The election of populist Donald Trump as well as the vote of the United Kingdom to leave Europe has shocked the conventional world order to the core. This upheaval was followed by other successful populism governments in Hungary, Italy, Poland as well as South America with growing support in many other countries. Even though the causes and manifestation of populism differ its emergence has lead commentators to question whether the Western World’s post second world war democratic liberalism order is over.
The question arises as to what populism is and why it has emerged. The one link between all the movements is America’s own persuasive and eloquent Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s campaign manager and one time Chief Advisor. Bannon is consultant to all those involved across the globe, so his definition and analysis will serve to define what populism is and how valid the “philosophy” is as a political movement and its hope for survival. His America First philosophy applies to Briton First, Italy First, Hungary First, Germany First, Argentine First and presumably Russia and China First as well. He posists that the solution to nirvana for every country is unbridled nationalism.
So first it useful to examine what is generally accepted as the primary genesis of rise of this phenomenon - the financial inequity across the Western world between the “middle class” and the richest 0.1% to 1.0% of society. Added to this disparity was the loss of credibility of those who were elected to maintain the liberal democratic ideal and who oversaw this inequity. Immigrants or “the other”, to a lesser or greater extent, also were accredited for the plight of the genuine citizens of nations.
CAUSES OF LOSS OF CREDIBILITY OF WESTERN LIBERAL GOVERNMENTS AND FINANCIAL INEQUITY RESULTING IN POPULISM
Particularly from the American and British point of view the precipitating loss of credibility in Government was the con lead by George W. Bush and Tony Blair, in 2003, as to their rationale to wage war on Iraq. The justification was the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of massive destruction. Fifteen years later at a cost to the USA of $2.4 trillion and 8.4 billion sterling in the UK with a 182 deaths for the latter and 4,142 for the former and approximately 40,000 casualties between both, the aftermath of this misadventure lingers on. There is the total upheaval of the Middle East, with its displacement of millions, a large number of which have found their way to Europe. The deception spawned the ISIS terrorist movement, which in spite of Trump’s reassurances is still alive. Finally it strengthened the hand of Iran and their ally Putin’s Russia, who not co incidentally is the main international supporter of the rise of Western populism
Five years after the Iraq invasion the world financial system was rocked to its foundations, again under the aegis of liberal Western democracy, The meltdown was labelled the sub prime home loan scandal. While originating from outrageously irresponsible behavior in the United States the lack of financial regulation involved banks in Europe as much as the USA. The world was close to disaster when Lehman Brothers went into bankruptcy and the massive financial institutions of AIG and Bear Stearns were the next on the block. The US Federal Reserve poured in three trillion dollars into banks to save the day as the world teetered on the brink, half of which went to banks whose headquarters were in Europe. No country was untouched by the metastasizing financial debacle.
This crash had profound financial effects that are still being felt today. This crisis heralded the formation of the Tea Party in the United States and is largely credited for John McCain choosing the naive populist Sarah Palin as his running mate in the Presidential election of 2008 which was won by Barack Obama.
The Obama administration, which raised so much hope for the stabilization of the Western democratic order was stymied by the increasingly right wing Republican Party which gained Congressional control. Obama was also saddled with clearing up the 2008 mess and his bail out of the auto companies was seen more as an entrenchment of the elites and business rather than the saving of hundreds of thousands of jobs. Also the only groups who were spared financial losses were the company executives who walked away from the wreckage with fat bonus checks. No one went to jail.
With wages remaining on the decades long static trajectory, in spite of increasing employment, the growing income disparity between the upper 1% and the rest increased. The discontent of the working class was exacerbated by the loss of higher paying manufacturing jobs as the world become more and more globalized and automated. Added to the despair was the closure of coal mines with the growing use of alternate energy and fracking. It was not a stretch to argue, particularly in the UK, that the middle class quagmire was being fueled by immigrants and sustained by the fat cat elites of the Western democracies. The circumstances of the second decade of the twenty first century were ripe for the entry of the populist movement which promised, on the right, to return to a world that never was and on the left, a utopia that never could be.
It is not unimportant to mention that assistance was obtained in heightening the populist narrative, from Russia, utilizing the power of the internet in a sophisticated cyberattack and disinformation project hitherto unwitnessed. In America this interference was intensified by what appeared to be a widespread infiltration of candidate Trump’s campaign. Between Putin’s ‘help” and the arrival of Steve Bannon as campaign manager who interpreted Trump’s chaotic policy positions and attacks on the elites into the political philosophy called populism, Trump achieved a shocking electoral victory.
BANNON’S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF POPULISM ARTICULATED BY TRUMP
It is must be emphasized that in Bannon’s own words Trump was the perfect ambassador for populism. As late as the midterms Bannon publicly exclaimed that Trump had not made one bad decision. Bannon’s central thesis was that Trump was the transformative leader of the populism movement that would change history not only in the United States of America but in the world.
Workers of America Unite You have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains
The marriage of Trump to Bannon consolidated Trump’s championing the cause of the “worker” as the centerpiece of his campaign. To hear Bannon’s idolization of the worker would make Karl Marx proud but before anyone could point that out he clarified that populism could be divided into capitalist and socialist versions. To that end there was much support from the Bannon directed campaign for Bernie Sanders, who also received, unwanted help, from the Russians.
The burden of the Trump message was that the worker was being downtrodden by the elites. Trump would force the companies being run by the elites to bring their “ high paying” jobs, that had been outsourced to Asia, Mexico and Canada, back to America. He would increase their wages and see to it that they would have a bigger share of the pie. He would drain the corrupt Washington swamp. Of course he had given money to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats and Republicans. As a businessman to get things done,”You had to do what you”. The fact that he had been part of the swamp in the past made him uniquely positioned to drain it.
Most significantly he promised that he would provide better and cheaper healthcare than Obamacare which he would destroy. A hollow promise that would cost him dear in the midterms.
Keep the illegals out and throw those in out.
The only American workers whose needs were to be catered for were the real citizens, not the immigrants - legal or otherwise nor those on work visas. In order to protect the genuine article there were the twin issues of immigration and trade. The former was a manufactured issue which was characterized by the specter of hordes of criminal Mexicans crossing the Southern border. This crisis was patently bogus as there had an emigration of Mexicans from America for over a decade..
Unlike in Brexit where the Lithuanian and Pole influx had dominated debate together with the threat of all those Muslim refugees that had emigrated to Europe gaining European passports, the USA immigration issue as defined by Bannon and spouted by Trump was phony. Bannon wanted the eleven million integrated illegals thrown out, to cut down legal immigration and work permits as well as halting illegal immigration. The building of a “great big ten foot concrete wall” across the Southern border was the metaphor for the success of this policy.
In addition to the exposes of “illegal” and temporary workers at Trump facilities and the fact that the First Lady’s parents had been brought to America by “chain” immigration which Trump had explicitly condemned, Trump received his greatest setback when he was forced, by public pressure, to re open the government in spite of not receiving money for his “beautiful wall”. In addition the callousness exhibited by him and his Administration to the "workers'"economic plight that his record shutdown caused, was reflected in the opinion polls.
Stop Trade - What is needed is tariffs.
Bannon’s hypothesis that the other factor that was interfering with the legitimate American workers’ progress was the cheap goods that they were importing from oversea. This phenomenon was a hindrance to home grown manufacture. Trade with other countries was inherently unfair - every country was playing America for suckers. Multilateral trade deals were out. Trump would exit the lot. He preferred unilateral deals as he was the master of these. To the delight of the Chinese he exited the Obama multi country Trans Pacific Trade Deal which opened new avenues to America as Europe wallowed in stagnation. NAFTA where Mexico and Canada played America for suckers as well needed to be renegotiated.
While there was little doubt that China was deliberately devaluing its currency so as to make its exports cheap and stealing American intellectual property the unthought out policy of the introduction of tariffs would have the biggest impact on the worker that Bannon and Trump were so committed to. Already the aluminum and steel tariffs have pushed the price of appliances up fifteen percent. The farmers who relied on soy exports are to date the hardest hit.
Stop the world we’re getting off - America First and back to Nationalism
Then the best way to protect the worker was by nationalism - “stop the world we’re getting off”. The free ride that NATO, Europe, UNO and the emerging nations were getting as well as the US being the policeman of the world was over. The global connections such as the International Monetary Fund, Davos and the World Trade Organization were all meeting grounds where the American elites conspired with the world elites against the worker. What was wrong with just acting in one’s own interests? In the UK the European Union had allegedly an even more stultifying effect dictating to the British how to run their lives.
Who needs administrative infrastructure that slows progress and produces regulations?
Another cardinal feature of Bannon’s populism is that bureaucracy is unnecessary. The State’s apparatus must be “deconstructed”. The departments of the Environment Protection Agency, Housing and Urban Development and Energy to mention but a few were totally unnecessary. It has long been the mantra that American Business and banks were over regulated, Bannonism advocated deregulation. Apparently the lesson of 2008 had been already forgotten. To illustrate how pervasive this argument was, in the recent shutdown crisis a Mayor of a small town in Kansas commented that the fact that life was still going on showed how unnecessary the 800,000 Federal workers were! It had escaped him that they were working they just were not getting paid.
Bannon swears blind that populism isn’t racist
Bannon argued that in regard to Trump’s racist comments, “Don’t listen to what Trump says just look at his actions”. The example he quoted in support of his assertion was the fact that African American and Hispanic employment numbers, with everyone elses, was up. When asked to elaborate on the total Muslim ban, for example, which he initiated he disingeniously countered that the Supreme Court upheld it.
WILL BANNON’S VISION HOLD?
Whether or not Western liberalism will correct the massive inequalities of income between the elites and the workers or whether Bannon’s nationalistic vision will triumph is the issue. Key to this all might be what happens in America and the United Kingdom. But before discussing those outcomes it would be instructive to remind the populists that what caused the crisis in 2008 which catapulted the electoral success of the populism movement was a result of the non existence of national barriers. The international banking system not specific countries or lack of tariffs caused the 2008 meltdown.
According to Adam Tooze in his epic award winning book “Crashed”, the world’s economy is no longer controlled by nations but by about a few thousand multinational companies. More specifically about twenty to thirty multinational banks matter. The paradigm of looking at national gross domestic products with or without trade surpluses as a parameter of well being is no longer valid. Keynesian economics just does not cut it any more. What needs to be put into place is an infrastructure to oversee the interlocking of international corporate balance sheets.
International trade according to a study conducted by the Director General of the World Trade Organization is responsible for alleviating poverty for hundreds of millions. If maximum tariffs were applied by all countries the Gross Domestic Product of all countries combined will be cut by half. It has also been shown that without trade agreements small companies would not be able to export. Larger ones can make arrangements on their own,
So the reality is that the independent nation state is dead. Globalism for better or worse is here to stay. Not that that will stop Bannon who argues that his nationalistic crusade can take decades to take hold. He can turn back the clock to a time that never was.
At the recent gathering, at the much maligned international meeting of corporations in Davos Switzerland, the activist entertainer Bono summed up the crisp alternatives to the crises the whole planet was facing - “You are either a firefighter or an arsonist”. Interestingly enough the consensus of the world elite was that the problem of inequity in income needed to be urgently addressed. The issue of whether increased taxes on the rich was the answer was hotly debated. While this appears to be a consensus in the USA, (a fact ignored by the workers’ champion Trump who rather reduced them), the CEO of Dell argued that he is giving seventy percent of his income to his charitable Foundation. It was pointed out that America thrived for almost fifty years when the highest income tax level was close to ninety percent.
THE PROPONENTS OF POPULISM ONCE IN POWER CANNOT IMPLEMENT THE CONCEPT
Now that the UK has Brexit where are the plans of the proponents? They want their cake and eat it and are happy to vote against the solutions of the originally anti Brexit, mediocrity Theresa May without the vaguest clue as to how to lay out their own visions for the future. Where are Nigel Farrage and Boris Johnson now that the UK really needs them?
As for America the wheels appear to be coming off the anarchist Bannon’s philosophy. The fight has been reduced to whether or not Trump will get money to build a wall that everybody knows is a joke. Whatever happens Bannon will claim victory because all the attempts to bridge the inequity gap he will argue are a victory for populism, albeit not of the type he supports.
In truth Western Democracy has allowed the 1% to amass obscene sums of money at the expense of the “worker”. What emerged in Trump’s record Government shut down, that he claimed the “workers” supported, was that 78% of Americans lived from paycheck to paycheck.
Although the Marxist experiment spectacularly failed, Karl Marx, from his grave, must be gaining some comfort in that the digital/technology age has produced the same inequities as the industrial revolution did. Hopefully the Western liberal democracies will right the ship. Otherwise Bannon’s xenophobic irrational destructive totalitarian anarchy will prevail.
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