The Yin and Yang of National Decline

Trump’s foreign adventures and various pronouncements over the past few weeks have made one thing abundantly clear—the US is abandoning its role as a global leader in just about everything.  Withdrawing from the Paris agreement means we will no longer be an important voice in discussions of how the world should respond to climate change.  Cuddling up to tyrants like Duterte and Erdogan and the Saudi monarchy and Putin undermines any standing we might have to support human rights around the world.  And if Trump’s domestic policies are adopted, we certainly will not be leading by example on this issue.

     On the economic front, matters are no better.  His apparent support of coal (and fossil fuels generally) betokens a commitment to make the US a leader in 19th Century technology while the rest of the world moves on.  And his spending and taxation priorities are all designed to support a plutocracy, even as the rest of the developed world seeks ways to use the wealth created by vigorous and well-regulated markets to make life better for everyone.

     Trump’s critics, and some of his supporters, are in quite a tizzy about this abdication of leadership by the United States.  But it behooves us to remember that this, like most things, has an upside and a downside.

     The downside is that the world’s largest economy and leader in scientific research and technological development has decided to abandon the collective effort to confront the future.  China looks well-positioned, and quite anxious, to step into a leadership role in economic and scientific matters.  But given China’s own domestic politics, there is little reason to think it will even pay lip service to human rights.  The US hasn’t done much of late beyond lip service, but at least it does this.

     What is more worrisome, for the US and the world, is that even as the US is abandoning a constructive role in the affairs of the world, Trump is proposing more military spending and taking an increasingly bellicose tone with the rest of the world.  The US is already involved in wars all over the world, and it is the largest supplier of arms in the world.  Even though Trump’s $112bn arms deal with the Saudis is fake, it reveals much.  If the US is to continue to be the world’s policeman—or bully—this means more Americans dying in places where we have no business.  It means an economy devoted to supporting the military, rather than providing people opportunities for decent lives.  It means humiliating relationships with hateful thugs like Putin and the Saudi monarchy.

     But there is an upside to all this doom and failure.  The bungling incompetence and hateful arrogance of the Trump presidency has produced an enormous surge of energy in a US political culture that was moribund.  A well-organized resistance has emerged almost overnight.  Millions of new people are taking up politics who have been passive before.  And, what is most interesting, state and local governments are defying the federal government and announcing their continued commitment to the Paris Accords.  Our political culture is as energized as it has been in my lifetime.

     Trump is by no means responsible for the decline in US political culture.  It begins at least as far back as Reagan, who convinced millions of Americans to put their welfare into the hands of elites who made no secret of their intention to govern in their interests rather than the interests of the governed.  Trump is merely the final (it is to be hoped) consequence of this foolish decision.  But the Trump administration has created at least two very serious obstacles to the revitalization of US political culture.

     First, Trump has unleashed the hatefulness and anti-intellectualism that has always been a very problematic element of our political culture.  Richard Nixon’s southern strategy brought the racists into the GOP in large numbers. This worked so well that the party opened its doors to the  woman haters and the homohysterics and the anti-science clowns.  These people elected Trump, and now they are demanding their due.

     Second, the Trump administration more or less completes the Reagan GOP’s project of turning management of the economy over entirely to the very wealthiest players.  They have made very clear their intentions to disempower the working and middle classes, and to bleed the economy to support the fossil fuels and defense industries.  And Trump’s supporters, the very people who will be most harmed by his policies, continue to support him.

     Revitalizing US political culture won’t be easy.  But it offers the promise of liberating us from our domestic elites and enabling us to take a more constructive, and less bellicose, role in global affairs.  And there is hope as long as enough of us remember that there’s a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.