Why is Donald Trump a Bad President?

Hello All,

Today I thought I might bring you something more political, and more current. Something new, something deeply controversial and something bound to resonate with our times. This is how we should interpret the enigmatic and divisive figure of Donald Trump.

I think Donald Trump is a bad President. Let’s get that out of the way first and foremost. I also happen to hold the belief that most critics of Donald Trump are missing the point. This is what I aim to explain, essentially, in this post.

Although I do not approve of Donald Trump as an individual or a lot of his policies, I think these should be minor considerations. I think the damage to the brand of Western Democracy is in many respects the most significant failure. The inability to create a cohesive, inclusive and appealing reformed vision of neoliberalism is tragic. It’s tragic because I think it is entirely possible to do this, and the consequences of not doing so are potentially terminal.

The inability to reform neoliberalism has meant a contraction of US global power. The failure of US ‘soft power’ at the time when it is most crucial has meant it is all too easy for long term allies to start to make small but significant steps away from the USA.

Instead of reacting to the failures of neoliberalism in a constructive way, the Trump project is destructive. It is an insurgency, built off anger and strengthened by opposing the status quo. It does not pose a realistic model for a better future. The reasons for this are that Trumpism is often painfully ambiguous – it isn’t really sure what the solutions are to the genuine grievances it draws out. Trumpism has no strategy – domestic or foreign. It is this aimless shallowness and its consequences that I want to draw out.

What’s not Wrong with Donald Trump

Before I start to build up my main argument, I think it is important to refute the criticism that holds most sway about Donald Trump.

A lot of people hate Donald Trump. Many say he is a Racist, a Sexist or some sort of Russian puppet. This hatred seems deep and somewhat irrational. I think it would be safe to say that we have never seen such deep and continued hatred for a sitting President. A lot of this hatred is entrenched, emotional and often unthinking.

Don’t buy this narrative? Well, think about the discourse around Impeachment. The way it was framed was telling. Before the ‘Ukraine Scandal’ broke not a day went by in the press when there wasn’t some opinion piece about why we should start impeachment. The essential point is that people wanted impeachment before there was even an impeachable offense. People were more concerned with getting rid of Trump than actually the integrity of the process. It was an expression of the anti-Trump movement, and those who wanted Trump to be impeached usually hated the man. Generally, these people are annoyed that Trump is the antithesis of their value-system – they want him gone, and they don’t care how this happens.

This response does not seem like a grown up one. It seems dismissive of many very important things that are bigger than short term political victory. The careless rejection of the axiomatic notion that we live in a shared democratic system is the worst formulation of this. This assumption is central to any understanding of the west – and one I think that we should respect. Democrats often get a cruel sort of satisfaction through patronising Donald Trump and his movement. By doing this, they are also dismissing the essential legitimacy of his supporters. They are giving those with these views no reason to respect the neoliberal system. In essence, there is a breakdown in trust between two opposing camps. This trust is the basic lubricant of a working democratic system, and when it dissolves, a national response to anything becomes difficult.

In addition to this, the Democrats’ typical response has also been counter-productive to the continuing strength of appeal of the west. A lot of Democrats have been misguided. There has been a tendency to ignore the concerns of those who have been recently side-lined – those rust belt voters that Trump owes the Presidency to. By doing so, they have doubled down on the original version of that political vision that Trump was reacting against. The left has become strongly wedded to a strong, uncompromising mixture of neoliberal technocracy and identity politics. There has been little attempt to reconcile the ideology of Obama-era Democrats with Trump’s criticisms. The direction of movement has instead been one of increasing radicalisation of the left. Those appealing for a ‘Green New Deal’ as well as the centrality of identity politics have failed to acknowledge a really significant political development. This is that some people feel alienated by these priorities - and that it only makes sense to a relatively narrow band of people across US society. Working class communities want political change which at least nominally takes into consideration their priorities – this is not happening. In this way, Democrats have failed to take up the mantle of a sensible and appealing alternative to Trumpism, which as I will explain may be critical in weakening the west.

Destructiveness of Trumpism

Trumpism is not in itself incoherent. It is relatively coherent in the sense it can quite easily be explained. Essentially its character is reactive – it reacts against the previous order of things. The order that it is reacting against is that comfortable, professional neoliberal technocracy that has been the stuff of politics since the 1990s. You have to sympathise with Trump supporters at least a little bit on this. It does feel slightly slimy, inorganic and elitist. The backroom deals, the money, the cappuccinos and copies of the leading broadsheets. You can’t blame someone for getting angry at this sort of politics – it has significant flaws, and legitimate complaints can be made against it. The fact that these sorts of people, these distanced and uncaring elite were making decisions on your behalf, taking your tax dollars and regulation your existence is sure to infuriate. Trump’s character – that of someone who very consciously does not play by political convention – is evidence of this reaction.

Trump’s electoral support comes from those fed up with what they perceive to be a lie. This is the fundamental disconnect between the reality on the ground and what politicians are telling them is happening. The sense that free markets and globalisation are unquestionably good does not seem to configure with day-to-day experience. Real wages have barely budged for the past 50 years – people don’t feel that massive increase in economic growth. Many people’s jobs have genuinely disappeared, often to China as a result of globalisation. The sense that others are benefitting at their expense is palpable and intense. It is this anger against this flawed system that Trump taps into and it is this anger against something that gives Trumpism it’s cohesion.

In this sense, Trumpism is coherent. However, it is only negatively coherent. It is coherent because it reacts against something and it wants to destroy a system of doing things. The essential problem is, the one I think that all of Trump’s failures ultimately stem from, is that he poses no appealing structural alternative to the previous system. Trump’s vision occupies an ambiguous middle ground between a reformed neoliberalism and the previous system. It is not sure what it wants to achieve policy-wise and instead clings on to that negative cohesion against the previous system for legitimacy. Think about what Donald Trump says his successes are, for example. Check out his Twitter account, as well as giving you something to laugh about, how he chooses to express his success is telling. He appeals to the stock market and economic growth figures – these, he says are his biggest successes. There is something almost paradoxical here. Donald Trump’s election comes on the crest of the wave complaining about how the politics of brute economic statistics is a lie, yet Donald Trump says his success is predicated on skyrocketing growth. It seems that Donald Trump has been unable, unwilling or incapable of creating a different system of politics. Whether this is because he is an idiot or just not interested does not really matter here, for whatever is the case, he has surely been bad for the west and the USA by failing here.

What this means, for America and the West, is that there is a crisis in confidence in the system that underpins our beliefs at a time when it is most crucial. Trump’s criticism of the previous order are sufficient to make it seem somewhat insufficient and uninspiring. Yet, the alternative he poses is just destructive – it cannot create a different and appealing ideology. The liberal democracies of the west have lost their ideological coherence at a crucial time, and this has significant ramifications.

The Domestic Consequences of Trumpism

There are two reasons where I think this failure to create a constructive ideology is really damaging. The first is the domestic consequences. The second is a significant loss in international confidence in the west.

As we have already seen, Trumpism is confused in saying what the alternative to neoliberal technocracy is. It doesn’t seem to give an answer. Good evidence for this is that it has been pursuing contradictory policies and stop-gap solutions. On the one hand it implements protectionist policies that aim to protect US steelworkers and soya bean farmers. On the other it hands out massive tax breaks to the very rich to increase economic growth. Relatively clearly and obviously, this has had mixed and contradictory results. Yes, economic growth may have increased a little at the expense of a caring state. Yet, at the same time, it has done the exact reverse. This contradiction in Trumpism is a worrying ambiguity. Trump has not been able to create some form of new economic model that picks up on the very real concerns his supporters have. Instead, economic structures are going through inertia – they are not changing to the complaints levelled against it. Protectionism is not a sustainable model that takes accounts of the real facts, but is merely a relatively small scale strategy that does not create the sort of structural change needed. Trump’s rise therefore, has discredited the system, but has not had sufficient imagination to produce an alternative.

Similarly, it has also done both what it has said, but also not in relation to the Washington elite. On the one hand, Trump’s persona has remained the prickly, unpredictable antithesis of clean, metropolitan Washington. Trump’s presence in the White House therefore to some extent does stick two fingers up to the Washington elites. At the same time, however, no structural alternative has implemented at Washington. There has been no swamp draining activities. In fact, it’s much the same sort of people in Washington that were there before. Still there, sipping their macchiatos – without Trump’s person, it feels like much would revert back to normal. Trump’s uncompromising nature to all those he fires seems pretty good evidence of this. He has not created a new model of what a ‘Trump politician’ would look like, instead constantly distancing himself from any potential alternative sort of politician.

I am saying this with such confidence because I know this alternative exists. It is present in the UK as we speak. In the UK, the caring state has been integrated into the previous ideological framework to create a new relatively sustainable ideological model. Loosely, Dominic Cummings’ plan is a synthesis. Whether you agree with it or not, you must recognise that Cummings makes a lot more sense that Trump. At the very least Cummings has a plan that aims to simultaneously destroy and create at the same time. He aims to create a model that recognises the justness of complaints against the system, while still maintaining its benefits.

Cummings, for example, sees that there is a need to destroy the power of ‘the blob’, or the bureaucracy. Inimical to progress throughout the British system of governance, Cummings wants their power to be curtailed. He sees that the ‘blob’ prevents the long-term structural change that is needed for positive change in Britain. In some respects this is similar to Trump. Like Trump, it is a basic refutation of part of the old order and a recognition that some things are wrong. However, unlike Trump, it is a constructive reform. Cummings wants something to be put in the place of the current bureaucracy. He wants to change the people in it, and the way they think. This is sensible, I think. It is a big reform where big reforms are needed. It is also very specific, yet at the same time it tackles a lot of things at the same time. Bureaucracy is everywhere, and so this reform will tackle everything. Obviously, this is not the only thing Cummings wants to do, but it shows that sensible solutions can be made to this big problem – and this, rather than anything else, is the key point.

As a result of the failure to create a constructive ideological alternative to technocratic neoliberalism when it is entirely possible, Trump has been unable to deliver the economic and social reforms that he actually wanted. This, in itself is a massive failure by definition. However, it is not the only failure, and I would argue it has only secondary importance.

The Foreign Consequences

Perhaps the greatest, most consequential failure of the Trump Presidency is the massive retreat of US soft power. The process of globalisation has meant that it would be quite hard for Trump’s revision of technocratic neoliberalism to not have international ramifications. As on the domestic front, Trump is reacting against an order that is taking jobs away from the US. Again, this seems like a relatively cohesive, but ultimately only destructive demand. Trump and his supporters are angry, angry against the specifics of an international system, which is fair enough. The problem comes when he translates this anger into policy. What Trump is asking for is significant reform, yet he is not sure what the system he wants looks like. As a result, Trumpism flounders around, making incremental, contradictory and often harmful ideological and policy decisions.

Look at his stance to China, for example. There has been an attempt to get jobs to the US. However, the model that Trump hopes to achieve this with is a confused one. It involves protectionism, trade wars, currency battles and insults. It doesn’t feel as if this is a strategy that is likely to work. He has not committed to total war with China, because he thinks that the costs of this will be too high. As he has not committed to total trade war with China, China has continued to grow economically very quickly. It has been able to outgrow any attempts at keeping it down. At the same time, China has become increasingly conscious that it is in a trade war with the US – and so increasingly is reluctant to work with America. In this way, the USA has burned its bridges with China while doing little to solve its grievances. As a result, it has got the worst of both worlds – an angry, anti-American China and a system which largely outsources to China. This is unfortunate, and is another example of the pure destructiveness of Trumpism.

The core reason I think that there has been a massive retreat of US power across the world, however, is that it has lost its essential ideological confidence. As Alexis de Tocqueville notes, the USA has always had a quasi-religious confidence in its future. This confidence has been essential in creating a sense of cohesion under the USA in the west. It has often meant that the USA has acted as a natural leader of the free world. Think about the Cold War, for example. The supreme self-confidence of the USA’s belief in its values enabled it to undertake policy decisions that more or less were independent from the USA’s self-interest. The Marshall Plan involved the US pumping billions of dollars into Western Europe after World War II to rebuild Europe. Similarly, the Korean, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars were all conceivable because of the US’ confidence in its responsibility to world order. Paradoxically, this gives the US its massive influence – by being so selfless, it becomes almost a disinterested arbiter that only cares about what it thinks is right. This is the basis or US world power, and something that Trump wants to destroy, ironically against the US’ self-interest.

Don’t buy the fact that the US is disinterested? If you don’t, it could be telling.

Traditionally, nations have always tended to claim their legitimacy internationally by appeal to their self-interest. The US is different. It claims its legitimacy for its foreign actions by claiming to act in a disinterested way – usually by recourse to ‘liberty’. The importance is that this is its claim. When we look at those complaining about US foreign policy, they usually only make sense in the light of this claim. The fact that the US claims to be such a moral actor make claims to the contrary have so much sting. What those that complain about the US are therefore doing is not saying the US is uniquely bad. No, what they are saying is that the US’ claims to be morally disinterested are not true. They claim that just like other nations, it ultimately acts only in its self-interest.

The fact that this accusation can be levelled against the US in the first place indicates that it has largely been successful in establishing itself on the moral high ground. At the end of the day, this is really what matters, the perception that the US is doing things to promote the cause of freedom. Whether the USA is actually acting in this moral and aloof fashion is irrelevant because in this case the perception matters. States will be susceptible to ally with the US if they believe it promotes freedom, rather than if it actually does.

This self-confidence has been shattered by Trump. It has lost this because Trump has discredited the old order without providing a model for a new one. No longer can the US claim to be acting in a way that is to promote the cause of freedom – no, because Trump explicitly says otherwise. The desire to put ‘America first’ is a relatively explicit rejection of the inherent morality of American foreign policy. The key here is that Donald Trump has shattered the previous order, while not fully replacing it with one that can fulfil his objectives. Again, Trump pursues a new ideology that rejects the previous order in a confused way.

He mainly does this through creating a new sort of ideology that is not sure what it wants. The USA was so successful at garnering soft power in the past because its Presidents would always promote the cause of freedom. Now, Trump prioritises revising these aims without integrating them into the previous model of world order. By doing this, as well as attacking some undesirable aspects of the previous order – like allowing China to take US jobs – he is attacking US power. The sense that the US is a guiding hand that promotes the cause of liberty has allowed the US to retain legitimacy when it gains global hegemony. It has meant that world leaders have been comfortable letting the USA represent their interests in an informal way. Think about the NATO, for example. Largely, it fell behind the USA in opposing Russia in the 2014 Crimean crisis. This was a response against Russia where the EU allowed the USA to largely act on its behalf, taking the lead role in condemning Russia – despite Ukraine being in the EU’s backyard. Similarly, the US’ role in the high point of its diplomatic clout in the 1991 Iraq War shows much the same thing on a global scale. Kuwait had been invaded by Saddam Hussein, and the US took the leading role in pushing them out – this time with almost unanimous backing from the UN. It is this ‘soft power’ that Trump is destroying. It is this, the ability to act as a moral arbiter, because of the prioritisation of universal ideology over national self-interest that has acted as the cohesion for a US-led order. It is this that Trump has attacked.

Again, this sort of thing could have been avoided, and this is what makes it so tragic. A commitment to freedom and protecting US jobs are not mutually exclusive. A complex revision, as in the UK, could have been made. In fact, it is only because Donald Trump is reacting against the previous order that his demands have any sort of coherence. The need for the US to contain China is a real and pressing one, one that I sympathise with. However, Donald Trump has thrown away the toolkit for doing so sensibly. The US’ biggest asset in tackling China – which the EU, India and even Russia recognise as a threat – is the fact it has such a big role in the way the diplomatic order worked. It is, or at least was, undoubtedly predominant. The way Trump is increasingly discarding this really significant weapon against China, one that works relatively subtlety is a worrying trend.

Conclusion

Most significant forms of Trump’s failure come from the simultaneous destructiveness and ambiguity of his revision to the US’ ideology. In today’s globalised society, this failure cannot help being both domestic and foreign. However, it is clear the long term foreign ramifications are massively consequential and dangerous.

If you value the west, its central ideas and its independence, then an unmanaged rising China should be your key concern. It is a scary thought that there will be a competing set of values present globally, potentially ones that emphasises the geopolitical dominance of China in its own right. These may be ones that don’t cast away totalitarianism or the need for liberal democracy. This external threat, in the form of China, is something we need to limit the potential for damage of with some form of cohesive strategy. It is very unfortunate that the man inside the White House has destroyed a lot of our tools for doing this. Trump has made it a lot harder to deal with the Chinese threat. It is this that I think is Trump’s biggest failure, but it is nevertheless one that shares a root with different forms of Trumpian failure.

Yours,

WFF

Bibliography and Further Reading:

H. Kissinger - World Order

M. D’Ancona - Post-Truth

D. Runciman - Talking Politics (Podcast), Michael Lewis (Updated), Episode 234

E. Luce - The Retreat of Western Liberalism