Come November 2024, Donald Trump is set to assume the presidency of the United States. In liberal circles, there is much hand wringing and whining about this prospect. The alarmist prognostications oscillate between Trump making the United States ‘authoritarian’, throwing a spanner into the post war liberal world order, crafting a more protectionist political economy bargain in the country and thereby undercutting the liberal world economic order and so on. Some of these ‘fears’ are legit but overblown at the same time. Consider American domestic politics first. It would appear there is some degree of intense path dependence built into the American institutional landscape. Just another four-year term cannot undo more than three centuries of political bargains. But in terms of political economy and its international orientation, there will be significant churn in the United States. What will the nature of this change?
Before postulating an answer, it may be prudent to dwell on the Trump phenomenon: what led to the rise of Donald Trump? Two themes lend themselves as answers: one is political decline- roughly the overtaking by events and forces of the institutions and capacity thereof of a given country. Two, the forces of nationalism can neither be entirely wished away. These forces are given impetus by giving more traction to civic nationalism based mainly on citizenship.
Political decline first. The United States’ institutional ingress and landscape seems to have been overwhelmed over a period of time. Be it the Justice department or Homeland Security and immigration or the country’s foreign policy establishment, political decay is writ large over all these. The result has been drift and even atrophy leading to diminishing returns in the quality of public and even private life of the people of the United States. Paralleling this decay, is the fetishizing of civic nationalism. While intrinsically there may be nothing wrong in civic nationalism which privileges citizenship over the ‘patrie’ or the ‘ ethnie’, people being people want an emotional peg to latch on to. That, is they want to be part of a larger community, how so ever merely imagined it is in real terms. Or, prosaically, to paraphrase the NYT columnist, Tom Friedman and twist it a little ‘people want to cling to their Olive trees’ no matter how strong the siren song of the Lexus. A community with strong boundaries gives people a sense of security and being part of something larger. With the advent of globalization and the concomitant paradigm of civic nationalism, the superstructure of the United States- the ‘white segment’ of the country felt – perceptually, in real terms and economically- under threat. Their ‘imagined community’ was under assault by anonymous, overwhelming forces.
Donald Trump spoke to and addressed the forces of Political decay and the disjunctures created by civic nationalism in American polity and society. His brand of nationalism encapsulated in the slogan ‘ Make America Great Again’ spoke to these fears and issues. The elitism of Democrats and their focus on culture and identity politics added to stoked these fears and amplified Trump’s popularity. Added up, these factors and themes make for the phenomenon that is Trump (like it or not, right or wrong). Now if the Trump presidency is a foregone conclusion, how is the world to deal with it?
It is held that Donald Trump, being a former business Tycoon, has a transactional approach to politics. And, in his approach to international politics and realism, the international relations school and practice of realism plays a large role. Transactionalism and realism (which privileges the state and state interests over so called values in international relations) might , contra public perception , might lead to some stability in international relations. Not clouded or obscured by so called values (which are usually loaded terms cloaked under ideology), Americas foreign or international orientation can be easier to discern and thereby stability might be imparted to world politics. It might also engender a shrunken United States that retreats into itself- a condition that might not be too ‘bad’. In one sense, it would mean a more intense multi-polar world with balance of power being the determinative locus of world politics. Two, it could mean an Amerlca looking inward and actually attending to its deep and structural problems and issues. The problem(s) may, however, lie in the shunting of diplomacy to the backburner and a more personalized approach by Donald Trump. This could lend some unpredictability to world politics and interstate relations. How, the question is, is the world to deal with this?
One way or method would be to focus on building personal rapport with Donald Trump and deal with issues, on a case-by-case basis with him without the mediation of the American foreign policy establishment (which at times is at odds with itself, other times is defined by turf issues and most of the times is too bureaucratic). The other could be letting the drift of state bureaucracies deal with Trump. This can frustrate him. But depending on issues and issue linkages thereof, and the ends to be attained, whether the need of the hour would be to frustrate Trump or to seek his co-operation, the overall approaches could be either/or ones. All in all, the potential Trump presidency means both fluidity and certainty. The ‘insurgent’ will be back in the White House. It’s time to prepare, read the tea leaves , forge actions and strategies.
- Views expressed in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial stance of Kashmir Observer
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