[Peace] Why Trump is losing to the neolibs and neocons

[Carl G. Estabrook]

Once installed as President, with no prior ties to the Republican party or political experience of any sort, Trump was virtually bound to put together a government at variance with most of what he said on the campaign trail, drawing on bankers and businessmen, generals and a couple of politicos of right-wing stamp, to produce a cabinet out of George Grosz. His few intimates lurk in the background, within the White House or on the National Security Council. The incompatibilities between Trump and the party he shanghaied have been on display from the start. Before even their confirmation, his defence and foreign ministers were publicly contradicting him on the need for a swift understanding with Russia, the most incendiary of his themes, to which Washington as an imperial hub is most sensitive. Further along, conflicts over tariffs, deficits, health-care, are predictable. Immigration too, since unlike any European country, the US is historically a land of immigrants, where the kind of xenophobic backlash swelling in the EU and UK is off-set by a powerful ideology of welcome for newcomers, one that for equally historical reasons does not exist in Europe, as integral to, rather than a problem for, national identity. Passionate opposition to any all-out repression and expulsion of illegals has already sparked demonstrations in the streets and blockage in the courts, causing jumpiness in Republican ranks in Congress. The only domains in which there would appear to be a frictionless overlap between the President and his party are deregulation, where executive orders are already pouring forth, with legislative repeal of Dodd–Frank to follow, and judicial appointments, where unity over the Supreme Court is assured. Otherwise, even taxation, given talk of border adjustment charges, is proving contentious.

Overlaying these structural tensions, themselves disabling policy coherence, is the personal style, impulsive and erratic, of the tyro at the helm of the state, spreading disorder in the conduct of its affairs. To all appearances, an Ubu Roi has been let loose in the White House. Nowhere more so, given virtually complete executive leeway, than in dealings with the outside world. Looking forward to the break-up of the EU, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, tearing up the submission of Iran, threatening to upgrade relations with Taiwan, hinting at termination of sanctions on Russia, publicly browbeating Mexico—is there any rhyme or reason in such reckless trashing of received Atlantic wisdom? Or is it, as every indication would suggest, all random bluster, as easily retracted as vented? Plainly, it is too soon to say. Could some reverse edition of Nixon’s embrace of Beijing to put pressure on Moscow, an entente with Russia to squeeze China, so far the prime object of Presidential ire, yet emerge from the morass of ongoing confusions? The speed with which the security bureaucracy in Washington, with the press in full cry behind it, has moved to discredit any prospect of such a diplomatic somersault speaks for itself. Constitutionally, the power of the US Presidency in foreign affairs has few legislative restraints. But its condition is hierarchical discipline in the executive itself. Once this is freely breached, as in the encirclement of the West Wing under way, autonomy contracts and policy tends to revert to autopilot. The only reliable assumption is that American greatness requires the American empire, for whatever occasional ends it sets itself and with whatever tactical means necessary to pursue them. Institutional continuity will inevitably enfold and undoubtedly enfeeble individual caprice. --PERRY ANDERSON