From Turkey in RecepTayyip Erdogan to Hungary in Viktor Orbán, the victory of Trump brand nationalism can be said to be consistent with the rising trend of authoritarianism in these very different countries. At the same time, these advances have made populist democracy a living threat to individual freedom, and even brought more fundamental troubles to the ideas that the West loves. Many problems remain unsolved, but with angry nationalists calling the shots in quite a few places, we can't rule out the possibility that we are experiencing a political turmoil.
In the United States, endless after-the-fact review will focus on how Trump's victory may have happened; Most media will continue to pay attention to some short-term issues, such as the intervention of FBI director JamesComey eleven days before the election, or a series of leaks in Hillary's campaign. It is reported that the leaked information originated from Russia. This consideration is reasonable and may also be related to the current results. But it is important to realize that the current results are rooted in American society. As the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party reassess their positions, it may be better for them to reflect on the following questions: What changes have taken place in the political map in the short four years since 20 12; How this change not only reflects the dramatic events in the election campaign, but also reflects the internal changes in the United States itself, that is, people are worried about the economic situation and deeply uneasy about the role of the United States in world affairs.
Throughout the developed world, the banking crisis in 2008 questioned the authority of elites, who created this high-risk system. In the famous testimony of Alan AlanGreenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Directors, "the banking model is flawed", which weakens the professional knowledge on which the support rate of the elite depends. What is more serious than the economic failure in the west is that the sense of unfairness is getting stronger and stronger. What the public witnessed was that the wealthy institutions and individuals who had been running the system were all helped, and then the poor and middle class ushered in austerity policies and unemployment. In the United States, the anxiety caused by the decline of the country's relative strength has aggravated the destructive impact of these annoying observations.
The George W. Bush era painfully exposed the limitations of American military power in Iraq. Since then, the Obama era has witnessed China ending the position of the United States as the world's largest economy in some way, and it seems that it is ready to completely surpass the United States in a few years. Nationalism can take many forms, but nationalism mixed with nostalgia may be particularly effective. Trump's promise is not only to make America great, but also to "make America great again." The slogan of Britain's withdrawal from the EU camp is not only to urge to gain control, but also to "regain control". British readers may hear this slogan.
Trump promised not to regain the greatness that the United States has always imagined itself. Trump does not claim to be committed to promoting openness and democracy, and such commitments are sometimes announced too much; On the contrary, his suggestion promoted a firm but more secular politics, which might create space for other big countries to fill, and he also knew which big countries would fill it. In this way, on the whole, today's world may soon find a way to deal with the consequences of the withdrawal of the United States. But the first task is to understand why America is so self-centered. In order to find the answer, we must first consider the American political system.
Hillary Clinton's elite capture and veto system
The dysfunction of American political system greatly affected the result of the 20 16 presidential election. Huge sums of money and powerful special interest groups are eroding Congress and enriching the wallets of elites at the expense of ordinary people. This accusation unites Trump and Bernard Sanders, two peripheral candidates from right to left. Both accused Hillary of being the embodiment of this corruption, because the Clintons had already enriched themselves by collecting money from vested interests. Both of them criticized Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs as particularly evil forces. With the boring progress of the election year, the right wing even raised the accusation to a new height: Trump condemned the corruption of American institutions, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (although only when he pardoned Hillary), the Federal Reserve Board and the National Electoral Administration. Matt draghi, a destructive conservative, even suggested that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) exaggerated the threat of Hurricane Matthew for political purposes.
The American political system has indeed become dysfunctional; The trouble is that critics like Trump and Sanders have not found the root of the problem and have not provided any real solutions.
The real problem stems partly from the characteristics of American society and partly from the American system. In terms of race, nationality, religion, geography and culture, Americans are highly diverse and complex from every conceivable angle. In the past twenty years, they have also become highly divided. This polarization is reflected in Americans' choice of residence, and ideological closeness is often more important than race or religion; This is also reflected in Congress, where the most moderate Republicans are much more conservative than the most conservative Democrats. This is very different from the situation in the past 20 centuries, when the understanding between the two parties enabled them to agree on many major policies, from the New Deal to Ronald Reagan's tax cuts.
In addition to ideological polarization, a large number of interest groups have emerged in the United States. Those interest groups have huge wealth and are well-organized, including not only corporate lobbyists, but also environmental protection organizations, people who advocate spending money to treat almost every disease known to mankind, and wealthy individual donors, such as casino tycoon Sheldon Delson or notorious Koch brothers, namely Charles Koch and David Koch. They can raise funds from both parties themselves. Since the late 1960s, the amount of funds in American political activities has increased by more than one order of magnitude. Fund-raising has now become the main task of all officials, especially members of the House of Representatives, who must strive for re-election every two years. (Sheldon Anderson was born in 1933, and by August of 20 18, his wealth was about $32.2 billion. Charles Koch was born in 1935 and david koch was born in 1940. Both brothers own Koch Industrial Group. -translation)
The constitutional framework inherited from the founding fathers has intensified the polarization and the capture effect of interest groups. Compared with parliamentary democracy in western Europe, the American system widely distributes power among competing departments within the government. Under such a presidential system, the executive and legislative departments should effectively restrict each other; The Senate of the legislative branch must have a super majority (60 votes out of 100) to pass ordinary bills; The Supreme Court, which can overturn the decrees of Congress, has assumed the responsibility of formulating social policies in recent decades. The really important powers are still reserved by States and localities. Each of these power centers can veto the actions of the whole system.
This system, coupled with polarization and the rise of powerful interest groups, has led to what I call the "veto system." That is, a special interest group can veto actions that are harmful to it, and at the same time, collective actions committed to public interests become extremely difficult to achieve. The veto system is not fatal to American democracy, but it does form low-quality governance. This is obvious in one of the most basic duties of the government, that is, forming the annual budget.
Today, the federal budget cannot be passed under the so-called "regularorder" procedure, which has been going on for more than a decade. Every year, there is a showdown between the Democratic Party and its tea party members. Tea party members threatened not to pass the budget at all or raise the debt ceiling (such a refusal is absurd because it would involve a default on US sovereign debt). The brinkmanship of 20 13 brought the government to a complete halt. During this period, federal workers will face criminal sanctions even if they only appear at work.
The veto system has other negative effects. The US tax law of10,000 pages is a disgrace. Its list of tax exemptions and subsidies is obscure, and the special rights and interests slowly established through compromise in the past are repeatedly superimposed. The corporate tax rate in the United States ranks among the highest in the world and has also become the headline of the media; If this tax rate can be reduced to avoid all government closures, the United States will perform better. Budget experts from both parties agree in principle to reduce this tax rate, especially to encourage American multinational companies to take back the $2 trillion in cash they have hidden overseas for domestic use. In practice, however, Congress was blocked by the veto and could not even repeal the hateful carried interest Clause, which gave private equity investors and hedge fund managers a lower tax rate than others.
I define "political decline" as well-organized interest groups seizing political power, which distort the system for their own interests and sacrifice broader public interests. Besides, a decadent system can't help itself to restore order, because those deep-rooted interests and ways of thinking hinder the reform. In recent decades, with the well-organized elites using the veto system to safeguard their own interests, the American political system has experienced a decline. This does not mean that this country is no longer democratic, but when some Americans have more weight than others in the political process, there is a representative crisis. This perception of injustice forms the second social condition that affects the election results, namely inequality.
Inequality and Class Dissatisfaction in Francis Fukuyama
In the past generation, inequality has increased. The approximate figures about the total wealth and income of the former 10% population are widely known. Before this election, people were less aware of how the other 99% people lived.
Left-wingers in the United States usually think of African-Americans, illegal immigrants or other marginalized ethnic groups in cities first when considering inequality. Poverty among these groups is still a big problem, but the burden of unequal growth falls on different social classes: the older white working class, which has gone through three generations of deindustrialization. As social observers CharlesMurray and putnam at both ends of the political spectrum have recorded, the most important social division in the United States is no longer race or ethnic group, but class determined by education level. (Charles Murray, born in 1943, is a political scholar, sociologist and liberal. Robert Putnam was born in 194 1, and is a professor at the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University. -translation)
The wealth differentiation between college graduates and dropouts is shocking, which is not only obvious in income statistics. For example, workers with only basic education usually earn less than their fathers or grandfathers. When it comes to social dysfunction such as family disintegration and drug addiction, the same is true: in the primary season, in New Hampshire, which is dominated by whites and has a strong local flavor, the primary problem has become heroin abuse. The use of methamphetamine has spread to rural America, and children from single-parent families have been abandoned and have to take care of themselves. People with low academic qualifications in rural areas have a great sense of alienation and dissatisfaction. Their dissatisfaction lies in that their compatriots living in the city ignore their plight. (Methamphetamine is also called "ice". -translation)
Neither party fully supports the white working class. * * * and the elite in the party are from the United States, which is dominated by enterprises. They advocate free trade and an open immigration policy, which can be called the world view of the Wall Street Journal. The white working class may vote for the Republican Party on cultural issues such as guns or abortion, but the ruling group of the Republican Party has not shown concern for their economic interests. Trump seems to be familiar with the skills of inciting people's subsequent anger; Today, his supporters tend to be more angry with orthodox and Republicans like PaulRyan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, than Democrats.
But Democrats also cut ties with the white working class. They pieced together alliances including different identity groups to win the national election, including African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, environmental activists and members of the LGBT community. Women's status is equally important, but perhaps women with certain education and feminist tendencies are particularly important: Trump boasts about how he touches women's bodies. Compared with working-class sisters, educated women feel more strongly about recording, and most of the former support Trump. Until recently, the white working class was still an identity group and was not even considered to be in a particularly disadvantaged position; As a result, Democrats mostly ignored them.
This change lasted for a long time. Back in the1930s, the vast majority of rural whites supported franklin roosevelt's New Deal Alliance; They are often the main beneficiaries of many reform initiatives, one of which is the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which has brought electricity to rural areas in the south. After the Democratic Party passed a series of civil rights legislation in the 1960 s, it began to flow to the * * * and the party, especially in the Reagan era. Bill Clinton made many of them change their minds in the11990s, and Obama was able to win enough supporters to be elected president twice. But the alienation between them and the Democrats broke out a year later, when their candidate said the right nonsense to help them, but there seemed to be a cultural world between them.
So the success of 20 16 populism is not shocking. The financial crisis in 2008 was the responsibility of the economic elite, but as a result, ordinary working-class people lost their jobs. Since neither party has provided houses for white working-class people, economic marginalization coincides with the marginalization of the political system, which favors people with money and status. What is really surprising is that this populist riot didn't come earlier.
Sort out the current situation.
A more worrying aspect of this year's election is the corrupt effect of social media. As early as 1990' s, the spokesman of the internet revolution thought that this new technology would be revolutionary. Because information is power, the availability of information will produce the effect of democratization. From Kiev to Yangon to Tahrir Square, democratic protests seem to prove this point. Tahrir Square is located in Cairo, Egypt. -Translation instructions. )
However, although the Internet democratizes the access to information, it does not necessarily improve the quality of information, and intensifies the influence of selective truth or even outright misinformation on politics. To understand how this mechanism works in an authoritarian country, we only need to look at Russia.
According to the American intelligence community, Russian hackers stole information from the Democratic National Committee, hijacked the email account of JohnPodesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, and then gradually disclosed their findings through Wikileaks in an attempt to hurt Clinton. Some well-informed critics have been emphasizing the fragility of electronic voting machines, which has aroused people's concern that democracy will be distorted more directly.
It is unusual for Trump to interact closely with Russian sources. He resolutely refused to criticize Putin. In fact, when comparing Putin with his own President Obama, he praised the former more. He expressed doubts about the intelligence briefing he received and thought that the source of the leak was uncertain, echoing Russia's position on the legality of Russia's takeover of Crimea. Many Republicans now follow his lead, from accusing Obama of being too soft on Putin to claiming that the United States needs to get along with Putin more harmoniously, without any sense of disobedience. The impact of all this may be profound, but there is no need for the United States to introduce distortions into the recent elections: most of these distortions are driven by the Internet, and the United States is forming a large number of such distortions.
Trump shows that as a presidential candidate, he can persistently lie publicly without paying any price. Therefore, Trump's war of words that ignores the facts on a wider range of issues is even more harmful. Trump is full of lies, posting bad information on his Twitter account and questioning some major issues, such as whether Obama was born in the United States or whether the crime rate is unprecedented. This is more common. He also distorted the original record on more personal issues: in the face of facts, he still claimed that he had never supported the Iraq war (although previous TV clips captured his support for the Iraq war). ?
In fact, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a statistical agency, and from national inquirers (national
Trump refused to distinguish anecdotes read in gossip magazines such as Enquirer. According to his purpose, he also questioned the neutrality of official institutions, such as the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and accused them of being corrupted by the Hillary camp without any evidence. Recently, he tweeted that he actually won the general election because there were 3 million illegal votes. This assertion lacks empirical basis.
Every "fact" read through the Internet seems to be as important as every other "fact". In this case, the division of voters' world outlook has intensified. Mark zuckerberg can protest against the contrary, but the self-choice nature of quite a few political discussions is beyond doubt, and the opposite result of that reality is more and more true for American political discourse.
Because quite a few Americans just don't believe anything they hear from mainstream media channels such as The New York Times or CNN, and they are involved in a wide range of conspiracy theories to defend embarrassing information. For example, they think that Trump's poor performance in the presidential debate is only because Clinton has a receiver through which he can receive answers provided by others. Generally speaking, conspiracy theory thinking is the product of powerlessness. In fact, many Trump supporters feel ignored and belittled. But he encouraged this trend for his own benefit, which bodes ill for the future of democratic consultation in the United States.
Clinton democracy is retaliating.
Nearly two months after the election, there is still great uncertainty about how Trump will actually govern. The first uncertainty is related to his true character. He is not only a businessman who is good at trading and expects to reach a deal, but also an extreme conspiracy broker who implies that he will pursue a firm nationalist policy. He must manage a huge and clumsy government and deal with unruly foreign leaders: in the face of this reality, will his trading party or his extreme position win?
Will he insist on imposing punitive tariffs on China and risk a trade war? Will he carpet bomb Syria? Will he insist on this dangerous measure and then ignore the ruling of the free world order such as the World Trade Organization and even the United Nations? Will he go further, as some of his more fanatical views show, and think that he is no longer obliged to abide by agreements such as the Geneva Conventions? The Geneva Conventions have long restricted the conduct of war. Will he authorize the crackdown on relatives of terrorists? Nobody knows yet.
If Trump is elected not only because people are dissatisfied with the dysfunctional political system, but also because of the plight of the working class, can the new president bring hope to solve any problem?
Speaking of the declining political system in the United States, I am not optimistic at all. Apart from suggesting that government officials be prohibited from lobbying frequently, Trump did not propose any institutionalized solution to solve the problem of powerful interest groups riding on the country. The problem now is that political activities are full of huge funds, and this system gives lobbyists more different channels to contact legislators than parliamentary democracy allows. According to the Supreme Court's ruling on Bakliyev and other cases, the problem of money cannot be solved. Valeo and citizens jointly sued the Federal Election Commission, arguing that political donations and lobbying fees are a form of freedom of speech and are therefore protected by the Constitution. (Judgment in Buckley v. Valeo 1976, Judgment in United Citizens v. Federal Election Commission 20 10. -translation)
Trump's only publicly declared solution is that he is rich enough not to be bribed. He is really such a person: rich enough to turn down the $400,000 presidential salary as a cheap advertisement for his own brand. As the president, he seems eager to continue to maximize his business interests. Despite this fact, he did not propose a long-term road map for what he described as "draining the swamp of corruption in Washington." ?
On the issue of inequality and the plight of the working class, his main suggestions are to renegotiate trade agreements and crack down on illegal immigration activities. However, such suggestions are unlikely to produce any positive effects as promised. In fact, they may trigger retaliation from other countries, thus leading to a downward spiral in the world, reminiscent of 1930 s. Personality factors will come into play at this time: if Trump finds that he can't get major concessions from his trading partners, will he walk away according to his extreme personality image, or will he just stop and make the best deal he can get?
However, in other areas, Trump may be more successful. In the eight years of Obama's administration, there were six years of deadlock, because polarized parties had different government departments. Obama was able to pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Act to supervise banks because his Democratic Party has a majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. At present, the situation is completely different. Republicans control both houses of Congress. The automatic budget reduction of 20 13 has completely restricted the expenditure at the government level, and similar obstacles will be eliminated. It will be easier for Congress to pass budgets and complete legislation. This does not mean that the quality of legislation will be high, but at least Washington will make a difference. The sense of destruction caused by the frustration that the government has simply "accomplished nothing" may begin to weaken, that is, at this time, the majority in Congress absurdly tends to oppose the government ideologically. ?
In addition to trade, Trump may do something good for his working-class supporters in one area: infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates that there is a deficit of $2 trillion in infrastructure expenditure; Both Trump and Clinton have made major investment commitments. This kind of expenditure will create a lot of employment opportunities for the working class and may provide a satisfactory economic stimulus.
Compared with his Democratic opponent, Trump has a better chance to successfully implement infrastructure construction, not only because he is a developer, but also because in the past, too many opinions against spending on infrastructure came from his own * * * and the Tea Party faction in the party. If Clinton wins the electoral college vote, she may be bound by an angry congress from the beginning: * * * and the party-controlled congress are eager to stop all her positive actions; In contrast, Trump will have more power to push something.
* * * and the party's total victory this time should not conceal the fact that within it, orthodox Ryan conservatives expect globalization and cut social spending, while Trump's working-class supporters have the opposite demand, and there is a huge contradiction between the two factions. When the new administration plans its first budget, the battle will soon be involved. We may fail in both areas: the rich reap large-scale tax cuts (after Trump appointed Steven Nuchin, a banker who has worked for Goldman Sachs for a long time [Steven
Mnuchin] As the finance minister, this seems to be a top priority), social projects such as Obamacare reform have been cut, which are all economic protectionism and excessive racial paranoia.
The appointment of SteveBannon, CEO of Brett Bart News Network, as the White House strategist and Reince Priebus, chairman of the party's national committee, as the White House chief of staff only reminds people of that kind of compromise. On the other hand, Trump seems to retreat from the promise of completely abolishing Obamacare. When he realizes that he can't easily replace Obamacare with something "wonderful", he may find himself caught in the remarkable achievements of his predecessor. (Breitbart News Network is an American right-wing or extreme right-wing news website, which was established in 2007. -translation)
The impact of Trump's victory on American foreign policy is even more disturbing. Trump expressed his admiration for Putin and others. He is the first presidential candidate of a major political party who is completely indifferent to promoting the democratic world order. This has always been the bounden duty of the United States, at least in theory. Instead of criticizing Putin, he seems eager to reach an agreement with him soon after taking office. In response to Russia's intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, the United States and Europe launched sanctions against Russia, and those sanctions are likely to be the first victims of this encounter.
Jimmy Carter pursued a retreat strategy after Vietnam War, and then Reagan restored the leading position of the United States in the world. Unlike Reagan, Trump is likely to accelerate the trend that has begun under Obama, that is, greatly weaken the role played by the United States in the world. That's why people like julian assange, the founder of Wikileaks, are so eager to help him hurt Clinton. In short, even if his election is to some extent a response to the United States' awareness of its declining position in the world, the result may greatly aggravate this downward trend. ?
This book about Trump is still being written. We must wait for the next few months to see if BLACKPINK is a good trader or an extremist. However, Trump's victory also represents the latest stage of the global shift to populist nationalism, and the impact of this model has begun to become surprisingly clear.
This trend includes the rise of anti-EU and anti-immigrant right-wing parties in Brebart and throughout Europe. In a sense, these developments, like Trump, are the public's delayed response to globalization and the economic and cultural disorder caused by the banner of freedom, and freedom is not limited to national borders. In other words, the "democratic" part of liberal democracy is waging an uprising to retaliate against the "liberal" part. If this trend continues in other parts of the world, we will be doomed to be punished in an era of angry nationalism competing with each other.