The
world is troubled. America is troubled. There’s a pall hanging over us, an
uneasiness, that things are going to get worse. Even those who deny climate
change are inundated by the same flood waters, face the same hurricanes, endure
the same droughts and wildfires, and get infected by the same insect bites from
migrating and infected bugs as those who accept man-induced climate change as
real.
Even
those who believe passionately in feeding the rich to trickle down to the rest
of us face the same debt burden rising income inequality that those experts who
know that this trickle-down theory has always been a failed effort; it never
works. 70% of working Americans have the same or lower earning power they had
four decades ago. Those new jobs? Either lower paying work, independent
contractor employment (gig work) or top dollars reserved only for highly
educated or trained experts, not that old middle-class blue-collar segment that
will never get their jobs back. The new tax cut may have worked well for the
wealthy, but it sure had very little for the rest of us. Not to mention the
massive deficit it caused; the federal budget now contains more in deficit interest
payments than it does in defense allocations.
Donald
Trump is hardly the cause of this malaise, although he caters to those
insecurities, makes promises he cannot keep, and generally his policies will
accelerate the demise of the United States against the rest of the world that
is learning how to ignore our bullying demands and simply work-around our
obstreperous behavior. Trump is reflective of something bigger, something that
so many Americans caught in a time warp of hyper-accelerating change do not
understand. The government is investing less and less in “America” with each
passing year. Less for education, less for infrastructure, less for
job-creating research and less for productivity-enhancing healthcare. But change has grown from gentle waves
washing up onto our shores into a tsunami of disruption.
Unfortunately
for America, when Donald Trump leaves office, his populist base is not going to
disband. Indeed, many of the populist axioms that underlie the movement that elected
him have seeped deeper into the American psyche than we might have estimated. Author
Robert Kagan, writing an op-ed for the September 23rd New York
Times, explains:
“President
Trump may not enjoy majority support these days, but there’s good reason to
believe that his ‘America First’ approach to the world does. There has been no
popular outcry against Mr. Trump’s trade battles with Canada, Mexico and the
European allies. Experts suggest we are in for a long international trade war,
no matter who the next president may be. After all, even Hillary Clinton had to
disown her support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the last election. The
old free-trade consensus is gone.
“Mr.
Trump’s immigration policies may be more popular with Republicans than with
Democrats, but few Democratic politicians are running on a promise to bring
more immigrants into the country. And just as in the 1920s, isolationism joins
anti-immigration sentiment and protectionism as a pillar of America Firstism.
“The
old consensus about America’s role as upholder of global security has collapsed
in both parties. Russia may have committed territorial aggression against
Ukraine. But Republican voters follow Mr. Trump in seeking better ties,
accepting Moscow’s forcible annexation of Crimea and expanding influence in the
Middle East (even if some of the president’s subordinates do
not). They applaud Mr. Trump for seeking a dubious deal with North Korea just
as they once condemned Democratic presidents for doing the same thing. They
favor a trade war with China but have not consistently favored military
spending increases to deter a real war.”
The
reality is that “globalism,” countries designing uniform systems to live, trade
and work together – literally an American invention – is the only way a modern
planet can work. Going back to a world of gunboat diplomacy, colonialism, bi-lateral
trade agreements, big-bully-nations calling the shots and forcing the world to
kowtow to their demands are gone. There is too much wealth, too much power
spread around the world for one nation to believe it can shape the world to its
demanded mold.
But
rejecting globalism, particularly as China and Europe become the new champions
of that necessary global system, is still America’s new path. As Mr. Trump’s
disastrous recent foray to the United Nations severely illustrates, with the
exception of Israel and a few Eastern bloc nations, the United States is losing
power, influence and credibility faster than a lightning strike. Writing for
the September 29th Los Angeles Times, Tracy Wilkinson summarizes the
results of Trump’s badly-received efforts at the United Nations:
“President
Trump’s second appearance at the U.N. General Assembly did not get the response
he probably sought from the 193 countries gathered in New York this week… Some
leaders and diplomats openly laughed at his boasts. He failed to win support
for his hard-line policies on Iran, Venezuela, an international war crimes
court, climate change and migration.
“French
President Emmanuel Macron scolded him, accusing him of abandoning the
foundation of today’s world order and global cooperation enshrined by the U.N.
itself… In the end, Trump’s ‘America first’ agenda meant America was mostly
alone during his four days at the U.N. this week.
“Leaders
who once courted Trump, attempted to gain his ear, or tried to persuade him to
support global institutions that long were U.S. foreign policy priorities, made
clear they would forge on without him on multiple issues of concern.
“When
Trump and his aides sought to unify the world against Iran, for example,
European allies disagreed with his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. They
even joined Russia and China to announce a payments system intended to
circumvent U.S. sanctions.
“And
when Trump chaired a Security Council meeting that he initially had wanted to
focus on threats from Iran, he sat in silence as leader after leader praised
the landmark disarmament deal he had quit, and the need for global cooperation.
“In
his General Assembly address, Trump similarly criticized a new U.N. pact aimed
at easing the global refugee and migration crisis, saying ‘migration should not
be governed by an international body’ but by individual countries… That drew
almost no support. Officials noted that virtually every nation had signed the
accord except the United States and Hungary.
“Some
pushed back against Trump’s exhortation of patriotism and national sovereignty
over globalism and multilateral efforts to combat the world’s ills… ‘This path
of unilateralism leads us directly to withdrawal and conflict, to widespread
confrontation between everyone, to the detriment of all — even, eventually, of
those who believe they are the strongest,’ Macron told the General Assembly.”
Going
it alone is expensive. U.S. policies, even those that might have found traction
with other nations willing to share the costs in the past, are now ours and
ours alone. We have to pay full freight… alone. As trade agreements offer
benefits to the citizens of the signatory nations that are not accorded to
non-signatory countries, as the United States withdraws from and avoid such
multinational accords, it is our citizens, our businesses that are denied those
benefits.
As
tariffs and trade restrictions raise barriers to international companies trying
to do business here, it is our consumers who pay the higher prices and it is
our businesses who either have to move operations overseas or accept that they
will lose business to companies that avoid those American barriers. As we deny
immigration to highly-qualified STEM experts and their families, it is those
countries that welcome them with open arms who will generate the profits of the
new businesses and technologies they invent. In short, on a tangible and
measurable basis, populism offers mere slogans but no solutions; it’s ugly
assumptions – often laced with racism and anti-democratic rhetoric – virtually
always produce the opposite result.
I’m Peter Dekom, and if you think the
battle over the Brett Kavanaugh appointment was nasty, you ain’t seen nuffin’
yet!
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