We Need A Cure For Trumpism

"Carrier [US air conditioning company] is moving to Mexico. I would go to Carrier and say, 'You're going to lay off 1,400 people. You're going to make air conditioners in Mexico, and you're trying to get them across our border with no tax.' I'm going to tell them that we're going to tax you when those air conditioners come. So stay where you are or build in the United States because we are killing ourselves with trade pacts that are no good for us and no good for our workers"

"The TPP is a horrible deal. It is a deal that is going to lead to nothing but trouble. It's a deal that was designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door and totally take advantage of everyone. It's 5,600 pages long, so complex that nobody's read it. This is one of the worst trade deals. And I would, yes, rather not have it. We're losing now over $500 billion in terms of imbalance with China, $75 billion a year imbalance with Japan."

"I am all for free trade, but it's got to be fair. When Ford moves their massive plants to Mexico, we get nothing. I want them to stay in Michigan."

If you started to get a feeling that something wasn't quite right about those statements despite agreeing with them, your intuition is correct; they're Trump quotes.

Human beings have two emotions from which all others branch out: love and fear. Distinguishing from them sounds easy, but in situations of stress, we often fail to. As the world reacts to record numbers of refugees, economic inequality and the possibility of another financial crisis, it's essential that we recognize Donald Trump and others like him represent a paradigm of fear.

And Americans know it. 63% of them dislike Donald Trump, 60% disagree with his goal to build a wall to keep Mexican immigrants out, and there is of course a majority sentiment that his irrational ideas of hate and division no longer have any place in society.

Or is there?

What I'm about to tell you might come as a big surprise: most Americans agree with Trump's plan to bar Muslims from entering the country. This was found out in a March YouGov/Huffington post poll that showed 51% of the country sides with him on that issue.

In case you think I typed that number wrong, I'll do it again: 51%.

When I first saw that statistic, I assumed that anti-Islamic sentiments are still held by a minority of Americans, and that so many believe Muslims should be shut out simply because they're confused about the right methods to stop terrorism.

I was wrong again.

The most recent poll shows that 58% of the country holds an unfavorable view of Muslims. To assure you again that I typed that correctly, it's 58%.

To make you feel a little better, the majority of Americans still have a positive view of immigrants, but the strength of Trump's message of hostility towards the other should not be underestimated. And what many in the media have failed to notice is that the main appeal of Trumpism doesn't even have anything to do with bigotry.

Someone more qualified to reveal just why Trump is succeeding is Thomas Frank, who wrote on March 7 that

Stories marveling at the stupidity of Trump voters are published nearly every day. Articles that accuse Trump’s followers of being bigots have appeared by the hundreds, if not the thousands. Conservatives have written them; liberals have written them; impartial professionals have written them. The headline of a recent Huffington Post column announced, bluntly, that “Trump Won Super Tuesday Because America is Racist.” A New York Times reporter proved that Trump’s followers were bigots by coordinating a map of Trump support with a map of racist Google searches. Everyone knows it: Trump’s followers’ passions are nothing more than the ignorant blurtings of the white American id, driven to madness by the presence of a black man in the White House. The Trump movement is a one-note phenomenon, a vast surge of race-hate. Its partisans are not only incomprehensible, they are not really worth comprehending.

But that is not the case. Or at least not entirely. Aside from those who support him because they are genuinely bigoted or because they want to remain loyal to the Republican Party, many are drawn to him for his positions on trade.

"In each of the speeches I watched," wrote Frank, "Trump spent a good part of his time talking about an entirely legitimate issue, one that could even be called leftwing. Yes, Donald Trump talked about trade. In fact, to judge by how much time he spent talking about it, trade may be his single biggest concern – not white supremacy. Not even his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border, the issue that first won him political fame."

And it's paid off. I have to confess that even I in a way see him as preferable to Hillary Clinton for the reason that he won't pursue the TPP if elected (or at least it's not likely that he will-he's lied about a lot of other things). And largely, the professional class that makes up those in the major media have either ignored this fact or divisively used it as a method to make those who oppose free trade appear non-serious and paranoid. (For example, Time columnist Joe Klein, in a clear reference to Trump's opposition to free trade deals, once condescendingly dismissed the concerns of the anti-neoliberal left. "What remains of conservatism?" Wrote Klein. "I’m tempted to say: only the nasty bits–nativism, isolationism, protectionism. But a broad swath of the Democratic Party is every bit as nasty. Bernie Sanders’ supporters eschew nativism but adhere to the latter two isms, and socialism as well.")

The same is the case for the other Trumpist movements around the world, such as the pro-Brexit campaign, whose core argument aside from fear of immigrants was resisting globalism. (Sadly, they ignored that what they were pushing for was not in fact against free trade but for it, and it backfired.) And while the issues that politicians like Trump bring up are indeed in the interest of keeping people's jobs, their followers are not supporting the greater good. Trumpism calls for wasting time and resources on controlling scapegoated racial and religious groups, neoliberal goals like the merging of corporation and state, and the violation of civil liberties out of obsession with national security. Trump may be right about a few things, but he and his political type do not care about the needs of the people.

Trump supporters that call themselves part of the silent majority may not be kidding themselves after all-the population is poor, rightfully angry at the neoliberal policies of leaders like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and therefore vulnerable to Trump's propaganda.

And the effort to resist it may not even necessarily involve keeping Trump himself out of the White House, which will become only harder from here as his opponent's poll numbers continue to drop and she undergoes another FBI investigation. If he does defy the demographics and win, he'll be an ineffective president with congress mediating his every move and the opportunity for an unstoppable progressive counter in 2020. It's the longer term war of ideas that Trump must lose.

This country is ripe for a revolution. Income inequality is at a record high, millions of people are lacking higher education and health care, and the financial and political elite are allowed their own set of laws. But unless the disadvantaged masses address these problems with a rational and level head, Trump and others will twist all of our populist energy into support for the implementation of a fascist dictatorship.