Trumpism: Making America Great Again, Again?
Washington DC, 2008. A seemingly little-known senator by the name of Barack Obama is sworn into the highest office in the land, and will go on to govern the United States for eight years. Despite this breadth of time, ‘Obamism’ was rarely discussed in political discourse. Obama’s positions and policies were simply regarded as Democrat policies that didn’t deviate from the party’s norms. However, as early as his successor’s inauguration, ‘Trumpism’ had quickly found its way into political lexicon. The term has been defined as the “non-traditional political philosophy and approach of US President Donald Trump and his supporters”. The implication of this word, ‘Trumpism’, is that it is a new concept: a “non-traditional” deviation alien from Republican norms. This understanding couldn’t be further from the truth. Trumpism is in fact the opposite, a return to traditional Republican ideas rather than a movement away from them.
Trump was elected on a story that America is on the decline and had been for decades. The cause? Globalisation. Global capitalism siphoned jobs out of America into its economic rivals, Mexico and China. Global intervention led to the meaningless deaths of American troops in overseas expeditions. Porous borders were funnelling overwhelming levels of immigration, pulling down wages and eroding American culture. All this at the expense of America’s white working class. This is the narrative behind Trumpism, the ‘new’ message of Republican politics. However, dial back to the early twentieth century and you will find a Republican party where elements of ‘Trumpism’ formed the standard mindset.
Republicans of the time accepted the free market but treated it with suspicion. Apprehensive about the onset of global capitalism, they were deeply concerned that free trade would concede jobs to economic rivals. In response, Republican presidents like William McKinley argued for a larger state to protect American industry. Theodore Roosevelt hailed the protective tariff as the origin of “great prosperity”. Furthermore, he mobilised the state to oppose American corporations acting against the working class, such as bringing in ‘trust-busting’ regulation to split up monopolies. This brand of Republican politics also tended to balance international action
against a general suspicion of internationalism, avoiding participation in foreign bodies like the League of Nations. All this to protect the economic status of America’s white working class and its traditional Christian values
from a rapidly changing world order. When Trump tweets “tariffs are the greatest”, or his allies rail against trans-national corporations like Amazon and as WHO is added to the list of international accords left since 2017, the parallels to this traditional brand of Republican politics seem all too clear.
It was the Cold War that pushed Republican politics off this traditional, yet familiar, message onto a new direction. In many nations, communist parties had seized power and soon, the plight of capitalism across the world became inextricably welded to the very survival of freedom and democracy. Communism was perceived to be a threat to American values. To oppose global capitalism therefore was increasingly perceived to be anti-American. With this change in attitude came a shift in Republican policy away from its traditions. Scepticism of global capitalism was cast aside, and hostility to foreign intervention morphed into support for protecting capitalism across the world. It was Republicans who were instrumental in the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine passing the houses of Congress, and Republican sentiment that drew the USA into Vietnam. These new ideas were cemented by the election of Ronald Raegan in 1980. To Reagan “the freer the flow of world trade, the stronger the tides of human progress”. He, alongside his successors, Bush Sr. and Jr., helped birth the WTO, established the
foundational ideas of NAFTA and brought US troops into various foreign conflicts. Republicans now weren’t only embracing global capitalism but were becoming its most avid ambassadors, in stark contrast to their party’s roots.
But it was the traditional Republicans of old that resented these neoconservatives, perceiving them to have betrayed the party’s core principles. Among these exiles, talk of rebellion spread. In universities across the West and in the pages of fringe political magazines a plan was being composed for a restoration. Even on the cobbled streets of St. Andrews, Russell Kirk lambasted this new wedding of conservatism and libertarianism. Conservative thinkers in America argued that the 20th century Republican Party had betrayed the working class and sacrificed America’s traditional Christian values. The movement ran Patrick Buchanan against Republican incumbent George Bush Sr. Buchanan’s message was plucked straight from traditional republicanism with pledges of isolationism and protectionism, all under the umbrella of his now familiar election slogan “America First”. Buchanan’s run was unsuccessful. However, when the 2008 financial crisis hit the perfect storm for change developed. All the rebellion now needed was a salesman. Enter the man who wrote the very book of deal-making: Donald J. Trump.
The Trump campaign’s marriage of protectionism, nationalism and isolationism was plucked directly from these traditional Republican ideas. A return to the party’s roots, not a deviation from them. This is not the project of one man, bent on changing the party, but the conclusion of a century-long ideological struggle to pull the party back. This is not just a matter of being over-fastidious, its important in understanding what is to come.Seeing
Trumpism as non-traditional implies that with the defeat or abdication of its titular character it will fade into the background as a strange abnormality of American history. Knowing that Trumpism is an orthodox conservative position means it has the potential to survive, and even thrive, beyond Trump himself. Its set of values has a dedicated intellectual and popular following who advocated many of Trump’s policies long before his candidacy in 2016. This rebellion was not made by Trump but momentarily led by him, and has the ideological foundation to survive long after his tenure.
Banner image courtesy of James McNellis, © 2017, some rights reserved.
