The Bloom and the Rose (Part III): The Problem of the Political Right

In two previous blogs I tried to argue that Donald Trump is more interesting and more important for what he tells us about US political culture than for what he might actually do as a presidential candidate or political leader. He is made possible, I have argued, by an odd series of cultural currents that confuse fantasy with reality, misjudge and do not understand economics, believe in simple answers to complex problems and that "deals" can be cut, as well as an interesting syncretism that has come to stand in for Christianity in the US. Trump epitomizes these trends. 

There are, of course, other factors. Xenophobia, bigotry, sexism ... and they come in a special form; that is: overt bigotry, etc., denying that it is bigotry. When I listened to crowds chant on video -- built that wall -- I really did start to wonder deeply about the cultural values of those people chanting. It was something that I never expected to hear in my life. But, it clearly speaks to a particular perspective within American culture that is not simply xenophobic or bigoted or sexist, but one which is distraught at not being able to be publicly xenophobic or bigoted or sexist. This is a perspective that sees nothing wrong with evaluating women's looks and speaking openly about female body parts, as if a reference to a women's figure was a complement women should want. This is the most extreme reaction to "political correctness" - a dated and over-used and near meaningless term. It seeks not to curb the extremes of political correctness nor even to reverse the equality agenda. It seeks a way back to a past that, as it were, never really existed: where one could openly and with impunity use epitaphs or recycle insults because "there was nothing wrong with that" as if black people liked to be called niggers (or, even more disturbingly, knew that they were niggers) or women liked to be sexually objectified. This is an odd cultural trajectory that views simple politeness (something we were all encouraged to be by our parents) as oppression.  

These trends are part of what fuels Trump's candidacy. But, I want to argue in this blog, Trump represents and extreme version of this trend because of the way in which right wing politics has developed in the US since the Reagan era. These developments have led to Trump; in fact, they may have made him inevitable. What developments am I talking about? 

Since (and, including) Reagan, the US right wing was willing to play with fire. This may, in fact, date to Nixon's "southern strategy," a political strategy that was intended to win votes in the largely rural and middle-class sections of the white American south because without these votes, the Republicans stood no chance of winning the presidency. With the Democrats dominating organized labour (still powerful then), the youth, and minority votes ... the only easy and ready source of votes available to Republicans -- that did not involve significant changes in their political-economic views -- was the white south. Under Reagan, Republicans continued this strategy wielding together an odd coalition that included evangelical (and, largely southern) Christians, social conservatives, and white middle-class voters who were in the midst of a "tax revolt" blamed largely on the poor and minorities. It was a body that did not stand for a great deal other than militarism in foreign policy because the different parts of this coalition fit poorly together. After all, Christians (the non-syncretic type) should be concerned about tax revolts (render unto Caesar) and concerned about the materialism it prescribed as the solution to social problems (buy more and make yourself feel good). The full-scale embrace of consumerism, in other words, should have given Christians some pause but this pause (if people had it) was put on hold for power.

In short, the Republican party -- a party with a noble history -- was transformed under the weight of political expediency -- into a party of "no". No gun control, no to equality for women, no to the welfare state, no to socialized medicine, etc. It knew no forward looking policies other than the deregulation of capitalism, which has actually served the Republican voting base very poorly. Problems (say, state spending deficits) that should have been addressed in other ways were ascribed to the effects of progressive policies and, in the process, the idea that minorities, women, the poor, workers, etc., were the people to blame for economic problems became attached to a deeply conservative social view that defended itself as "tradition." 

Part of this  trend necessarily became entangled in the troubling and deeply tangled politics of racialization in the US. Noting the depth and importance of this issue, it is likely that this could not have been avoided. The Reagan-Bush era Republican strategy with regard to race was to play on the fears of white people by using imagery and key words. They found ways of opposing affirmative action (relabeled "reverse racism") without actually coming out and saying "we are racist". They talked about a law and order agenda (minimum mandatory sentences, say) without overtly saying "we'll put blacks and Hispanics behind bars in record numbers," even though -- I strongly suspect --that this is what their voters took away from these discussions. 

The points that they were making, without actually making them, were this: you -- poorer or middle class white voter -- are poorer or not as rich as you would like because your taxes are unfairly being taken from you to pay bills for illegal immigrants or black education or women's equality, etc., and if we just did not have these things ... well, without affirmative action, your son would get into a good school. Without feminism, your son would have a better job, etc. I recall a Bush I campaign advert that showed a black criminal getting leave from jail and supposedly attacking white people, which was blamed on the Democrats. 

The point is this: Republican policies were racialized but Republicans tried to maintain their own sense of propriety and dignity. They didn't chant to build walls or talk openly about their wives' or daughters' bodies. Even if this was done regularly behind closed doors, it was understood that this needed to be done behind closed doors. To be overtly racist or sexist would alienate that part of the Republican vote -- the Orange County crowd -- who were not racist and sexist and who were in the Republican gig for purely economic, lower my taxes because I want to buy a new BMW reasons. 

Somewhere along the line, Republican policies and discourse started to radicalize in extreme ways. There were likely a number of reasons for this because, after all, the Republicans had to run against themselves. It was hard for Bush I to fault government for the problems in the US because he'd been VP for the previous eight years. They did, but it got more and more difficult and so the discourse had to become more and more extreme. 

Then came Obama and we discovered that a large section of the white US population just would not accept a black president. But, what is more, a large section of the US population embraced the new syncretic religion that I detailed in another blog. They were willing, for instance, to risk the complete ruin of the US after the global economic meltdown to stick to their principles. They opposed any state involvement in the economy. They cast their supposedly libertarian values aside, on the other hand, and urged new extreme forms of state involvement in civil society. They took their stand against equality for gay people and against whatever vestiges of the welfare state remained and against environmental regulation. They simply did not believe, for instance, that there was an environmental crisis, employing a conspiracy theory that blamed it on "east coast liberals" and egghead academics. They simply gave up trying to find connections between Christianity and science and asserted bluntly that they rejected science. They argued for the more stringent regulation of women's bodies and opposed (in the case of Arizona) holidays that recognized the important contribution of the civil rights movement to the US. 

And, there were other things, too. They saw themselves embroiled in a deep culture war that was epitomized by the idea of equality for LGBTQ and argued that their freedom of religion was infringed if LGBTQ people were treated equally. They argued that they had the *right* to be bigoted, to refuse service to, say, a gay man if they did not like gay people for supposedly religious reasons (needless to say, this is a shockingly -- embarrassingly? -- selective reading of scripture). Finally, they decided that the great stand needed to be made against the tiny percentage of Trans people in the US because, for reasons that they never explained, Trans people were a threat to children. 

From one perspective, this is all very confusing. I suspect -- and will try to produce a discussion of this at some point in the future -- that there are deeper reasons afoot that relate to the ways in which the liberal state made peace, as it were, with conservative elements of it. But, on the surface, one needs to admit that these views make no sense. How, for instance, does equality for a gay person threaten me or my marriage or my children or my country? It simply does not and Canada stands, in an important way, as testament to that. How could one argue *against* stabilizing the economy after 2008? How could one believe that collapsing banks, homelessness, and skyrocketing unemployment were in the national interest? 

How did this produce Trump? Well, these voices -- in the form of the Tea Party -- gravitated to the Republican Party (or, were already in it) and have been looking, metaphorically, for a political savoir for a long time. They tried Sarah Palin but she was such a joke that ultimately even those voices of  extreme decent had to abandon her.  They tried Michelle Bachman but found that her brand of extremism played poorly on the national stage. They had previously gravitated to such luminaries as Dan Quayle (was he the worst VP ever?) and more recently Ted Cruz tried to recruit them to his bandwagon only to discover that they had already decided Trump was their man. Said differently, this branch of American Republicanism has been looking for a leader who spoke their language, who believed what they believed, and who was as immune to reason as they were for some time. 

Let's pause and try to be as charitable and as objective as we can be. Palin ultimately had to confess that she didn't read very much, didn't understand at least some of the policies she was supporting, and -- by implication - had little idea about foreign policy or even, it seemed, basic international geography. If I were running for office and I put those qualifications before you (a lack of understanding of policy, a failure to read up on issues, a lack of understanding of international issues on a basic level) ... would you vote for me? Yet, it did not affect her supporters. When she opted to become a reality TV ... I won't say "star" because her show was yanked ... personality, it illustrated another connection between that branch of the Republican Party and her and illustrated her similarities to Trump. The fact that her life -- expensive tastes when bought on someone else's dime and a family that stood in contradiction to everything that she supposedly stood for -- gave a lie to the cliches she spouted ... her followers -- including Trump -- were nonplussed. They focused on what she said; not whether or not she actually believed or enacted what she said. 

How does this all make Trump possible? The Tea Party wing of the Republicanism that supported Sarah Palin was unleashed by the mainstream of the Party which thought -- and perhaps for good reason -- that it (the extremists in the Party) could be controlled. They wanted the votes of extremists (of those who denied science, for instance) because it fit with their desire not to rein in big business on environmental questions. They wanted the votes of right wing anarchists -- who call themselves libertarians -- because they needed them. But, they never actually thought those people would be more in the way of followers. They (the leadership) played with fire. And, ultimately, they got burned as bad as the people who they were trying to burn. I don't necessarily blame them (well, I might blame them ... but that is another blog) because they were successful. The extremist wing of the party (xenophobes and homophobes and sexists, etc.) were kept under wraps through Nixon and until Bush II, but as Democrats took more and more of the reasonable vote, Republicans were pushed to more and more extreme rhetoric and they found out that once they had let the extremists into the Party ... well, they had a voice and votes and control. 

Trump is, in many ways, the logical fulfillment of Nixon's "southern strategy."  The southern strategy was, of course, not actually about the south except to the extent that Republicans wanted to appeal to deeply conservative white voters who happened to reside there. They had precious little interest in other sectors of southern votes (say, poor blacks or the urban working class). Today, they have little interest in that large section of  the south who are Hispanic (other than Cuban refugees). Each step along the line that mainstream Republicans took to win elections cost them support in other sectors of society and left their core base of support in the hands of a more and more extreme group of people. Today, it is almost impossible to find a "moderate Republican". And, no wonder ... if you were moderate, would you support Trump? 

Trump's successes, then, do not accrue to him, but to the demise of moderation within the Republican Party and the degree to which it implicit condoned extremism in the believe that they could control. Trump's early success illustrates that they cannot. 

The Bloom and the Rose II: The Culture of Trump's Economics

Some time ago -- before I got distracted by religious schooling and free tuition -- one of the things about which I was writing was Donald Trump. I don't mean my comments as a critique of Trump.  There are a goodly number of those already and I don't really have much to add to them. This video is actually rather good and if you are interested in a thoughtful critique, I'd recommend that you start here.

In my last post on Trump, I tried to make two points.  The first point I tried to make was that what is interesting about Donald Trump is not Donald Trump. Some people are enthused by what he says; others frustrated, upset, or worried about it. In this blog I am suggesting that we see it as political theatre that provides a window into an evolving dynamic of American culture. Trump is important for what he says, and I will get to that in this blog at some point in time. To say things are political theatre is not to minimize their importance. They are important, but I'll address that in a future blog. What I mean is that Trump is not the author of his own "success." Instead, he represents the culmination of a series of historical and cultural trends. One of those trends, I tried to argue, (and this is the second point) is a certain syncretism that marks an evolution of American Christianity. I went into that in detail in my last blog and so won't repeat it here. What it means, in short, however, is that Trump does not have to win the support of evangelical leaders in the US (as some news stories have suggested) because he already has that support. A high profile conservative evangelical or two might object to Trump but large numbers of "rank and file" do not. They are not concerned about his lifestyle, his approach to marriage, his lack of knowledge of scripture, and a mea culpa or two on his supposed support for women's right to choose will be all that is needed on that front. Why? Because Trump's ideology may indeed be inconsistent with Christianity (for instance ... loving your neighbour, caring for the poor, loving money, being slow to anger, etc.) but it is not inconsistent with the syncretic religion that calls itself Christianity in contemporary America.

(Proviso that can be skipped: I hasten to add, that I am not criticizing this religion. I support freedom of religion and I'm Canadian so the degree to which I should intervene in American public life is limited. After all, Canadians don't appreciate it when Americans tell them what to do with their government  and I don't want to flip that over and start  telling Americans what there business should be. I am, instead, analyzing American public life using Trump as a prism to try to understand where it now stands.)

What I would like to do in this blog is shift ground and look at Trump's economics. My goal here is not to review economic theory or debates in economics but, again, to conduct a cultural analysis that points to its appeal among a certain section of the US population. What is that appeal? It is,  I think, encapsulated in Trump's assertion that he can cut a deal with the US's creditors to lower the debt and hence free up money to do things with. Now, on the one hand, this is an interesting idea. It hasn't worked well for Greece but ... its not a new idea: international debt restructuring. Its merits aside, however, why does this appeal to people?  It seems to me that there are a couple of reasons.

First, it appeals because most people -- perhaps including Trump -- don't understand the US debt. Debt is often incredibly poorly understood because it is put out there either as (a) a boogeyman to be avoided at all costs or (b) not a problem. It is, in fact, neither. The US debt, in my view, is too high and the US should do something about it, provided that is done in a fair and just way. But, this is precisely the course of action that the US has not taken. As US debt has skyrocketed, in fact, the US has done the opposite of what it should so. It continued to outpace the rest of the world (almost combined, I think) in military spending. Its cut taxes, particularly on the rich, refused to regulate the very capital markets that caused the latest economic downturn, and its tried to find ways of squeezing surplus revenue out of those who can least afford to have that surplus revenue squeezed out of them: poor people, sick people, unemployed people.

Donald Trump has, of course, been a master of this and, in this regard, he represents -- which is why I am talking about him -- precisely that trend in US economic. He has substituted real things (businesses that make things) for businesses that don't (get rich quick schemes like Trump U) or "reality" TV shows that substitute an artificial voyeuristic culture peeping in on the rich and famous for real life. I'm not at all surprised that Trump made a good showing for the US Republican nomination precisely because he represents this cultural trend so well because he is part of it (although, I am surprised, but not in retrospect -- which I'll get to -- that he won). His economics, in this sense, are the economics of easy answers: of take this course and get rich or win a contest and get rich. They are the stuff of dreams and I think this is important because we need to ask whose dream and why?

None of Trump economics, however, have much to do with actual debt and actual work or even actual economics. Watching an apprentice get fired on a reality TV show is not the same as being an actual apprentice or losing one's job. Likewise, taking a get-rich-quick course (and late night TV used to be littered with these but with Trump U they went mainstream) is not the same as getting rich. In fact, get-rich-quick schemes may impede security in wealth. Why?

Ask yourself this: what do get-rich-quick schemes sell? They don't actually sell you wealth. They take your wealth and sell you a promise that if you do X, Y, and Z, you will become wealthy or at least have security. They do so, often, in a very simplistic way: everyone can do this is usually one of the tag lines (or, what the rich don't want you to know). They are often also littered with cliche-ed expressions like "dream big" "take risks" "dare to be successful.," as if the problems with income security were a lack of dreams.  This stuff, of course, works because the person taking the course or buying the scheme thinks ... I can dream; I can dare. But -- and this is the punchline -- how does the person selling the get-rich-quick scheme actually make their money?  They make their money whether you -- the person buying the scheme -- gets rich or not because they are not selling you wealth. They are selling you the scheme. And, that is what they make their money on. Does the scheme work? To the buyer, this is -- or, should be -- an important question. To the seller, it is technically irrelevant. The person selling you (or, me) the get-rich-quick scheme might want you to get rich but it is not necessary because they have made their money off you already.

Why is this important to Trump economics? It is important because it highlights one of the problems that is associated with the cultural perspectives on economics that bring us to Trump: a confusion of fantasy for reality. The idea that wealth is just out there, somewhere around the corner, if you just have the will to go after it, animates those who bought into Trump U and the economics that Trump highlights. In what passes for economics in his speeches, he talks about cutting deals and being tough and forcing others -- bending them, perhaps -- to one's will. He knows how to do it, you just have to trust him ... as thousands of Americans every year trust get-rich-quick schemes.

The second thing to note that follows from the first -- the confusion of fantasy and reality and the drastic simplification of economic issues -- is the idea that a get-rich-quick scheme can save the US. All that is needed, say with regard to national debt, is the right deal. In effect, this line of argument says "we all know what the problem is. We just need the right deal to make it happen." But, that line of argument actually confuses the problem and builds on xenophobia. For one reason or another, Americans have become preoccupied with China and their debt and Chinese business interests do own a good chunk of the American debt but ... not that much. The figure is likely somewhere around 10%. The vast, vast majority of the US debt is owned by ... Americans.  It is convenient to fault the Chinese -- an international rival against whom there are long-standing prejudices in American culture -- for the problems that beset the US economy but it would not be true. Somewhere between 2/3rds and 70% of the US debt is owned by Americans. Cutting a deal with China, in other words (or, in Trump's language forcing them to accept a deal) would only deal with about 10 cents on the dollar. The only debt holder of US debt large enough to make a real difference for the US economy is Americans. So, the truth of the matter is that a deal has to be cut with Americans, something that is conveniently not discussed in discussions of the US debt.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say that Trump is right, and there is a deal to be made with American creditors, what would happen? Imagine that Trump decided -- allowing he was US President -- to pay back only a percentage of the US debt, say 85%, which is the figure I think he mentioned. What that means is that Chinese business (or, perhaps even the state) interests would take a 15% hit on their investment, but ... so would a lot of Americans. Retirement funds, education savings, health care funds, life savings ... my guess is that we'd find a great deal of these things are actually invested in US debt. (For instance, if you or a member of your family ever bought a Canada savings bond -- they are sold through my workplace -- you own a chunk of the Canadian debt. Same in the US.) What happens then? The average middle class person who works 9 to 5 suddenly discovers that their retirement is worth 15% less; their children's educational funds are worth 15% less; they have 15% less in the rainy day investment and in the money they set aside in case they were ill. Said differently, the medicine might be worse than the disease. The only people Trump's economic policy stands to hurt is the very people who seem to be, oddly, lining up to vote for him.

What is my take-away point? Several. Trump's economics make sense because they hit a particular set of cultural values in the US. They confuse fantasy with reality, suggest that there are really simple answers "out there," blame foreigners, and potentially harm the very people supporting him. Its an odd set of cultural and political processes that is predicated, ultimately, by a serious lack of knowledge that relates to economics.

The Bloom is Off the Rose? Looking Over the Border at Donald Trump

Americans will vote for whom they will. That is the character and nature of democracy, however imperfectly realized. And, I have listened too long and too often to people explaining that "we" (whomever "we" is) can disregard the leaders of Country X or Country Y because that leader has not *really* been elected democratically, not really ... to cast that line at the US. I am skeptical about it when American leaders use it, I won't use it against the US.

This said, just about everyone and their dog wants to try to explain Donald Trump. Canadians -- who, of necessity, must look across the border -- perhaps as much or more than others. Just about every day there is another column explaining Trump's popularity. I have my own views, some of which will come out in this blog. But, I think focusing on recent history -- the alienation of the white middle and working classes, for instance -- misses some key points that can be provided by an assessment that takes into account a longer time span, even if only slightly longer. Trump, I will suggest, is a combination of a series of historical processes. He is one of those figures about whom we might say: if he did not exist, he'd have to be invented. In other words, Trump's popularity likely has little to do with Trump himself and more to do with a series of trajectories that expose the fault lines of American society and the ways in which certain cultural and ideological trends have come to fulfillment. What might these be? Several. Let me address one in this blog and come back to others in future blogs.

Let's begin with the influence of Christianity on American politics. Let me be clear: I am not trying to say that Trump is a Christian or that Christianity, whatever that might precisely be in abstract, is responsible for Trump. What I am trying to say is that American Christianity is an unstable ideology. Christians can show up in a North Carolina we-are-desperate-to-find-some-way-to-still-legally-discriminate-against-gays-law and in Michael Moore films. We could spend a great deal of time -- perhaps profitably -- arguing about what constitutes true Christianity, but we'll save that for some other day. For now, what we need to understand is that being a Christian means different things to different people. While I have a strong sense that this is changing, Christian has come to mean certain things in US public life where it is associated not with the moderation of Obama but with conservative views. And, conservative views have, themselves, come to be associated with opposition to gay equality, patriarchal views, support for neo-liberalism, opposition to women's control of their own bodies, and matters like that. In other words, it is not a conservatism that Canadians in the Red Tory tradition would easily recognize or claim. Nor, does it represent the genial paternalistic conservatism of old east coast elite Republicans. I'll come back to that because it is important.

I read a story the other day saying that American conservative evangelical leaders are not sold on Trump and making his selection of a VP candidate -- someone to their liking -- a test of whether or not they will support him. But, that might not be relevant at all. Polls in the last few primaries showed that self-identified Christians were voting for Trump in greater numbers than Cruz (who had self-identified himself as their champion) and this is without any urging from their leaders. IOW, self-identifying conservative evangelicals in the US were already moving to Trump. Why?

That is not an idle question. Trump has little to do with Christianity in just about any form. His moral standards simply don't meet the standards that conservative evangelicals set for society. So, what does their support of him say? It might say that there is some hypocrisy here, but I'd be loath to use that term. Instead, I think that conservative American Christianity is more a syncretic religion than a Christian religion and Trump captures a great deal of the syncretism. He claims, for instance, to love scripture and the Bible yet knows little about it. Oddly, only his critics (say, liberals) have pointed this out. He claims to support Christianity, yet his personal behaviour indicates that his support is shaky at best (let's skip over the marriage issues he's had to think about injunctions to modesty, building up with praise, being a good neighbour, loving God and your neighbour, feeding the poor, etc.).  Trump's Christianity, if we can call it that, is a Christianity that does not take scripture seriously. It does not struggle with it; it does not wrestle with its implications; it does not shun the love of money as the root of all the world's problems; it is not self-sacrificial but self-aggrandizing. Said differently, even if we can say with some certainty (and, I think we can) that American Christianity is an unstable ideological formation, Trump's appeal to Christians -- and, he does appeal, or so polls tell us -- is odd.

Many Christians are, rightly, willing to forgive and forget and not be judgmental. And, that is right. From what I know it is a scripturally sound principle. But, they are not willing to forgive and forget some people and Trump articulates this. They are not, for instance, willing to believe that Mexicans should be forgiven and that judgement should be left to God. The folks in North Carolina seem to harbour a special animosity to trans-gendered people who, without evidence or reason, they view as a threat to their children. Even if one could argue that there is a forgiving and moving on with regard to Trump (which would be fair from a Christian perspective), there is that odd problem that the same thing does not seem to apply to other people whose sins are far less evident. Indeed, they are people who, in many ways, with whom one might find a meeting of minds. Many are Christians, many came to the US to make a better world for their children (family values), and many work in horribly-paid jobs with little future in order to make that happen (hard word, self-sacrifice). Yet, there is a desire to build a wall and to deport.

We could, given the time, draw a bunch of other connections: cherry-picking of scripture, commitment to consumerism, adoption of the culture of the world, hostility and anger (supporting someone who suggests that protesters should be violently assaulted) ... These things come together in an odd combination when merged with American Christianity.

The more important question is: what are we to make of this? Well, we should not take the popularity of Trump as an indication of the stupidity of Americans. For those of us who are not Americans -- who watch US life from across the border -- this injunction is even more true. Nor, do I think, should we focus on Trump as a person. Instead, what is most interesting and important about Trump is not who he is but what he signifies. He is, as I said above, someone who would have had to have been invented if he did not already exist. Perhaps, in some ways, he has been invented (but I'll comment on that in the future). Trump's popularity, for this reason, can become a bit of an ethnographic study. It can show us things about the evolution and current state of American culture. What we can understand in his popularity, then, is several trends and the first of these I'd argue is a syncretic religion. A Christianity that has detached itself from scripture (for Trump's Christian supporters) and, in important ways, ignores it.  This syncretic religion is a religion that is interested in statements of faith -- overt and loud commitments to the Bible or scripture -- but seemingly also uninterested in what is said after that loud commitment (a statement of protection for Christmas, say) has been made and whether or not it illustrates any understanding whatsoever of scripture.

This is not hypocrisy, I am arguing. It represents a syncretic blend of Christianity with other, secular perspectives that for a long time and by an influential group of Christians have been associated with Christianity in the US (say, concerns about immigration or the equality of women). This does not, in any way, represent all Christians but what it shows is that for some Christianity has become a syncretic religion that accepts decidedly unChristian elements fusing them into some new religious perspective that finds, in Trump, an image worth of support. The syncretic religion did not make Trump but, I suggest, it is one of the things that made him possible.