There are widely differing verdicts on what the future US regime will be like: hardline, moderate, protectionist, business oriented, against trade pacts, for “public spending”, anti-Wall Street, newly hegemonic, isolationistic, euro-sceptic, anti-Islamic? Though those features are not all mutually exclusive, they create widespread confusion and it may take time for the future US government to dispel it, even if it manages to adopt and stick to a consistent and clear policy, which, given Donald Trump’s personality and background, is far from certain. One of his latest announcements has been to confirm his decision to abort Barack Obama’s pet Trans-Pacific Partnership Project and keep the US away from international trade pacts.
Some old conservatives and libertarians, including disciples of Ezra Pound of whom Stephen Bannon, the President’s strategic advisers appears to be one, even hope that the new POTUS will take on the Federal Reserve and “nationalise” it, thus striking a body blow at the consortium of big banks and financial powerhouses that runs the country. This, however, seems to be a far-fetched utopia, even though Trump needs to free the money supply from the clutches of the Fed if he wishes to generate massive public funding for the promised mega-infrastructure projects. Yet the US politico-economic system seems too powerful and deep-rooted to be radically transformed by any one President, especially one whose views are at variance with those of most leaders in his own party.
In any event, it must be realised that Trump’s rise is part of a worldwide, though not systematically coherent, trend towards national autonomy and self-protection and against global neo-liberalism. It started as a rejection of traditional parties, in response to the economic and financial crisis of 2007-8 and was boosted by the current Middle Eastern wars, terrorist waves and refugee and immigrant flood from West Asia and Africa towards the West. It translates into a backlash against the “Washington Consensus” and policies supporting mass immigration, pervasive privatisation and ruthless cultural secularisation, coupled with mass surveillance, labour deregulation (implying a constant loss of jobs and production) and stifling political correctness. The financial elites which control the politicians, own the major media and stipend accredited pundits, and have so far imposed that agenda under a democratic guise by using many real or constructed minorities—ethnic, religious and sexual—in order to divide and control the majority. Dissenters are commonly discredited as being fascist populists. It is the irony of modern democracies that, by claiming to uphold “universal values” they keep privileged oligarchies in power while disdainfully taking the masses for granted. Many in western societies see that formula as a death warrant for their prosperity and even the survival of their identities and they vote for those who promise to arrest the decline. It is no wonder that Trump, with the lapidary simplicity and sweeping flippancy of his statements won a large portion of the electorate, howbeit through a questionable process pitting the Electoral College against a popular suffrage, in which, however, millions of voters are sneakily disqualified for a variety of technical reasons.
Europe, likewise, is turning towards the Neo-Nationalists who promise to implement radical programmes for protecting domestic interests, reviving industry and creating employment. The current system is so closely identified with certain financial communities that those who oppose it find themselves accused of anti-Semitism. Trump and some of his advisers from the “Alt Right” have not escaped that stigma even though Trump’s family and professional associations make that allegation rather unbelievable. Yet at least part of the Jewish leadership has mobilised against him and notably against his anti-Muslim immigration pledge. Their reaction is counter-intuitive, but consistent with the attitude of European Jewish elites and of Israel’s ruling class, broadly favourable to left-liberal multi-culturalism, immigration and a strong Islamic presence in the West, but not in the Jewish state itself.
Conservatives and liberal observers can, however, not agree on what the new leaders (Theresa May, Trump, tomorrow perhaps Marine Le Pen or François Fillon in France and the future German Chancellor, whoever he or she is) will do to respond to the demands of their voters and how they will deal with the rivals and adversaries they face in the developing world, especially in the BRICS and at the helm of “dissident” states ranging from North Korea and Venezuela to Philippines and Iran.
The national security team appointed by Donald Trump so far appears neo-conservative and belligerent, even though some analysts claim that the President-elect remains opposed to neocons bent on sabotaging his projects. A hyper-nationalistic US administration with bloated military budgets (which Trump has promised to raise even more) is unlikely to look kindly at Putin or at Xi Jing Ping who act to curb America’s power abroad. There seems to be an acknowledgment from Trump Team that the “regime change” policies of the last two administrations, often relying on terrorist movements to overthrow “unfriendly” strongmen such as Saddam, Gaddafi or Assad have disastrously failed, but discarding the methods is not tantamount to repudiating the goals and a Trump presidency might seek and use ways and means, clandestine or open to destabilise or even strike directly at Tehran, Pyongyang and the remaining “Bolivarian” governments in Latin America.
A magic bullet of the Trumpists seems to be a rapprochement with Russia, ostensibly intended to crush ISIS, which has outlived its usefulness to US policies, but also in the long run to lure the Kremlin away from its Iranian and Chinese allies, thus exposing the latter two powers to more effective US pressure. It is however doubtful that Putin would succumb to those entreaties as he has no reason to trust Washington once the Pentagon has achieved its primary objectives. The Russian President may convince his American counterpart to form an Ameri-Eurasian strategic pact, which would necessarily include the EU, transforming NATO into a wider coalition. Otherwise Putin will seek to maintain equidistance for Russia between the West and China. He will try to build closer ties with the EU, taking advantage of the momentary estrangement between American and European ruling elites following Trump’s election.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is now being greeted by many observers as the leader of the old West, in lieu of a “rogue” US President who has pledged to “drain the swamp” and upset the apple cart of the status quo.
As journalist Pepe Escobar points out in a recent essay, inspired by Zygmunt Bauman’s thesis of liquid modernity, an essential feature of emerging political leaders is their resolve to free themselves from the procedural trammels of democracy since the separation between the three powers has become symbolic and even irrelevant, given the politicisation of the judicial system, the impotence of legislatures and the paralysis that results from conflict between the various branches of government. As national and supra-national assemblies are increasingly discredited, from Brussels to Washington and from Brasilia to Ankara, more arbitrary and personalised regimes sell their respective brands and sharpen their technological claws by appealing directly to the masses via the method of reality shows. Transnational structures are collapsing, strongmen are elected as “antidotes” to the prevalent poison (Escobar) and walls are coming up, but th
ey may not prevent internal strife from breaking out when economic and social tensions reach a fever pitch.