with any confidence. Trump is too
unpredictable. There are too many open questions. What we can say is that
popular mobilization and activism, properly organized and conducted, can
make a large difference.
And we should bear in mind that the stakes are very large.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
C.J. POLYCHRONIOU
C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has
taught and worked in universities and research centers in Europe and the
United States. His main research interests are in European economic
integration, globalization, the political economy of the United States and
the deconstruction of neoliberalism's politico-economic project. He is a
regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout's Public
Intellectual Project. He has published several books and his articles have
appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news
websites. Many of his publications have been translated into several foreign
languages, including Croatian, French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
and Turkish.
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Trump in the White House: An Interview With Noam Chomsky
Monday, 14 November 2016 09:56 By C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout | Interview
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Noam Chomsky speaks in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on March 12, 2015.
(Photo: Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación Argentina)
On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump managed to pull the biggest upset
in US politics by tapping successfully into the anger of white voters and
appealing to the lowest inclinations of people in a manner that would have
probably impressed Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels himself.
But what exactly does Trump's victory mean, and what can one expect from
this megalomaniac when he takes over the reins of power on January 20, 2017?
What is Trump's political ideology, if any, and is "Trumpism" a movement?
Will US foreign policy be any different under a Trump administration?
For more original Truthout election coverage, check out our election
section, "Beyond the Sound Bites: Election 2016."
Some years ago, public intellectual Noam Chomsky warned that the political
climate in the US was ripe for the rise of an authoritarian figure. Now, he
shares his thoughts on the aftermath of this election, the moribund state of
the US political system and why Trump is a real threat to the world and the
planet in general.
C.J. Polychroniou for Truthout: Noam, the unthinkable has happened: In
contrast to all forecasts, Donald Trump scored a decisive victory over
Hillary Clinton, and the man that Michael Moore described as a "wretched,
ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full-time sociopath" will be the
next president of the United States. In your view, what were the deciding
factors that led American voters to produce the biggest upset in the history
of US politics?
Noam Chomsky: Before turning to this question, I think it is important to
spend a few moments pondering just what happened on November 8, a date that
might turn out to be one of the most important in human history, depending
on how we react.
No exaggeration.
The most important news of November 8 was barely noted, a fact of some
significance in itself.
On November 8, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) delivered a
report at the international conference on climate change in Morocco (COP22)
which was called in order to carry forward the Paris agreement of COP21. The
WMO reported that the past five years were the hottest on record. It
reported rising sea levels, soon to increase as a result of the unexpectedly
rapid melting of polar ice, most ominously the huge Antarctic glaciers.
Already, Arctic sea ice over the past five years is 28 percent below the
average of the previous 29 years, not only raising sea levels, but also
reducing the cooling effect of polar ice reflection of solar rays, thereby
accelerating the grim effects of global warming. The WMO reported further
that temperatures are approaching dangerously close to the goal established
by COP21, along with other dire reports and forecasts.
Another event took place on November 8, which also may turn out to be of
unusual historical significance for reasons that, once again, were barely
noted.
On November 8, the most powerful country in world history, which will set
its stamp on what comes next, had an election. The outcome placed total
control of the government -- executive, Congress, the Supreme Court -- in
the hands of the Republican Party, which has become the most dangerous
organization in world history.
Apart from the last phrase, all of this is uncontroversial. The last phrase
may seem outlandish, even outrageous. But is it? The facts suggest
otherwise. The Party is dedicated to racing as rapidly as possible to
destruction of organized human life. There is no historical precedent for
such a stand.
Is this an exaggeration? Consider what we have just been witnessing.
During the Republican primaries, every candidate denied that what is
happening is happening -- with the exception of the sensible moderates, like
Jeb Bush, who said it's all uncertain, but we don't have to do anything
because were producing more natural gas, thanks to fracking. Or John
Kasich, who agreed that global warming is taking place, but added that "we
are going to burn [coal] in Ohio and we are not going to apologize for it."
The winning candidate, now the president-elect, calls for rapid increase in
use of fossil fuels, including coal; dismantling of regulations; rejection
of help to developing countries that are seeking to move to sustainable
energy; and in general, racing to the cliff as fast as possible.
Trump has already taken steps to dismantle the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) by placing in charge of the EPA transition a notorious (and
proud) climate change denier, Myron Ebell. Trump's top adviser on energy,
billionaire oil executive Harold Hamm, announced his expectations, which
were predictable: dismantling regulations, tax cuts for the industry (and
the wealthy and corporate sector generally), more fossil fuel production,
lifting Obama's temporary block on the Dakota Access pipeline. The market
reacted quickly. Shares in energy corporations boomed, including the worlds
largest coal miner, Peabody Energy, which had filed for bankruptcy, but
after Trump's victory, registered a 50 percent gain.
The effects of Republican denialism had already been felt. There had been
hopes that the COP21 Paris agreement would lead to a verifiable treaty, but
any such thoughts were abandoned because the Republican Congress would not
accept any binding commitments, so what emerged was a voluntary agreement,
evidently much weaker.
Effects may soon become even more vividly apparent than they already are. In
Bangladesh alone, tens of millions are expected to have to flee from
low-lying plains in coming years because of sea level rise and more severe
weather, creating a migrant crisis that will make todays pale in
significance. With considerable justice, Bangladesh's leading climate
scientist says that "These migrants should have the right to move to the
countries from which all these greenhouse gases are coming. Millions should
be able to go to the United States." And to the other rich countries that
have grown wealthy while bringing about a new geological era, the
Anthropocene, marked by radical human transformation of the environment.
These catastrophic consequences can only increase, not just in Bangladesh,
but in all of South Asia as temperatures, already intolerable for the poor,
inexorably rise and the Himalayan glaciers melt, threatening the entire
water supply. Already in India, some 300 million people are reported to lack
adequate drinking water. And the effects will reach far beyond.
It is hard to find words to capture the fact that humans are facing the most
important question in their history -- whether organized human life will
survive in anything like the form we know -- and are answering it by
accelerating the race to disaster.
Similar observations hold for the other huge issue concerning human
survival: the threat of nuclear destruction, which has been looming over our
heads for 70 years and is now increasing.
It is no less difficult to find words to capture the utterly astonishing
fact that in all of the massive coverage of the electoral extravaganza, none
of this receives more than passing mention. At least I am at a loss to find
appropriate words.
Turning finally to the question raised, to be precise, it appears that
Clinton received a slight majority of the vote. The apparent decisive
victory has to do with curious features of American politics: among other
factors, the Electoral College residue of the founding of the country as an
alliance of separate states; the winner-take-all system in each state; the
arrangement of congressional districts (sometimes by gerrymandering) to
provide greater weight to rural votes (in past elections, and probably this
one too, Democrats have had a comfortable margin of victory in the popular
vote for the House, but hold a minority of seats); the very high rate of
abstention (usually close to half in presidential elections, this one
included). Of some significance for the future is the fact that in the age
18-25 range, Clinton won handily, and Sanders had an even higher level of
support. How much this matters depends on what kind of future humanity will
face.
According to current information, Trump broke all records in the support he
received from white voters, working class and lower middle class,
particularly in the $50,000 to $90,000 income range, rural and suburban,
primarily those without college education. These groups share the anger
throughout the West at the centrist establishment, revealed as well in the
unanticipated Brexit vote and the collapse of centrist parties in
continental Europe. [Many of] the angry and disaffected are victims of the
neoliberal policies of the past generation, the policies described in
congressional testimony by Fed chair Alan Greenspan -- "St. Alan," as he was
called reverentially by the economics profession and other admirers until
the miraculous economy he was supervising crashed in 2007-2008, threatening
to bring the whole world economy down with it. As Greenspan explained during
his glory days, his successes in economic management were based
substantially on "growing worker insecurity." Intimidated working people
would not ask for higher wages, benefits and security, but would be
satisfied with the stagnating wages and reduced benefits that signal a
healthy economy by neoliberal standards.
Working people, who have been the subjects of these experiments in economic
theory, are not particularly happy about the outcome. They are not, for
example, overjoyed at the fact that in 2007, at the peak of the neoliberal
miracle, real wages for nonsupervisory workers were lower than they had been
years earlier, or that real wages for male workers are about at 1960s levels
while spectacular gains have gone to the pockets of a very few at the top,
disproportionately a fraction of 1%. Not the result of market forces,
achievement or merit, but rather of definite policy decisions, matters
reviewed carefully by economist Dean Baker in recently published work.
The fate of the minimum wage illustrates what has been happening. Through
the periods of high and egalitarian growth in the '50s and '60s, the minimum
wage -- which sets a floor for other wages -- tracked productivity. That
ended with the onset of neoliberal doctrine. Since then, the minimum wage
has stagnated (in real value). Had it continued as before, it would probably
be close to $20 per hour. Today, it is considered a political revolution to
raise it to $15.
With all the talk of near-full employment today, labor force participation
remains below the earlier norm. And for working people, there is a great
difference between a steady job in manufacturing with union wages and
benefits, as in earlier years, and a temporary job with little security in
some service profession. Apart from wages, benefits and security, there is a
loss of dignity, of hope for the future, of a sense that this is a world in
which I belong and play a worthwhile role.
The impact is captured well in Arlie Hochschild's sensitive and illuminating
portrayal of a Trump stronghold in Louisiana, where she lived and worked for
many years. She uses the image of a line in which residents are standing,
expecting to move forward steadily as they work hard and keep to all the
conventional values. But their position in the line has stalled. Ahead of
them, they see people leaping forward, but that does not cause much
distress, because it is "the American way" for (alleged) merit to be
rewarded. What does cause real distress is what is happening behind them.
They believe that "undeserving people" who do not "follow the rules" are
being moved in front of them by federal government programs they erroneously
see as designed to benefit African-Americans, immigrants and others they
often regard with contempt. All of this is exacerbated by [Ronald] Reagan's
racist fabrications about "welfare queens" (by implication Black) stealing
white people's hard-earned money and other fantasies.
Sometimes failure to explain, itself a form of contempt, plays a role in
fostering hatred of government. I once met a house painter in Boston who had
turned bitterly against the "evil" government after a Washington bureaucrat
who knew nothing about painting organized a meeting of painting contractors
to inform them that they could no longer use lead paint -- "the only kind
that works" -- as they all knew, but the suit didn't understand. That
destroyed his small business, compelling him to paint houses on his own with
substandard stuff forced on him by government elites.
Sometimes there are also some real reasons for these attitudes toward
government bureaucracies. Hochschild describes a man whose family and
friends are suffering bitterly from the lethal effects of chemical pollution
but who despises the government and the "liberal elites," because for him,
the EPA means some ignorant guy who tells him he can't fish, but does
nothing about the chemical plants.
These are just samples of the real lives of Trump supporters, who are led to
believe that Trump will do something to remedy their plight, though the
merest look at his fiscal and other proposals demonstrates the opposite --
posing a task for activists who hope to fend off the worst and to advance
desperately needed changes.
Exit polls reveal that the passionate support for Trump was inspired
primarily by the belief that he represented change, while Clinton was
perceived as the candidate who would perpetuate their distress. The "change"
that Trump is likely to bring will be harmful or worse, but it is
understandable that the consequences are not clear to isolated people in an
atomized society lacking the kinds of associations (like unions) that can
educate and organize. That is a crucial difference between today's despair
and the generally hopeful attitudes of many working people under much
greater economic duress during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
There are other factors in Trump's success. Comparative studies show that
doctrines of white supremacy have had an even more powerful grip on American
culture than in South Africa, and it's no secret that the white population
is declining. In a decade or two, whites are projected to be a minority of
the work force, and not too much later, a minority of the population. The
traditional conservative culture is also perceived as under attack by the
successes of identity politics, regarded as the province of elites who have
only contempt for the ''hard-working, patriotic, church-going [white]
Americans with real family values'' who see their familiar country as
disappearing before their eyes.
One of the difficulties in raising public concern over the very severe
threats of global warming is that 40 percent of the US population does not
see why it is a problem, since Christ is returning in a few decades. About
the same percentage believe that the world was created a few thousand years
ago. If science conflicts with the Bible, so much the worse for science. It
would be hard to find an analogue in other societies.
The Democratic Party abandoned any real concern for working people by the
1970s, and they have therefore been drawn to the ranks of their bitter class
enemies, who at least pretend to speak their language -- Reagan's folksy
style of making little jokes while eating jelly beans, George W. Bush's
carefully cultivated image of a regular guy you could meet in a bar who
loved to cut brush on the ranch in 100-degree heat and his probably faked
mispronunciations (it's unlikely that he talked like that at Yale), and now
Trump, who gives voice to people with legitimate grievances -- people who
have lost not just jobs, but also a sense of personal self-worth -- and who
rails against the government that they perceive as having undermined their
lives (not without reason).
One of the great achievements of the doctrinal system has been to divert
anger from the corporate sector to the government that implements the
programs that the corporate sector designs, such as the highly protectionist
corporate/investor rights agreements that are uniformly mis-described as
"free trade agreements" in the media and commentary. With all its flaws, the
government is, to some extent, under popular influence and control, unlike
the corporate sector. It is highly advantageous for the business world to
foster hatred for pointy-headed government bureaucrats and to drive out of
people's minds the subversive idea that the government might become an
instrument of popular will, a government of, by and for the people.
Is Trump representing a new movement in American politics, or was the
outcome of this election primarily a rejection of Hillary Clinton by voters
who hate the Clintons and are fed-up with "politics as usual?"
It's by no means new. Both political parties have moved to the right during
the neoliberal period. Today's New Democrats are pretty much what used to be
called "moderate Republicans." The "political revolution" that Bernie
Sanders called for, rightly, would not have greatly surprised Dwight
Eisenhower. The Republicans have moved so far toward a dedication to the
wealthy and the corporate sector that they cannot hope to get votes on their
actual programs, and have turned to mobilizing sectors of the population
that have always been there, but not as an organized coalitional political
force: evangelicals, nativists, racists and the victims of the forms of
globalization designed to set working people around the world in competition
with one another while protecting the privileged and undermining the legal
and other measures that provided working people with some protection, and
with ways to influence decision-making in the closely linked public and
private sectors, notably with effective labor unions.
The consequences have been evident in recent Republican primaries. Every
candidate that has emerged from the base -- such as [Michele] Bachmann,
[Herman] Cain or [Rick] Santorum -- has been so extreme that the Republican
establishment had to use its ample resources to beat them down. The
difference in 2016 is that the establishment failed, much to its chagrin, as
we have seen.
Deservedly or not, Clinton represented the policies that were feared and
hated, while Trump was seen as the symbol of "change" -- change of what kind
requires a careful look at his actual proposals, something largely missing
in what reached the public. The campaign itself was remarkable in its
avoidance of issues, and media commentary generally complied, keeping to the
concept that true "objectivity" means reporting accurately what is "within
the beltway," but not venturing beyond.
Trump said following the outcome of the election that he "will represent all
Americans." How is he going to do that when the nation is so divided and he
has already expressed deep hatred for many groups in the United States,
including women and minorities? Do you see any resemblance between Brexit
and Donald Trump's victory?
There are definite similarities to Brexit, and also to the rise of the
ultranationalist far-right parties in Europe -- whose leaders were quick to
congratulate Trump on his victory, perceiving him as one of their own:
[Nigel] Farage, [Marine] Le Pen, [Viktor] Orban and others like them. And
these developments are quite frightening. A look at the polls in Austria and
Germany -- Austria and Germany -- cannot fail to evoke unpleasant memories
for those familiar with the 1930s, even more so for those who watched
directly, as I did as a child. I can still recall listening to Hitler's
speeches, not understanding the words, though the tone and audience reaction
were chilling enough. The first article that I remember writing was in
February 1939, after the fall of Barcelona, on the seemingly inexorable
spread of the fascist plague. And by strange coincidence, it was from
Barcelona that my wife and I watched the results of the 2016 US presidential
election unfold.
As to how Trump will handle what he has brought forth -- not created, but
brought forth -- we cannot say. Perhaps his most striking characteristic is
unpredictability. A lot will depend on the reactions of those appalled by
his performance and the visions he has projected, such as they are.
Trump has no identifiable political ideology guiding his stance on economic,
social and political issues, yet there are clear authoritarian tendencies in
his behavior. Therefore, do you find any validity behind the claims that
Trump may represent the emergence of "fascism with a friendly face?" in the
United States?
For many years, I have been writing and speaking about the danger of the
rise of an honest and charismatic ideologue in the United States, someone
who could exploit the fear and anger that has long been boiling in much of
the society, and who could direct it away from the actual agents of malaise
to vulnerable targets. That could indeed lead to what sociologist Bertram
Gross called "friendly fascism" in a perceptive study 35 years ago. But that
requires an honest ideologue, a Hitler type, not someone whose only
detectable ideology is Me. The dangers, however, have been real for many
years, perhaps even more so in the light of the forces that Trump has
unleashed.
With the Republicans in the White House, but also controlling both houses
and the future shape of the Supreme Court, what will the US look like for at
least the next four years?
A good deal depends on his appointments and circle of advisers. Early
indications are unattractive, to put it mildly.
The Supreme Court will be in the hands of reactionaries for many years, with
predictable consequences. If Trump follows through on his Paul Ryan-style
fiscal programs, there will be huge benefits for the very rich -- estimated
by the Tax Policy Center as a tax cut of over 14 percent for the top 0.1
percent and a substantial cut more generally at the upper end of the income
scale, but with virtually no tax relief for others, who will also face major
new burdens. The respected economics correspondent of the Financial Times,
Martin Wolf, writes that, "The tax proposals would shower huge benefits on
already rich Americans such as Mr Trump," while leaving others in the lurch,
including, of course, his constituency. The immediate reaction of the
business world reveals that Big Pharma, Wall Street, the military industry,
energy industries and other such wonderful institutions expect a very bright
future.
One positive development might be the infrastructure program that Trump has
promised while (along with much reporting and commentary) concealing the
fact that it is essentially the Obama stimulus program that would have been
of great benefit to the economy and to the society generally, but was killed
by the Republican Congress on the pretext that it would explode the deficit.
While that charge was spurious at the time, given the very low interest
rates, it holds in spades for Trump's program, now accompanied by radical
tax cuts for the rich and corporate sector and increased Pentagon spending.
There is, however, an escape, provided by Dick Cheney when he explained to
Bush's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that "Reagan proved that deficits
don't matter" -- meaning deficits that we Republicans create in order to
gain popular support, leaving it to someone else, preferably Democrats, to
somehow clean up the mess. The technique might work, for a while at least.
There are also many questions about foreign policy consequences, mostly
unanswered.
There is mutual admiration between Trump and Putin. How likely is it
therefore that we may see a new era in US-Russia relations?
One hopeful prospect is that there might be reduction of the very dangerous
and mounting tensions at the Russian border: note "the Russian border," not
the Mexican border. Thereby lies a tale that we cannot go into here. It is
also possible that Europe might distance itself from Trump's America, as
already suggested by [German] Chancellor [Angela] Merkel and other European
leaders -- and from the British voice of American power, after Brexit. That
might possibly lead to European efforts to defuse the tensions, and perhaps
even efforts to move towards something like Mikhail Gorbachev's vision of an
integrated Eurasian security system without military alliances, rejected by
the US in favor of NATO expansion, a vision revived recently by Putin,
whether seriously or not, we do not know, since the gesture was dismissed.
Is US foreign policy under a Trump administration likely to be more or less
militaristic than what we have seen under the Obama administration, or even
the George W. Bush administration?
I don't think one can answer with any confidence. Trump is too
unpredictable. There are too many open questions. What we can say is that
popular mobilization and activism, properly organized and conducted, can
make a large difference.
And we should bear in mind that the stakes are very large.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
C.J. Polychroniou
C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has
taught and worked in universities and research centers in Europe and the
United States. His main research interests are in European economic
integration, globalization, the political economy of the United States and
the deconstruction of neoliberalism's politico-economic project. He is a
regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout's Public
Intellectual Project. He has published several books and his articles have
appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news
websites. Many of his publications have been translated into several foreign
languages, including Croatian, French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
and Turkish.
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