Trump's Populist America

Steven Rosefielde

• Publisher: WSPC (US)
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781944659516
• Topic: Scienze fisiche
• Subtopic: Fisica computazionale e matematica

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In Trump's Populist America, author Steven Rosefielde argues that the policies Trump fashions are not half measures, but stem from an understanding of his supporters and their desire for an elected government that is attuned to the common man's concerns. Through this lens, voting for Trump can be seen as an act of rebellion, in the spirit of Jeffersonian democracy, against the establishment. Despite assertions of xenophobia, bigotry, and racism, Rosefielde asserts that Trump supporters are nationalists in the Jeffersonian sense, who oppose being victimized by a special-interest government at home and who welcome amicable relations with neighbors across the globe.

The book documents the grievances ordinary middle and working class American people harbour against the establishment's Global Nation policies at home and abroad, and shows how Trump intends to rectify matters with policies aimed at building a Jeffersonian populist America in a workman-like manner. If Trump succeeds, these policies will reverse the course of 21st century history for the middle and working class Americans. A battle is shaping up between populist advocates of open societies, and those who are sure "father" knows best.

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--> Contents:

• Trump's Domestic Agenda:
  • The Establishment System
  • Populism
  • Immigration
  • Protectionism and National Sovereignty
  • Inclusive Economic Growth
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Social Welfare
• Trump's Foreign Agenda:
  • Foreign Policy
  • Russia
  • China
  • Islam
  • Europe
• Tomorrow:
  • Turning Point
  • Prospects

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--> Readership: Readers interested in the general election, domestic and foreign policies of the United States. -->
Trump;Populism;American Dream;Nationalism;Immigration;Globalization;Russia;China;Islamic World;European Union0

Part I

Trump’s Domestic Agenda

Chapter 1

Establishment System

The target of Donald Trump’s populist ire is the establishment system of American political, economic and social governance. America’s founding principle in 1776 was democratic free enterprise (compassionate liberal democracy),¹ but the 20th century witnessed a silent revolution starting with the adoption of the federal income tax in 1913 (16th constitutional amendment) that bloated the government and gradually imposed the preferences of elected officials and big business on the electorate and private households.

The establishment positioned itself as the people’s agent, beginning with a modest social security insurance program, sundry public works, and an anti-trust agenda, but over decades morphed into a regulatory empire covering health, education and welfare, promoting equal opportunity, entitlement,² affirmative action, restorative justice, open immigration, transnationalization, Wall Street and oligopoly in many industries. In recent decades, the boundaries between America and foreign nations have dissolved into the idea that the United States as the fountainhead of globalization should become the indispensable “global nation”.³ This oxymoron means that America should transform its culture into a progressive international blend, cede some of its national sovereignty to transnational institutions, and impose its universalized system on the world. Most establishment Democrats and Republicans are globalizers. They desire to rule the world from Washington in the name of all the planets’ improved homogenized peoples, instead of the people they actually represent. The globalist posture gives them more degrees of freedom in pursuing their declaratory and hidden agendas at home and abroad. Both Democrats and Republicans find it convenient to tap Wall Street for financial support and promote globalization at home and abroad. Democrat and Republican politicians differ only in partisan emphasis and patronage networks. Democrats construct their collective identities around the theme of social justice, while Republicans focus on prosperity, promoting reduced taxation and economic growth. Democrats are the strongest proponents of globalism, but the Republicans also espouse the global nation dream.

Both encourage outsourcing as a device for turning government into a “public service” business. Government today often hires private companies to provide public services. Politicians own or control many of these firms allowing them to benefit directly and via under-the-table kickbacks and campaign contributions (super PACs).⁴ Democrats and Republicans spend fortunes on their electoral campaigns because winning gives them control over patronage machines that not only provide public jobs, but also lucrative public contracts and protection for private interests via government industrial regulation. Some politicians may believe that big government is the best vehicle for serving their constituencies, but even those that do not, understand that expanded federal spending is the ticket to personal wealth and power.

The hallmarks of establishment rule are lucrative government programs, overregulation, open immigration and overtaxation borne by the middle class. Insiders enrich themselves directly and indirectly via tax loopholes. The poor, immigrants, “entitled”, socially disadvantaged and rich at both ends of the income spectrum receive transfers from the common man’s pocket. The lower and upper end beneficiaries never have enough, while the middle never has too little from the establishment’s perspective.

Democrats drive the system toward social programs (affirmative action,⁵ entitlements, and restorative justice⁶) when they hold the reins of power. Republicans drive the system toward business deregulation, with both factions oblivious to the secular decline induced by stultifying regulation and low labor force participation to join the entitled lower depths.⁷ This establishment system tends to induce economic stagnation, and is self-perpetuating, if the middle class acquiesces and economic conditions are not too dire.

The establishment denies that big government, regulation, immigration, entitlements, affirmative action, restorative justice and taxation are excessive, but tacitly acknowledges the problem by relying on sky-high national debt, deficit spending, easy money and financial speculation to keep the economy afloat. First, it depresses the patient with barbiturates, and then tries to turbo-charge it with amphetamines, claiming that this serves the people best, even though the middle class knows better.

The discrepancy between the populist experience and the establishment’s sunshine narrative is hidden by academia and the media.⁸ Both are integral parts of the system. Academic economists divert attention from the middle class’s plight by claiming that the establishment has the necessary tools at its disposal to assure that everyone prospers. Democrat and Republican establishment economists both insist more government is always better, ignoring the fact that ordinary people are paying the piper. They contend that sophisticated planning and management techniques mean that government programs are efficient; squabbling among themselves about best mix of monetary and fiscal stimulus. Instead of spotlighting the establishment’s role in causing secular economic stagnation, most academics limit themselves to praising the system and choosing sides between Democrats and Republicans. The media drums home the message.

The failures of establishment system however are there for all to see. Despite trillions spent on eradicating poverty, the poverty rate has changed little in 50 years. Despite hundreds of billions spent on the war against drugs, the establishment can only report that it is legalizing pot. Despite a 20 trillion-dollar federal debt and a quadrupling of the money supply (m0) after 2010,⁹ America’s economy is barely able to grow at half its historical recovery rate. Despite countless promises, the middle class is becoming the new socially “disadvantaged”. The establishment system is failing the middle class and spawning social discord, but politicians, the media and academics respond by denying this. It is an exercise in hypocrisy.¹⁰

The stealthy advance of the establishment system galls Donald Trump’s populist supporters. Trump has sensed the anger and is tapping middle-class frustration. He could be co-opted, but his nationalist instincts and distaste for anti-nationalist excesses are prodding him toward advocating programs that re-empower the middle.

Endnotes

1.This means that consumer demand governs the supply of goods and services in the private sector and that the people’s (demos) demand determines the supply of public programs.

2.“Entitlement” in the United States is used to identify federal programs that, like Social Security and Medicare, got the name because workers became “entitled” to their benefits by paying into the system. In recent years, the meaning has been used to refer also to benefits, like those of the food stamps program, which people become eligible to receive without paying into a system. Some federal programs are also considered entitlements even though the subscriber’s “paying into the system” occurs via a means other than monetary, as in the case of those programs providing for veterans’ benefits, and where the individual becomes eligible via service in the US military.

3.For a discussion of the concept see Strobe Talbott, “America Abroad: The Birth of the Global Nation”, Time, July 20, 1992. http://channelingreality.com/Documents/1992_Strobe_Talbot_Global_Nation.pdf. “I’ll bet that within the next hundred years (I’m giving the world time for setbacks and myself time to be out of the betting game, just in case I lose this one), nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. A phrase briefly fashionable in the mid-20th century — ‘citizen of the world’ — will have assumed real meaning by the end of the 21st.” “The best mechanism for democracy, whether at the level of the multinational state or that of the planet as a whole, is not an all-powerful Leviathan or centralized superstate, but a federation, a union of separate states that allocate certain powers to a central government while retaining many others for themselves.

Federalism has already proved the most successful of all political experiments, and organizations like the World Federalist Association have for decades advocated it as the basis for global government. Federalism is largely an American invention. For all its troubles, including its own serious bout of secessionism 130 years ago and the persistence of various forms of tribalism today, the US is still the best example of a multinational federal state. If that model does indeed work globally, it would be the logical extension of the Founding Fathers’ wisdom, therefore a special source of pride for a world government’s American constituents.” Cf. https://www.pri.org/verticals/global-nation. This is a global nation advocacy group. Edward Goldberg, “America: Indispensable Nation, or Indispensable Partner?”, RealClearWorld, October 12, 2016. http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/10/12/america_indispensable_nation_or_indispensable_partner_112087.html. “America and its global role have been redefined during those 18 years; we are no longer the indispensable nation, we are the indispensable partner, and there is a big philosophical difference between those two ideas. The indispensable nation — like the individual entrepreneur, i.e., Donald Trump — takes independent risks to protect its own status. The indispensable partner leads and takes risks to protect the stability of its network — the new joint ventured world — and to grow that network.”

4.Steven Rosefielde and Quinn Mills, Democracy and Its Elected Enemies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Super PACs are a relatively new type of committee that arose following the July 2010 federal court decision in a case known as SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission. Technically known as independent expenditure-only committees, super PACs may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, then spend unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political candidates. Unlike traditional PACs, super PACs are prohibited from donating money directly to political candidates, and their spending must not be coordinated with that of the candidates they benefit. Super PACs are required to report their donors to the Federal Election Commission on a monthly or semiannual basis — the super PAC’s choice — in off-years, and monthly in the year of an election. As of January 07, 2017, 2,408 groups organized as super PACs have reported total receipts of $1,797,657,369 and total independent expenditures of $1,119,480,236 in the 2016 cycle. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/superpacs.php.

5.Privileges given to socially disadvantaged individuals and groups including women and minorities are called “affirmative action”.

6.Advocates of restorative justice like Black Lives Matter (BLM) demand compensation for the cumulative suffering inflicted on blacks by slavery and past racis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I Trump’s Domestic Agenda
• Part II Trump’s Foreign Agenda
• Part III Tomorrow
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author