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By Prof. James Petras
Global Research, January 28, 2017

During his inaugural speech, President Trump clearly and forcefully outlined the strategic political-economic policies he will pursue over the next four years.  Anti-Trump journalist, editorialists, academics and experts, who appear in the Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have repeatedly distorted and lied about the President’s program as well as his critique of existing and past policies. 

We will begin by seriously discussing President Trump’s critique of the contemporary political economy and proceed to elaborate on his alternatives and its weaknesses.

President Trump’s Critique of the Ruling Class

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he centerpiece of Trump’s critique of the current ruling elite is the negative impact of its form of globalization on US production, trade and fiscal imbalances and on the labor market.  Trump cites the fact that US industrial capitalism has drastically shifted the locus of its investments, innovations and profits overseas as an example of globalization’s negative effects.  For two decades many politicians and pundits have bemoaned the loss of well-paid jobs and stable local industries as part of their campaign rhetoric or in public meetings, but none have taken any effective action against these most harmful aspects of globalization.  Trump denounced them as “all talk and no action” while promising to end the empty speeches and implement major changes.

President Trump targeted importers who bring in cheap products from overseas manufacturers for the American market undermining US producers and workers.  His economic strategy of prioritizing US industries is an implicit critique of the shift from productive capital to financial and speculative capital under the previous four administrations.  His inaugural address attacking the elites who abandon the ‘rust belt’ for Wall Street is matched by his promise to the working class: “Hear these words!  You will never be ignored again.” Trump’s own words portray the ruling class ‘as pigs at the trough’ (Financial Times, 1/23/2017, p. 11)

Trump’s Political-Economic Critique

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]resident Trump emphasizes market negotiations with overseas partners and adversaries.  He has repeatedly criticized the mass media and politicians’ mindless promotion of free markets and aggressive militarism as undermining the nation’s capacity to negotiate profitable deals.

President Trump’s immigration policy is closely related to his strategic ‘America First’ labor policy.  Massive inflows of immigrant labor have been used to undermine US workers’ wages, labor rights and stable employment.  This was first documented in the meat packing industry, followed by textile, poultry and construction industries.  Trump’s proposal is to limit immigration to allow US workers to shift the balance of power between capital and labor and strengthen the power of organized labor to negotiate wages, conditions and benefits.  Trump’s critique of mass immigration is based on the fact that skilled American workers have been available for employment in the same sectors if wages were raised and work conditions were improved to permit dignified, stable living standards for their families.

President Trump’s Political Critique

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]rump points to trade agreements, which have led to huge deficits, and concludes that US negotiators have been failures.  He argues that previous US presidents have signed multi-lateral agreements, to secure military alliances and bases, at the expense of negotiating job-creating economic pacts.  His presidency promises to change the equation:  He wants to tear up or renegotiate unfavorable economic treaties while reducing US overseas military commitments and demands NATO allies shoulder more of their own defense budgets.  Immediately upon taking office Trump canceled the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and convoked a meeting with Canada and Mexico to renegotiate NAFTA.

Trump’s agenda has featured plans for hundred-billion dollar infrastructure projects, including building controversial oil and gas pipelines from Canada to the US Gulf.  It is clear that these pipelines violate existing treaties with indigenous people and threaten ecological mayhem.  However, by prioritizing the use of American-made construction material and insisting on hiring only US workers, his controversial policies will form the basis for developing well-paid American jobs.

The emphasis on investment and jobs in the US is a complete break with the previous Administration, where President Obama focused on waging multiple wars in the Middle East , increasing public debt and the trade deficit.

Trump’s inaugural address issued a stern promise: “The American carnage stops right now and stops right here!”  This resonated with a huge sector of the working class and was spoken before an assemblage of the very architects of four decades of job-destroying globalization.  ‘Carnage’ carried a double meaning:  Widespread carnage resulted from Obama and other administrations’ destruction of domestic jobs resulting in decay and bankruptcy of rural, small town and urban communities.  This domestic carnage was the other side of the coin of their policies of conducting endless overseas wars spreading carnage to three continents.  The last fifteen years of political leadership spread domestic carnage by allowing the epidemic of drug addiction (mostly related to uncontrolled synthetic opiate prescriptions) to kill hundreds of thousands of mostly young Americans and destroy the lives of millions.  Trump promised to finally address this ‘carnage’ of wasted lives.   Unfortunately, he did not hold ‘Big Pharma’ and the medical community responsible for its role in spreading drug addiction into the deepest corners of the economically devastated rural America .  Trump criticized previous elected officials for authorizing huge military subsidies to ‘allies’ while making it clear that his critique did not include US military procurement policies and would not contradict his promise to ‘reinforce old alliances’ (NATO).

Truth and Lies: Garbage Journalists and Arm Chair Militarists

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]mong the most outrageous example of the mass media’s hysteria about Trump’s New Economy is the systematic and vitriolic series of fabrications designed to obscure the grim national reality that Trump has promised to address.  We will discuss and compare the accounts published by ‘garbage journalists (GJ’s)’ and present a more accurate version of the situation.

The respectable garbage journalists of the Financial Times claim that Trump wants to ‘destroy world trade’.  In fact, Trumps has repeatedly stated his intention to increase international trade.  What Trump proposes is to increase US world trade from the inside, rather than from overseas.  He seeks to re-negotiate the terms of multilateral and bilateral trade agreements to secure greater reciprocity with trading partners.  Under Obama, the US was more aggressive in imposing trade tariffs that any other country in the OECD.

Garbage journalists label Trump as a ‘protectionist’, confusing his policies to re-industrialize the economy with autarky.  Trump will promote exports and imports, retain an open economy, while increasing the role of the US as a producer and exporter.. The US will become more selective in its imports.  Trump will favor the growth of manufacturing exporters and increase imports of primary commodities and advanced technology while reducing the import of automobiles, steel and household consumer products.

Trump’s opposition to ‘globalization’ has been conflated by the garbage journalists of the Washington Post as a dire threat to the ‘the post-Second World War economic order’.  In fact, vast changes have already rendered the old order obsolete and attempts to retain it have led to crises, wars and more decay.  Trump has recognized the obsolete nature of the old economic order and stated that change is necessary.

The Obsolete Old Order and the Dubious New Economy

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]t the end of the Second World War, most of Western Europe and Japan resorted to highly restrictive ‘protectionist’ industrial and monetary policies to rebuild their economies.  Only after a period of prolonged recovery did Germany and Japan carefully and selectively liberalize their economic policies.

In recent decades, Russia was drastically transformed from a powerful collectivist economy to a capitalist vassal-gangster oligarchy and more recently to a reconstituted mixed economy and strong central state.  China has been transformed from a collectivist economy, isolated from world trade, into the world’s second most powerful economy, displacing the US as Asia and Latin America ’s largest trading partner.

Once controlling 50% of world trade, the US share is now less than 20%.  This decline is partly due to the dismantling of its industrial economy when its manufacturers moved their factories abroad.

Despite the transformation of the world order, recent US presidents have failed to recognize the need to re-organize the American political economy.  Instead of recognizing, adapting and accepting shifts in power and market relations, they sought to intensify previous patterns of dominance through war, military intervention and bloody destructive ‘regime changes’ – thus devastating, rather than creating markets for US goods. Instead of recognizing China’s immense economic power and seek to re-negotiate trade and co-operative agreements, they have stupidly excluded China from regional and international trade pacts, to the extent of crudely bullying their junior Asian trade partners, and launching a policy of military encirclement and provocation in the South China Seas.  While Trump recognized these changes and the need to renegotiate economic ties, his cabinet appointees seek to extend Obama’s militarist policies of confrontation.

Under the previous administrations, Washington ignored Russia ’s resurrection, recovery and growth as a regional and world power.  When reality finally took root, previous US administrations increased their meddling among the Soviet Union’s former allies and set up military bases and war exercises on Russia ’s borders.  Instead of deepening trade and investment with Russia, Washington spent billions on sanctions and military spending – especially fomenting the violent putchist regime in Ukraine .  Obama’s policies promoting the violent seizure of power in Ukraine, Syria and Libya were motivated by his desire to overthrow governments friendly to Russia – devastating those countries and ultimately strengthening Russia’s will to consolidate and defend its borders and to form new strategic alliances.

Early in his campaign, Trump recognized the new world realities and proposed to change the substance, symbols, rhetoric and relations with adversaries and allies – adding up to a New Economy.

First and foremost, Trump looked at the disastrous wars in the Middle East and recognized the limits of US military power:  The US could not engage in multiple, open-ended wars of conquest and occupation in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia without paying major domestic costs.

Secondly, Trump recognized that Russia was not a strategic military threat to the United States.  Furthermore, the Russian government under Vladimir Putin was willing to cooperate with the US to defeat a mutual enemy – ISIS and its terrorist networks.  Russia was also keen to re-open its markets to the US investors, who were also anxious to return after years of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry imposed sanctions.  Trump, the realist, proposes to end sanctions and restore favorable market relations.

Thirdly, it is clear to Trump that the US wars in the Middle East imposed enormous costs with minimal benefits for the US economy.  He wants to increase market relations with the regional economic and military powers, like Turkey , Israel and the Gulf monarchies.  Trump is not interested in Palestine , Yemen , Syria or the Kurds – which do not offer much investment and trade opportunities.  He ignores the enormous regional economic and military power of Iran.  Nevertheless Trump has proposed to re-negotiate the recent six-nation agreement with Iran in order to improve the US side of the bargain.  His hostile campaign rhetoric against Tehran may have been designed to placate Israel and its powerful domestic ‘Israel-Firsters’ fifth column.  This certainly came into conflict with his ‘America First’ pronouncements.  It remains to be seen whether Donald Trump will retain a ‘show’ of submission to the Zionist project of an expansionist Israel while proceeding to include Iran as a part of his regional market agenda.

The Garbage Journalists claim that Trump has adopted a new bellicose stance toward China and threatens to launch a ‘protectionist agenda’, which will ultimately push the trans-Pacific countries closer to Beijing .  On the contrary, Trump appears intent on renegotiating and increasing trade via bilateral agreements.

Trump will most probably maintain, but not expand, Obama’s military encirclement of China ’s maritime boundaries which threaten its vital shipping routes.  Nevertheless, unlike Obama, Trump will re-negotiate economic and trade relations with Beijing – viewing China as a major economic power and not a developing nation intent on protecting its ‘infant industries’.  Trump’s realism reflect the new economic order:  China is a mature, highly competitive, world economic power, which has been out-competing the US , in part by retaining its own state subsidies and incentives from its earlier economic phase.  This has led to significant imbalances.  Trump, the realist, recognizes that China offers great opportunities for trade and investment if the US can secure reciprocal agreements, which lead to a more favorable balance of trade.

Trump does not want to launch a ‘trade war’ with China , but he needs to restore the US as a major ‘exporter’ nation in order to implement his domestic economic agenda.  The negotiations with the Chinese will be very difficult because the US importer-elite are against the Trump agenda and side with the Beijing ’s formidable export-oriented ruling class.

Moreover, because Wall Street’s banking elite is pleading with Beijing to enter China ’s financial markets, the financial sector is an unwilling and unstable ally to Trump’s pro-industrial policies.

Conclusion

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]rump is not a ‘protectionist’, nor is he opposed to ‘free-trade’.  These charges by the garbage journalists are baseless.  Trump does not oppose US economic imperialist policies abroad.  However, Trump is a market realist who recognizes that military conquest is costly and, in the contemporary world context, a losing economic proposition for the US .  He recognizes that the US must turn from a predominant finance and import economy to a manufacturing and export economy.

Trump views Russia as a potential economic partner and military ally in ending the wars in Syria , Iraq , Afghanistan and Ukraine , and especially in defeating the terrorist threat of ISIS .  He sees China as a powerful economic competitor, which has been taking advantage of outmoded trade privileges and wants to re-negotiate trade pacts in line with the current balance of economic power.

Trump is a capitalist-nationalist, a market-imperialist and political realist, who is willing to trample on women’s rights, climate change legislation, indigenous treaties and immigrant rights.  His cabinet appointments and his Republican colleagues in Congress are motivated by a militarist ideology closer to the Obama-Clinton doctrine than to Trump’s new ‘America First’ agenda.  He has surrounded his Cabinet with military imperialists, territorial expansionists and delusional fanatics.

Who will win out in the short or long term remains to be seen.  What is clear is that the liberals, Democratic Party hacks and advocates of Little Mussolini black shirted street thugs will be on the side of the imperialists and will find plenty of allies among and around the Trump regime.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Prof. James Petras, Global Research, 2017

 James Petras is a retired Bartle Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada who has published on Latin American and Middle Eastern political issues.  

MAIN IMAGE:

ABOVE IMAGE: FRENCH MUSLIMS, DEEPLY RESENTED IN MANY QUARTERS, CONSTITUTE TODAY AN UNAVOIDABLE PRESENCE IN METROPOLITAN FRANCE, THE PRODUCT OF A COLONIALIST PAST AND THE NATION’S SUBSERVIENCE TO NEOLIBERAL POLICIES EMANATING FROM WASHINGTON.

OPEDS | DEENA STRYKER

(To appreciate the extent of the Times’ misleading account, see my essay, Post-Modernism and ‘Alt’ and “New’ Rights in the Appendix below.)

As someone who lived in both Eastern and Western Europe for half a lifetime, I’d long ago given up hope that Europe would ever grow up. In a book published in the nineteen eighties, I urged France to take the lead in weaning Europe away from the US and its Cold War that, had it turned hot, would have been fought on European soil. Francois Mitterand, President at the time, didn’t even want to see Germany reunited, much less welcome the countries of Eastern Europe into the EU (at that time still the European Economic Community). It pains me to say that regarding these countries that had never managed to be part of the ‘West’, Mitterand was right – although for the wrong reasons. Since becoming part of the EU, Eastern Europe has led the rejection of Muslim immigrants, partly, perhaps, because it had been occupied by the Ottoman Turks for several centuries — proud to have been a bulwark between Islam and Western Europe.

The situation to which the Times article merely alludes, is now is the following: Hungary, a country whose origins hark back to vaguely defined areas of Asia, has led the erection of new walls against Muslims, initiating the turn of the entire ‘continent’ (actually the Eurasian peninsula), toward Russia, which under Vladimir Putin, is inventing a new type of nationalism that is more left than right. (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Post-Modernism-and-the-Al-by-Deena-Stryker-Alternative_America_Anti-semitic_Conformity-160916-717.html  

A few months ago, after the US had twisted the EU’s arm to enact sanctions against Russia for ‘annexing Crimea’ and ‘invading Ukraine’, its monolithic adherence to ‘Atlanticism’ began to crack for the first time since World War II. French and Italian parliamentary delegations actually dared to visit Crimea, ascertaining that reattachment to Russia was indeed the will of the overwhelming majority, as expressed in a hastily organized referendum; but at the time, Europe’s ingrained obedience still dictated official policies, however much the sanctions hurt.

As Russia showed that it was a force to be reckoned with in Syria – and an ally that could be trusted by its legally elected president, Bashar al Assad, some rumblings could be heard off-the European stage: Europe should have its own army, and not be dependent on NATO (even as its military was obediently getting into formation for the drive up to Russia’s western borders). Finally, as 2016 draws to a close, the President of the European Commission, the highest body in the complicated EU edifice, Jean-Claude Junker (a former head of the tiny country of Luxembourg, where both French and German are spoken) has dared to say that Europe cannot survive without a strong relationship with Russia. As if on cue, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, has been making ever louder objections to Washington’s heavy handed policies in Europe, proclaiming loudly that the EU is no longer dependent on American foreign policy and should defend its own interests, moving ahead with its own army.  (BTW, the Times article neglects to link President-elect Trump’s attitude toward NATO to the movement developing in Europe.)

The days when France stood up to Washington, a postwar epoch bracketed by fiercely anglophobic Charles de Gaulle and old-fashioned socialist François Mitterand, is no more. Europe today is ruled by  a coterie of Washington lackeys. The rise of a new complexioned right is partly derived from such betrayals, much as is the case on the American side of the Atlantic.

The days when France stood up to Washington, a postwar epoch bracketed by fiercely anglophobic Charles de Gaulle and old-fashioned socialist François Mitterand, is no more. Europe today is ruled by  a coterie of Washington lackeys typified by Hollande and Merkel. The rise of a new complexioned right is partly derived from such betrayals, much as is the case on the American side of the Atlantic.

Interestingly, Junker’s latest words about Russia, claiming that it is not a ‘regional power’ as President Obama has called it condescendingly, contradict Vladimir Putin’s calls for a ‘multi-polar world whose poles would be the US, Russia, China and India, ending US hegemony. In today’s world, fraught with the danger of the second cold war turning hot, labels are no minor detail. In my 1989 book Une autre Europe, un autre Monde , which only a small academic house would publish, I pointed out, as the US was installing Pershing missiles in West Germany against the wishes of the European peace movement, that any war with the then Soviet Union would be fought on European — not American — soil. 

Twenty-five years later, although Europe is whole, that war could happen: not because Soviet tanks threaten to come rumbling across the European central plain, but because the US has positioned thousands of soldiers, tanks, and the latest smart weapons, precisely among Eastern European countries that have repeatedly served as the invasion corridor to Russia. NATO encourages the three tiny Baltic nations — about whom I will write in an upcoming post – to clamor relentlessly that they are in danger of being taken over again by their immense neighbor, while Russia, in reality, is busy strengthening its relations across the Eurasian ‘continent of giants’.  My book made the point that Europe had nothing to fear from the Soviet Union because it too, was among those several giants that constitute Eurasia, rather than the potential victim of one of them.

It has taken three decades for the Europeans to realize that their partnership with a giant across the ocean makes no sense, and start thinking about their role among equals. (A quick look at book titles about Russia and its president on amazon.fr shows that most of the titles appear to be pro-Russian, while such books are almost non-existent in the US. Nor are any of President Putin’s speeches published by US media.  ]

His end of year address to the Russian Federal Assembly can be found here in English:  http://en.kremlin.ru

Deena Stryker was born in Philadelphia, but spent most of her adolescent and adult years in Europe. She began her journalistic career at the French News Agency in Rome, spent two years in Cuba finding out whether the Cuban revolutionaries were Communists before they made the revolution. After spending half a decade in Eastern Europe, and a decade in the U.S., studying Global Survival and writing speeches in the Carter State Department, she wrote the only book that foresaw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union ("Une autre Europe, un autre Monde'). Her memoir, 'Lunch with Fellini, Dinner with Fidel', tells it all. 'A Taoist Politics: The Case for Sacredness’ examines the similarities between ancient wisdom and modern science and what this implies for political activism; and 'America Revealed to a Honey-Colored World" is a pamphlet about how the U.S. came down from the City on a Hill'. She is currently a senior editor at Opednews.com.

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By Mike Faulkner
Sr. Contributing Editor, London Correspondent

With his appalling egocentrism, and capacity for self-delusion, it is likely that Donald Trump can actually believe this claim.

November 11. Already, just two days after the bombshell struck, a media operation is in progress in Britain to “normalize” Donald Trump. His meeting with Obama, it is widely claimed, showed us a different side to the man, more conciliatory, even gracious and complimentary to the outgoing President who for years he has subjected to thinly veiled racist abuse and, based on the lie that he is foreign born and a secret Muslim, denigrated as an imposter who has no right to hold office. This is only one of the legions of lies that spewed from Trump’s mouth during his scurrilous election campaign. Only those completely insulated from the news media could have been ignorant of all this. And yet now we see the unmistakeable beginnings of an attempt to burnish his image and lull us into forgetfulness about the loathsomeness of this man and everything he stands for.  British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, who is himself a charlatan of similar ilk, albeit with a veneer of sophistication that Trump lacks, said earlier this year when he was still Mayor of London, that Trump’s comments about the supposed “Islamist” dominance in parts of London made him unfit to be president of the US. Now, after leading the successful Brexit campaign and becoming foreign secretary in Theresa May’s government, he says Trump’s election “is a great opportunity for us in the UK to build a better relationship with America that is of fundamental economic importance for the stability and prosperity of the world.” He advises us to put all our gripes about the man behind us and move on. This seems to be the general import of most comment and media coverage: forget all the nasty things he said about so many and we said about him – it’s time to move on. Well, before the “normalization of Trump” operation gets fully into its stride it may help to remind ourselves again of those things about Trump – what he said and the policy commitments he has pledged to fulfill – that render him unfit to hold high office.

• He will build a wall along the US border with Mexico, for which the Mexican government will pay, to keep out illegal immigrants. He will deport eleven million Mexicans already in the United States. He describes Mexican immigrants as rapists – although some may be “decent people.”

• A “total shut-down” will be imposed on all Muslims trying to enter the United States until we find out “what the hell is going on.”

• He rejects anthropogenic climate change as a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese government to destroy the US economy.

• He will abrogate the Obama administration’s signature to the 2015 Paris Agreement on global warming and climate change.

• He will rip up the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran signed by the US, the UK, Russia, France and China which he describes as “the stupidest deal of all time.”

• He will cancel Obama’s limited deal to normalize relations with Cuba unless the Cuban government accepts terms that are far worse.

• He has promised AIPAC that his “number one priority” is to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He fully supports the rights of Jews to live in “Judea and Samaria.”

• He will give massive tax cuts to the richest 1% and minimal cuts to the bottom 20%

Additionally, following his own admission – indeed his boast – that he has used his wealth, power and fame to harass and sexually assault women, he has preposterously made light of such bragging as “changing room banter”, claiming that no-one respects women more than he does. He has made deeply offensive misogynistic remarks about women who have offended his ego. He has ridiculed disabled people for cheap laughs. All this is plainly on public record. This is the person who will soon hold the office widely described as that of “the most powerful man in the world.”

Who supports Trump? Why do they support him?

November 13 Some media pundits in Britain are suggesting that none of this matters because once in office he will not want, or will not be able to enact, his more “extreme” policies.  His support here comes largely from the right, extending from the Brexit supporters in the Tory party and cabinet, through the xenophobic UKIP to the racist neo-fascist groups. He also elicits support from the same declassed demographic sectors in Britain – many of the four million, predominantly English white working and middle classes who voted for UKIP in 2015 – as those who voted for him in the US. But he also finds some grudging apologists (and one or two actual sympathisers) on the left.

The argument of the small number of left apologists for Trump, who are acutely aware of the depredations that neo-liberal capitalism has wreaked on the lives of millions in the US, goes like this: Of course he is very unpleasant and bigoted but despite being a multi-billionaire reality TV showman, a racist, a misogynist and an authoritarian egomaniac he is also the self-proclaimed champion of millions of declassed white working class people who have over decades had their livelihoods and communities decimated as a result of neo-liberal globalization. They have been left on the scrap-heap, their jobs gone, their skills unwanted, cast aside by corporate capitalism in its insatiable search for ever-higher profits by outsourcing the work they once did to China, Vietnam, India and elsewhere. The political elites responsible for the destruction of the country’s manufacturing base are the Republicans and Democrats who have governed since Reagan. Trump, his leftist supporters believe, could overturn the neo-liberal apple cart and retreat into protectionist isolationism with the promise of restored infrastructures and manufacturing base will create jobs, raise wages and bring greater prosperity. Despite all that is awful about him, on the basis of his claim to champion the dispossessed, he should be given a chance. He might succeed. This led some of them to vote for Trump.

In foreign policy some also think that Trump would be likely to secure a more peaceful, co-operative relationship with Russia by accepting a new “spheres of influence” approach in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, with the pull-back of NATO in the Baltic states. His advocacy of what in the old US-Soviet cold war era was referred to as detente, has persuaded them that he will improve relations with Russia and halt the drift to war.   By contrast Clinton is seen, perfectly accurately on the basis of her record as Secretary of State, as the continuator of neo-liberal capitalism at home and expansionist imperialism abroad. Those holding this view are led to conclude that even though in electoral terms the choice before them may have been between “two evils”, Trump was the lesser evil. But the conclusion drawn from this reasoning is not only naive but profoundly mistaken. It is mistaken not in concluding that it is necessary to vote for the lesser of evils, but in the choice of Trump as the lesser evil.

Is it only worth voting for a genuine Left candidate?

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Editorial Notes in the October issue of the US Marxist journal Monthly Review noted that “both Trump and Clinton are equally the candidates of finance capital in this election. One has notoriously declared her subservience to Wall Street: the other is a multi-billionaire mogul and New York real estate speculator tied directly to Wall Street.” On this basis some on the left have concluded that there was no point in voting for either of them. Some chose to vote for others, such as the Green candidate, Jill Stein, who put climate change at the centre of her campaign.

Monthly Review’s assessment of the two main candidates is incontestable. However, it does not amount to an inducement not to vote. The point of view expressed in what follows concerning the US presidential election is informed by Noam Chomsky’s 8 Point Brief on Lesser Evil Voting (LEV). Chomsky argues that voters should not treat their choice as a form of personal self expression but should consider the consequences of their actions. Thus, where a choice between the two main candidates is between the greater and lesser evil, if voting for neither is likely to increase the likelihood of the “greater evil” (Trump) winning, the only right course is to vote for Clinton. In situations where one of the two main candidates is considered certain to win, then a vote for a third candidate (e.g. Stein) with whose policies one agrees, is justified in order to boost that candidate’s vote as much as possible. But, for example, if in a “swing state” where a vote for a third candidate runs a serious risk of Trump winning, a vote for Stein, or decision not to vote at all, amounts to nothing more than an act of self-expression, a salving of one’s conscience [and an objective act of deligitimation of the vote in a fraudulent system.—Editor]. Doing the “right thing” in terms of personal self expression is to do the wrong thing, as it increases the likelihood of producing the worse outcome. It follows that it is logically inconsistent for those who argue that it is never justified to vote on the basis of LEV to also claim that they do not want Trump to win.

November 15 Those taken in by the attempts to “normalize” Trump are likely to be rather discomfited by the news released today that he has appointed as his White House chief strategist a white supremacist, racist and anti-Semite. Stephen Bannon is the executive chairman of the far-right website Breitbart News. His earlier appointment as Trump’s election campaign chief was celebrated by the Ku Klux Klan. He and Trump are kindred spirits in other respects also, apparently sharing the same attitude towards women; both men have been accused by former wives of violence and sexual assault.

2017: The Looming Menace of a Trump Presidency

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here is no room for complacency or illusions. There is a possibility that he will not carry through many of the most alarming things he has promised – the wall on the Mexican border and the deportation of millions of “illegal” immigrants,  the ban on Muslims entering the US, abrogating the nuclear deal with Iran and the normalization of relations with Cuba. But such will be his grip on Congress and Republican dominance of the Supreme Court that, with the support of a rabidly right-wing administration and more appointees like Bannon, in these cases there will be little to stop him. His tax relief promises to the poor are pure fraud. The bottom 20% of tax payers will receive a cut of 2% – amounting to $200 a year, while for the richest 1% the tax cut will be 44% – making a saving of $88,410.

Far less likely is it that he will be able to make the infrastructural changes and job-creation programmes he has promised to the millions of largely white lower-middle and working class voters that voted him into office. Also, it is highly questionable that he will really be prepared to stand up to the military brass at home or the NATO states abroad in order to pursue the detente he claims to want with Russia. It is equally unlikely that he will dismantle or scuttle the neo-liberal international trade deals, NAFTA and TTIP. But Trump is himself a member of the finance monopoly capitalist ruling class that has brought the United States to the critical economic and political state it is in today. Even in the 1920s the self-proclaimed isolationism of the Republican administrations was more a myth than reality. Even if Trump wanted to pull the US back from its global imperial ambitions (which is very doubtful) he is unlikely to be able to do so.

When it becomes clear that he is not going to deliver on the promises he has made so confidently to those who put him in office, it is likely to provoke a serious back-lash.  It is in this situation that the ugly face of unbridled racism and xenophobia is likely to be revealed. Deportations will begin; open and violent racist attacks on blacks, latinos, “illegals” and other ethnic minorities may be expected; armed groups and vigilantes may proliferate. And “foreign enemies” will be blamed – China, for swamping the US with cheaply produced goods which destroy jobs in the US; Iran as a looming nuclear menace; Cuba, which should be liberated by the United States from “communist tyranny”. Any demagogic stunt will suffice which helps to distract attention from the real causes of inequality, depressed living standards and hopelessness.

The Biggest Issue – Climate Change

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he biggest threat that Trump poses is to the already seriously compromised prospects for dealing effectively with climate change. He rejects climate change science completely, believing it to be a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese government to destroy the US economy. His electoral victory is the biggest threat to the prospects of keeping global warming below 2 degrees C to have emerged so far. He says he will pull the US out of the 2015 Paris agreement. If this happens it will give the green light to India and other developing countries to renege on their commitments and to all the global extractive industries to continue to extract with impunity. However tenuous the Paris agreement may have been, the US withdrawal will lead to its complete collapse and spell global disaster. Trump represents a threat to the future of mankind.

Who won the Popular Vote?

This is what Trump tweeted in November 2012 after Obama won his second term:

“We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided. This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy. The electoral college is a disaster for democracy. Let’s fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice. The world is laughing at us.”

Apparently he thought, mistakenly, that Obama had failed to win a majority of the popular vote. If he were to apply the same standard to his own election he would have to say that his victory was “a total sham.” The voter turnout at the November 2016 election was 55%,  the lowest in 2 decades. It would have taken another 18.7 million votes to bring it to the level reached at Obama’s victory in 2008. As the popular vote is still being counted, it seems that Clinton is set to have received more votes than any other US presidential candidate in history except Obama. 63.4 million will have voted for Clinton; 61.2 million will have voted for Trump. Clinton will have a winning margin of 1.5%.

What Now?

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]rump has no more of a mandate to subject the US and the rest of the world to irreversible and catastrophic climate change than George W. Bush, who was selected by the Supreme Court as US President in 2000, had to subject the people of Iraq to catastrophic invasion. In Trump we have – and we should never for a moment forget it – a proto-fascist, ego maniacal ignoramus who is destined to be the worst president in US history. Any and everyone with an ounce of human decency can only be repelled by his boorishness, his racism and his unashamed lying. No excuse is made here for becoming very personal in describing him. His deplorable personal qualities are displayed by him as virtues. He is a misogynist and it is entirely understandable – indeed it is laudable – that so many women in the US and throughout the world are appalled and repelled by him. It is also a matter of great concern and sadness that 47% of white women voters in the US voted for him. This is a worrying indication of the failure of feminism to enter the consciousness of so many of those who one would have expected to find harassment and sexual assaults on women intolerable in any man, let alone one seeking the highest office in the land.

There must be a fight back. The admirable demonstrations by so many against this deplorable man and everything he stands for, must continue and grow. Bernie Sanders mobilized millions in his support in the campaign he waged for the Democrat nomination. He was a candidate thoroughly worthy of support and he fired the imaginations and expectations of so many. Unlike the charlatan Trump, who dealt in hate, racism, smearing and lies, Sanders offered a message of hope. So, two movements were activated, one by a demagogic egoist appealing to the basest of human emotions; the other by a genuine social-democrat appealing to all that is best, most noble and co-operative in his largely young supporters. Not the vision of a fully fledged socialism, but a huge stride in the right direction.

It can only be hoped that the movement he helped to create will grow and thrive and tip the balance in the direction of progress. If not, the future looks bleak indeed. 

Mike Faulkner

is a Senior Contributing Edior and our London Correspondent. He is a British citizen living in London. For  many years he taught history and political science at Barnet College, until his retirement in 2002. He has written a two-weekly column,  Letter from the UK, for The Political Junkies Magazine since 2008. Over the years his articles have appeared in such publications as Marxism Today, Monthly Review and China Now. He is a regular visitor to the United States where he has friends and family in New York City. Contact Mike at mikefaulkner@greanvillepost.com

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