In Pictures

Read the entire commentary here

CJ Polychroniou: "Noam, the unthinkable has happened: in contrast to all forecasts, Donald Trump scored a decisive victory over Hillary Clinton and the man that Michael Moore described as ‘wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full-time sociopath’ is the next president of the United States. In your view, what were the deciding factors that led American voters produce the biggest upset in the history of US politics?"

Noam: (representative excerpts:)

Before turning to this question, I think it is important to spend a few moments pondering just what happened on November 8, a date that might turn out to be one of the most important in human history, depending on how we react.

No exaggeration.

The most important news of November 8 was barely noted, a fact of some significance in itself.

On November 8, the World Meteorological Organization delivered a report at the international conference on climate change in Morocco, COP22, which was called in order to carry forward the Paris agreements of COP21.  The WMO reported that the past five years were the hottest on record.  It reported rising sea levels, soon to increase as a result of the unexpectedly rapid melting of polar ice, most ominously the huge Antarctic glaciers.  Already Arctic sea ice over the past five years is 28 percent below the average of the previous 29 years, not only raising sea levels but also reducing the cooling effect of polar ice reflection of solar rays, thereby accelerating the grim effects of global warming.  The WMO reported further that temperatures are approaching dangerously close to the goal established by COP21, along with other dire reports and forecasts.

Another event took place on November 8, which also may turn out to be of unusual historical significance for reasons that, once again, were barely noted.

On November 8, the most powerful country in world history, which will set its stamp on what comes next, had an election.  The outcome placed total control of the government – the executive, Congress, the Supreme Court – in the hands of the Republican Party, the most dangerous organization in world history.

Apart from the last phrase, all of this is uncontroversial.  The last phrase may seem outlandish, even outrageous.  But is it?  The facts suggest otherwise.  The Party is dedicated to racing as rapidly as possible to destruction of organized human life.  There is no historical precedent for such a stand.

Is this an exaggeration?  Consider what we have just been witnessing.

During the Republican primaries, every candidate denied that what is happening is happening – with the exception of the sensible moderates, like Jeb Bush, who said it’s all uncertain but we don’t have to do anything because we’re producing more natural gas, thanks to fracking.  Or John Kasich, who agreed that global warming is taking place but added that “we are going to burn [coal] in Ohio and we are not going to apologize for it.” The winning candidate, now the President-elect, calls for rapid increase in use of fossil fuels, including coal; dismantling of regulations; rejection of help to developing countries that are seeking to move to sustainable energy; and in general racing to the cliff as fast as possible.

It is hard to find words to capture the fact that humans are facing the most important question in their history – whether organized human life will survive in anything like the form we know – and are answering it by accelerating the race to disaster.  Similar observations hold for the other huge issue concerning human survival, the threat of nuclear destruction that has been looming over our heads for 70 years, and is now increasing.

It is no less difficult to find words to capture the utterly astonishing fact that in all of the massive coverage of the electoral extravaganza, none of this receives more than passing mention.  At least I am at a loss to find appropriate words.

Turning finally to the question raised, to be precise it appears that Clinton received a slight majority of the vote.  The apparent decisive victory has to do with curious features of American politics: among other factors, the electoral college residue of the founding of the country as an alliance of separate states; the winner-take-all system in each state; arrangement of congressional districts (sometimes by gerrymandering) to provide greater weight to rural votes (in past elections, probably this one too, Democrats have had a comfortable margin of victory in popular vote for the House but hold a minority of seats); the very high rate of abstention (usually close to half in presidential elections, this one too).  Of some significance for the future is the fact that in the 18-25 range, Clinton won handily, and Sanders had an even higher level of support.  How much this matters depends on what kind of future humanity will face.

According to current information, Trump broke all records in the support he received from white voters, working class and lower middle class, particularly in the $50,000 to $90,000 income range, rural and suburban, primarily those without college education.  These groups share the anger throughout the West at the centrist establishment, revealed as well in the unanticipated Brexit vote and the collapse of centrist parties in continental Europe.  The angry and disaffected are victims of the neoliberal policies of the past generation, the policies described in congressional testimony by Fed chair Alan Greenspan – St. Alan as he was called reverentially by the economics profession and other admirers until the miraculous economy he was supervising crashed in 2007-8, threatening to bring the whole world economy down with it.  As Greenspan explained during his glory days, his successes in economic management were based substantially on “growing worker insecurity.” Intimidated working people would not ask for higher wages, benefits, and security but would be satisfied with the stagnating wages and reduced benefits that signal a healthy economy by neoliberal standards.

Working people who have been the subjects of these experiments in economic theory are, oddly, not particularly happy about the outcome.  They are not, for example, overjoyed at the fact that in 2007, at the peak of the neoliberal miracle, real wages for non-supervisory workers were lower than they had been years earlier, or that real wages for male workers are about at 1960s levels while spectacular gains have gone to the pockets of a very few at the top, disproportionately a fraction of 1%.  Not the result of market forces, achievement, or merit, but rather of definite policy decisions, matters reviewed carefully by economist Dean Baker in recently published work.

… The impact is captured well in Arlie Hochschild’s sensitive and illuminating portrayal of a Trump stronghold in Louisiana, where she lived and worked for many years.  She uses the image of a line in which these people are standing, expecting to move forward steadily as they work hard and keep to all the conventional values.  But their position in the line has stalled.  Ahead of them, they see people leaping forward, but that does not cause much distress, because it is “the American way” for (alleged) merit to be rewarded.  What does cause real distress is what is happening behind them. Undeserving people who do not follow the rules are being moved in front of them by federal government programs designed to benefit African-Americans, immigrants, and others they often regard with contempt.  All of this is exacerbated by Reagan’s racist fabrications about strapping young bucks and welfare queens (by implication Black) stealing your hard-earned money, and other fantasies — which are sometimes tinged with shreds of reality, as is usually the case with ugly and dangerous concoctions designed to deflect attention from the real agents of distress to easy scapegoats.

… Exit polls reveal that the passionate support for Trump was inspired primarily by the belief that he represented change, while Clinton was perceived as the candidate who would perpetuate their distress.  The “change” that Trump is likely to bring will be harmful or worse, but it is understandable that the consequences are not clear to isolated people in an atomized society lacking the kinds of associations (like unions) that can educate and organize.  That is a crucial difference between today’s despair and the generally hopeful attitudes of many working people under much greater duress during the great depression of the 1930s.

There are other factors in Trump’s success. Comparative studies show that doctrines of White Supremacy have had an even more powerful grip on American culture than in South Africa, and it’s no secret that the white population is declining.  In a decade or two whites are projected to be a minority of the work force, and not too much later a minority of the population.  The traditional conservative culture is also perceived as under attack by the successes of “identity politics,” regarded as the province of elites who have only contempt for hard-working patriotic church-going Americans with real family values whose country is disappearing before their eyes.

It is worth remembering that before World War II, though it had long been the richest country in the world, the US was not a major player in global affairs and was also something of a cultural backwater.  Someone who wanted to study physics would go to Germany.  An aspiring writer or artist would go to Paris.  That changed radically with World War II, for obvious reasons, but only for part of the population.  Much remained culturally traditional.  To mention one example of great significance, one of the difficulties in raising public concern over the very severe threats of global warming is that 40% of the population do not see why it is a problem, since Christ is returning in a few decades.  About the same percentage believe that the world was created a few thousand years ago.  If science conflicts with the Bible, so much the worse for science.  It would be hard to find an analogue in other societies.

The Democratic party abandoned any real concern for working people by the 1970s, and they have therefore been drawn to the ranks of their bitter class enemies, who at least pretend to speak their language – Reagan’s folksy style with little jokes while eating jelly beans, W. Bush’s carefully cultivated image of a regular guy you could meet in a bar who loved to cut brush on the ranch in 100 degree heat and his probably faked mispronunciations (it’s unlikely that he talked like that at Yale), and now Trump, who gives voice to people with legitimate grievances who have lost not just jobs but also a sense of personal self-worth; and who rails against the government that they perceive as having undermined their lives (not without reason).

One of the great achievements of the doctrinal system has been to divert anger from the corporate sector to the government that implements the programs it designs, such as the highly protectionist corporate/investor rights agreements that are uniformly mis-described as “free trade agreements” in the media and commentary.  With all its flaws, the government is to some extent under popular influence and control, unlike the corporate sector.  It is highly advantageous for the business world to foster hatred for pointy-headed government bureaucrats and to drive out of people’s minds the subversive idea that the government might become an instrument of popular will, a government of, by, and for the people.

CJ Polychroniou: "Trump has no identifiable political ideology guiding his stance on economic, social, and political issues, yet there are clear authoritarian tendencies in his behavior. Therefore, do you find any validity behind the claims that Trump may represent the emergence of ‘fascism with a friendly face?’ in the United States?"

For many years I have been writing and speaking about the danger of the rise of an honest and charismatic ideologue in the United States, someone who could exploit the fear and anger that has long been boiling in much of the society, and who could direct it away from the actual agents of malaise to vulnerable targets.  That could indeed lead to what sociologist Bertram Gross called “friendly fascism” in a perceptive study 35 years ago.  But that requires an honest ideologue, a Hitler type, not someone whose only detectable ideology is Me.  The dangers however have been real for many years, perhaps even more so in the light of the forces that Trump has unleashed.

CJ Polychroniou: "With the Republicans in the White House, but also controlling both houses and the future shape of the Supreme Court, what will America look like for at least the next four years?"

A good deal depends on his appointments and circle of advisers.  Early indications are unattractive, to put it mildly.

The Supreme Court will be in the hands of reactionaries for many years, with predictable consequences.  If Trump follows through on his Paul Ryan-style fiscal programs, there will be huge benefits for the very rich – estimated by the Tax Policy Center as a tax cut of over 14% for the top 0.1% and a substantial cut more generally at the upper end of the income scale, but with virtually no tax relief for others, who will also face major new burdens.  The respected economics correspondent of the Financial Times, Martin Wolf, writes that “The tax proposals would shower huge benefits on already rich Americans such as Mr Trump,” while leaving others in the lurch, including of course his popular constituency.  The immediate reaction of the business world reveals that big pharma, Wall Street, military industry, energy industries, and other such wonderful institutions expect a very bright future. ...

CJ Polychroniou: "Is US foreign policy under a Trump administration likely to be more or less militaristic than what we have seen under the Obama or even the G.W. Bush administrations?"

I don’t think one can answer with any confidence.  Trump is too unpredictable.  There are too many open questions.  What we can say is that popular mobilization and activism, properly organized and conducted, can make a large difference.

And we should bear in mind that the stakes are very large, as I remarked at the outset.