One of the themes I harp on quite a lot in these pages is the extent to which populism anno 2017 plays on the fears of those who feel as though the world has left them behind.
This notion of the disaffected American factory worker whose job went to cheap labor in China has been kind of crystallized into a rallying cry for Donald Trump’s support base and the new President was more than happy to exploit the idea of the “silenced”, downtrodden masses during his campaign.
The myriad problems with that are glaringly obvious. Donald Trump doesn’t represent the Everyman in any way, shape, or form. The fact that a guy who i) builds golden monuments to himself, ii) continually brags about how rich he is, and iii) made it his first order of business to dismantle the very set of regulations (Dodd-Frank) designed specifically to protect Main Street, has managed to convince large swaths of the Middle Class that he’s their champion is either a testament to Trump’s ability to manipulate people, proof that a lot of Americans are gullible idiots, or both.
What I despise most about this entire populist spectacle is that Trump is exploiting people’s ignorance. Marine Le Pen is doing the same thing in France. Frauke Petry is doing the same thing in Germany. I’m not really sure if Geert Wilders is doing the same thing in the Netherlands because frankly, Wilders is so goddamn crazy that I dare say he actually believes everything he says – so in a way, he’s actually preferable to the false populist prophets in the US, France, and Germany who are merely seeking to capitalize politically on popular discontent.
As strange, paternalistic, and pretentious as this sounds, I’m not trying to be derisive by characterizing Trump’s support base as “gullible idiots.” I mean, a large percentage of them are gullible idiots, but that’s exactly why this situation is so sad. Trump cannot bring back American manufacturing. He cannot wind the clock back and restore industries that are simply no longer competitive in a modern, global economy. To tell people that he can is cruel. It gives people false hope. And it also ensures that they’ll never be able to adapt to the new reality in which they live.
More generally, this idea of rolling back globalization is a disaster from a utilitarian perspective. It is unquestionably desirable (again, from a utilitarian perspective) to create an open, global economy and to foster a shared human destiny. Racism, tribalism, nationalism, xenophobia, all of that bullsh*t has no place in modernity.
Yes, there will be losers. That’s why I stressed “from a utilitarian perspective.”
But that’s the way it goes. If your skill set, education, disposition, biases, or whatever else makes you vulnerable in a globalized, multicultural world, then you’ll be left behind. In some cases, it’s not your fault (factory workers in America’s rust belt are a good example). In other cases, it is your fault (those whose racial and social biases make them ill equipped to cope with globalization are a good example).
In the end, an “us against them“, inward-looking approach to the world isn’t viable. And indeed, there’s something patently absurd about using radical Islam as an excuse for adopting such an approach. After all, if pursuing an “Islam against the infidels” world view is so damn misguided (which it obviously is), then why in the hell would you adopt the very same strategy only in reverse (“us against Islam“) as a way of combatting it? It’s the same backwards ass logic as that which underpins the death penalty: “murder is bad, therefore what we should do with murderers is murder them.”
In any event, it appears there’s hope for Americans yet because, in a truly ironic twist that’s reminiscent of the rally in Nordstrom’s stock following Trump’s Twitter attack on the retailer for dropping his daughter’s merchandise, it turns out that America’s view of foreign trade is now the most positive on record.
While Gallup posits a number of possible explanations for the sharp change in America’s attitude – including the possibility that Trump’s promises to strike more favorable deals have caused some opponents of free trade to rethink whether it can in fact be a positive under the right leader – I have an alternative explanation: perhaps – just perhaps – Trump’s bullsh*t is starting to backfire.
A record-high 72% of Americans see foreign trade as an opportunity for economic growth. This is up sharply from 58% last year, after much debate about trade during the presidential election cycle.
These results are from Gallup’s annual World Affairs survey, conducted Feb. 1-5.
Foreign trade was a major theme of the 2016 presidential election, with Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders having denounced trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. However, rather than rejecting agreements like these outright, President Trump has promised to replace multinational agreements such as the TPP with bilateral deals on more favorable terms for the U.S. This reasoning may help explain why more Americans now see trade as a mechanism for economic growth.
Americans’ view that trade is an opportunity for economic growth has fluctuated since 2000. The low point was 41% in 2008, during the 2007-2009 recession. However, the percentage holding this view was also low in 2005-2006, when the economy was in much better shape. It is possible that Americans were less likely to view trade as an economic opportunity then because there was less emphasis on the matter during the George W. Bush administration. During Barack Obama’s tenure, a push for trade with countries in the Asia-Pacific region thrust the issue back into the spotlight.
Bottom Line
A record-high 72% of Americans believe foreign trade is good for the U.S. economy, and an equal proportion believe promoting favorable trade policies in foreign markets is a very important goal. Despite the often-negative characterization of U.S. trade deals throughout the 2016 campaign, there has been an increase among all party groups in perceptions that trade is good for the country. For Democrats, this may be a sort of rebellion against Trump’s anti-trade pronouncements. Among Republicans, this sentiment may be up due to a belief that U.S. trade will flourish under a Trump administration.
H–Super piece thanks. We need people of all stripes+some leaders with backbone to move away from this awful administration and I think you are correct, the Orange/julius is starting to reach his expiration date. Didn’t take long for this drama to become unhinged.
Another thought. The American worker has been led down a road to ruin with fake promises from both democrats and even more so by republicans. Time and again they were told this trade deal was good for them when it was really only good for corporate bottom lines. Why wouldn’t most workers feel some kind of betrayal. Remember everyone has an agenda and time and again the american worker was moved further down in the list. Should they have seen this coming, you bet, especially when they are training some person from some other country for their job.
H – I’d like to hear your thoughts with regard to this hypothesis: That Trump is a minor factor in the so-called Trump Trade. That the trend pre-dates Trump, that it started in July 2016, paused during Oct and resumed on Nov 3rd at a time when the election was a coin-flip. That the forces driving this trend are powerful macro trends in asset allocation (outflows from bonds and inflows to equities) which are not getting nearly as much attention as Trump. What are those forces and trends? Candidates: loss of Central Bank power, risk of debt defaults, risk of currency devaluations, investment assets fleeing non-US economies, a rush to the dollar, a rush to US equities. What do you think? (Without dwelling on Trump too much, his effect on the migration of investment funds from debt to equities and from foreign to US is this: prior US administration was actively inhibiting debt defaults and currency devaluations, but this administration will be hands-off and will allow debt defaults and currency devaluations to occur sooner and deeper.) – Mark
“It is unquestionably desirable (again, from a utilitarian perspective) to create an open, global economy and to foster a shared human destiny. ”
Martin Sheff in his book “That should still be us: How Thomas Friedman’s flat world myths are keeping us flat on our backs” both questions such elitist thinking and shows convincingly that it is NOT desirable.
You seem to be a fast reader and big on convergences and divergences, read it for your self and see who does a better job of describing reality compared with beliefs, Sheff or Friedman (and you who apparently follow him as gullibility as others follow Trump) .
I agree that Trump can not turn back time but maybe he has a chance to alter the course of our shared human destiny in a positive direction.
I hate Thomas Friedman. Not necessarily because of his view of the world, but because a God awful writer and generally a complete fucking idiot.
Maybe pigs can fly? This president has no intention of a shared human destiny. Many of his followers want him to blow-up a system that they think has failed them. In many ways it has but this has disaster written all over it. There are no jobs coming back and safer is not scaring the rest of the world with empty threats. We are one event away from having 3-4 Trumps in Europe just waiting to lob a few economic bombs (maybe literally). This could get serious really fast (as in months not years) and lots of people will be collateral damage. I’m sure Trump, LePen, Wilders and a few more right wing crazies will be thinking of all those people as they move toward the destruction of the EU. RIGHTTTTTT!!!!! By the way Putin is sitting with a big smile on his face right now just licking his chops waiting to pounce.
I just read John Mauldin’s latest newsletter at http://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/tax-reform-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-part-one#end and now understand a bit more your and Heisenber’s concerns. Do you think that Putin is hoping for a world wide depression.? How could he benefit?