Some see a recent upsurge of fascism, or a unique malevolence in the current President. The reality is less dramatic: the continued erosion of American institutions, a long-term trend furthered by bankrupt ideologies.
by Philip Cafaro
A few months ago in this space, I wrote that Donald Trump’s obvious character flaws disqualified him as a decent candidate for the U.S. Presidency. As you may have heard, enough of my fellow citizens disagreed with me to re-elect him to a second four-year term as “leader of the Free World.” Although in light of his abrupt reversal of U.S. support for Ukraine and enthusiasm for dictators in Central America and “illiberal democracy” in Europe, we may have to retire that expression.
In three short months, Trump has unleashed chaos and uncertainty at home and abroad. Domestically, he is attempting to drastically cut or eliminate numerous valuable programs, in the name of increasing “efficiency” and eliminating “waste and fraud.” Rather than do this through the normal channels of annual Congressional appropriations, he is attempting it unilaterally through executive orders, an unprecedented move of dubious legality. These include massive cuts to basic science and health research, education funding for poorer communities and students with special needs, and the support staff for benefits programs relied on by hundreds of millions of Americans, such as the Veterans Administration and the Social Security Administration.
Also of dubious legality are the administration’s many moves to roll back over half a century of environmental progress. These include redefining the role of the Environmental Protection Agency to one of facilitating economic growth, throwing open public lands to oil and mining interests, and providing exemptions to corporate polluters who claim economic exigencies prevent them from cleaning up their pollution. If all else fails, regulators plan to simply ignore the environmental regulations they are legally required to enforce.
At the same time as they are abdicating legitimate government responsibilities to protect the environment and support citizens in need, Trump’s minions are eager to take on new, oppressive roles. They are attempting to dictate fundamental goals and policies to the nation’s colleges and universities, both public and private, through withholding research grants and threatening their non-profit status. They are threatening to withhold government clearances (and thus lucrative government work) to blackmail top law firms into providing hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono legal work for the Administration’s preferred causes. The list goes on.
In foreign policy, the Trump administration began by cancelling most U.S. foreign aid, worth tens of billions of dollars annually. This abrupt move has thrown many important health programs in some of the world’s poorest countries into disarray, as Win Brown and Karen Hardee reported here a month ago. As a direct result, hundreds of thousands of people are likely to die unnecessarily in the next few years, and millions of women will find it harder to access basic family planning services. Such actions harm the world’s poorest people.
Now, with his chaotic and, again, unilateral tariff policies, Trump threatens to throw the global economy into recession, indiscriminately harming billions of people, “haves” as well as “have nots.” I’m actually sympathetic to limiting international trade. I think we need a lot less of it, for environmental reasons. But whatever the general merits of tariffs, or their specific merits in relation to the Trump administration’s stated goals (reviving American manufacturing, keeping vital industries onshore), the chaotic, seat-of-the-pants approach of this administration seems unlikely to succeed — particularly in a contest with a disciplined Chinese leadership willing and able to wait out any negative impacts on their own population during an extended trade war.
Donald Trump’s high-handed treatment of America’s friends and allies seems foolish, unjust, and dangerous. This bad behavior goes beyond mere changes in trade policy, as in Trump’s nonsensical bluster around taking over the Panama Canal and Greenland. Examples like these last ones are so grotesque, so outside decent international norms, that they may be hard to take seriously. I do not, in fact, think that Danes or Kalaallits have much to fear from American imperialism. But everyone has a lot to fear from an unnecessary global recession. (I’m on record that the global economy needs to shrink, not grow, for environmental reasons. But we need a planned drawdown, with for instance carbon taxes with the proceeds used to cushion those likely to be hurt otherwise.) Everyone has a lot to fear from a de-stabilized global power structure, in which the world’s most powerful democracy sides with the forces of authoritarianism, or endorses territorial aggression and war as legitimate means for resolving international disputes.
Why is this happening now? Americans seem as puzzled as foreigners mulling over this question. I’ve heard some say they feel like strangers in their own land; a few are even taking steps to procure foreign citizenship and leave a country they no longer recognize or support. Many liberals wonder how our fellow citizens could support such cruel and harmful policies, while many conservatives wonder whether their investments will bounce back in time for their retirements.
Trump, and particularly this new second administration, are in many ways unprecedented. No President has ever seemed so unaware or disrespectful of democratic norms and principles, so cavalier in his disrespect for our Constitution. No administration has launched such a massive grab for power, while simultaneously attempting to greatly weaken the government’s power for doing good. It is this, along with Trump’s evident disdain for legalities and norms, and the Republican party’s fawning over him personally, that has so many speaking of incipient fascism.
However, I don’t think Trump is uniquely evil. And while he has a talent for demagogy, his success again begs the question: why now?
In fact, the Trump administration’s policies are in many ways an extension of key Republican political goals that shift wealth and power to the already wealthy and powerful. These include deregulation and regulatory capture by industry proxies, failure to enforce environmental laws and labor protections, and shifting tax burdens from the wealthy onto the poor and middle class. Even Elon Musk’s rampage through the federal workforce, while unprecedented in speed and scope, fits a decades-long pattern of undermining government capabilities, the better to convince Americans that government cannot improve their lives.
It isn’t just a failure of nerve that is behind most mainstream Republican’s continued support for Donald Trump. It is no accident that his cabinet is filled with billionaires and that his inaptly named Department of Government Efficiency is run by the world’s richest man. Trump promises a consolidation of power among the ultra-wealthy elite that they have long desired. A few populist excesses are a small price to pay for this long-awaited achievement.
Talk of fascism also lets Democrats off the hook for their own political failures, which have helped bring us to this point. Over the course of my adult lifetime, the Democratic party has morphed from a party focused primarily on the economic interests of the working class and middle classes, to one advocating for the economic and social interests of upwardly mobile professionals: in Bernie Sanders’ terms, from the party of the 99% to the party of the 85-99% (the top 15% minus the top 1%, the Republicans’ natural constituency). They have become a party focused on “anti-racism” and niche social causes rather than sharing the wealth. At best, Democrats show some of the old spirit in defending Social Security and Medicare — programs legislated in the 1930s and 1960s, respectively. Unlike European social democratic parties, however, they never built on this foundation to create widely shared prosperity and solid economic security, with a modern economic safety net.
Democrats often lament the working class “voting against its economic interests” by supporting Republican candidates. But Democrats’ failure to speak to growing income and wealth inequality, much less address it legislatively, or to enact universal health care or other necessary components of a modern economic safety net, has left most poor and middle-class voters unclear about who speaks for their economic interests. Democrats’ unwillingness to deal effectively with steadily rising illegal immigration further alienated low-income workers who felt out-competed for jobs and housing. In this way, they have contributed to the narrative that government is ineffective, that it cannot solve problems, that citizens are on their own, and that only a rapidly growing economy can insulate us from economic precarity. This has also left these voters open to persuasion on various “culture war” social issues, allowing Republicans to pick them off in ever greater numbers.
Beginning in the 1980s, Democrats and Republicans drank equally deeply from the well of neo-liberal economic dogma. This helped turn the Republicans from a conservative party to a radical one that would sacrifice anything and anyone on the altar of laissez-faire economic policy. It helped turn a Democratic party that once believed deeply in “the people” into a party of technocrats who hold them in contempt (an unstated premise in many arguments for incipient fascism). Neither party has advocated for, or spoken convincingly about, the common good. All this paved the way for an undisciplined clown to ascend to the White House. The full consequences remain to be seen.
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