Geopolitics 2017. Sailing at night without compass

The recent presidential election in the United States has led not just to a change in government but a change of regime. We could characterize it as a type of moderate authoritarianism moderated by sloppiness. This article analyzes some of the internal contradictions of Trump’s regime and its repercussions in the geopolitical sphere. Tensions will increase around the whole globe and the decadence of the American empire will accelerate.

 

The surprising election of a new US president (surprising for everybody, including the winner), calls for a serene reflection, as Romans used to say sine ira et estudio (without anger or passion)[1] as if recent facts were remote to us. Stoke the brain and wakeup contemplating how two related but different scenarios are looming: domestic politics and foreign politics.

The US domestic scenario shows a fragmented society along the lines of class, race, ethnicity and ideology, in that order. Those series of fractures also have a geographic expression in the division among blue and red states: both coasts against the middle and northern parts against almost the entire south. The geographic division is in turn a distant echo of the Secession War.

The electoral campaign and the final election are the expressions of tensions accumulated along many years, but that got worse after the 2008 economic crisis. In the economic and social order, a growing inequality, combined with a slowdown in the traditional social mobility, has left large sectors of the middle and working classes with a strong sensation of marginality and resentment.

The economic recovery after the financial crisis has born fruits just for a few. As a well-known Brazilian finance minister used to say more than two decades ago “the economy is doing well; the people are not.” Marginalization and resentment, particularly in the center of the country, home to old industries that are overtaken and externalized by the two jaws of a clamp—automation and globalization—have a nationalist-popular movement as political expression that demands a comeback to a  past more prosperous and homogeneous than this present. This social movement has shattered the power structure of the two large parties—democratic and republican—and has raised an outsider of the traditional political system to the presidency. In the language of the Italian sociologist Francesco Alberoni, the movement has overcome the parties, and it still remains to be seen whether it has surpassed the institutions as well[2]. In this election, almost half of the voters[3] voted not for a new government but rather for a new regime.

Donald Trump’s election to the presidency represents an authoritarian reintegration attempt in a fractured country. In sum, it is a right-wing revolution. From the historical and compared point of view, almost every regime of this type that I have studied, after an initial euphoria, succumb to a combination of internal contradictions and/or a disaster in their foreign policy[4]. In the American case, these data are of serious concern as it is the (until now) leading world power. In the lines that follow, I will review that main internal contradictions of the US political process after the presidential election and then I will appraise the opportunities as much as the geopolitical risks that such an authoritarian and improvised American administration can unfold.

The first internal contradiction of the new regime is the fact that it is a republican government with an external and strange chief in the party he himself helped divide. His cabinet will be an incoherent amalgam of different factions, each one willing to obtain a quota of power, i.e., a sectorial satisfaction. The new president will spend a lot of time settling disputes among factions. The only common denominator is the will to demolish some hated public policy or institutional structure. There will be a lot of damage and little construction.

In some liberal circles, overwhelmed by their unexpected defeat, analogies and parallelisms with other XXI century right-wing regimes (i.e., fascists) circulate. Such analogies do not help to understand the situation. The regimes to which the rise of Trump’s government are sometimes compared, reached power in circumstances much more extreme (Great Depression, hyperinflation, demobilization after a lost war, national humiliation, etc.), with far less solid institutions than American ones today, and with a well organized violence apparatus. They were unhindered authoritarianisms that ended up framing the initial mass support into a totalitarian system of coordination. In the Trump’s regime there is neither the will nor the ability to organize something similar to the German Gleichschaltung[5]. More than a Third Reich, Trump’s regime is more similar to the Austrian empire before World War I, which was characterized by the expression Autoritarismus gemildert durch Schlumperei (an authoritarianism moderated by sloppiness).

I will quickly review some of the measures that are already looming in the horizon of Trump’s regime. Some referred to promises made in the electoral campaign that are unavoidable if Trump were to maintain his political and social support. The first one is the condemnation of the public health program established by Obama in 2010 (the so-called Obama Care) and that has been up to now the bête noire of the republicans in Congress. Time has come to abide by such demolishing promise. The problem he must face is not only a close democratic opposition in the Senate, but also the existence of a web of interests created in the six years that went by since the sanction of that law. I risk here a prediction.

The dismantling of the actual public health policy will have three phases, namely: a first spectacular and demagogic phase that will, however, remain short in its aspiration of a total repudiation. Instead, it will consist on budgetary measures (called “budget reconciliation”) that can pass with simple majority in both chambers and that imply cutting taxes and expenditure items destined to public health. With these measures, they will cut off subsidies that the most needed receive today and the insurance obligation of (wealthy) citizens that are in good health and do not need insure at the moment will be removed. The obligation of insurance companies to cover expenses of those with previous chronic diseases will be maintained, because eliminating this achievement would be too unpopular. But the joint effect of these measures will be a great increase in insurance policies prices, what in turn is an incentive for an even larger group of “healthy” people to postpone taking insurance. In this way, the republicans will place public health in a deadly spiral.

In the long run, there will be no health market for many people. There will be 21 million people with few resources and no health insurance. Republican measures at the same time will cut the public program of insurance for the poorest, called Medicaid. In sum, it is a cruel program of war not against poverty but against the poor.

The second phase of the program consists on de-regulating large insurance companies. With a greater freedom of action, they will design attractive plans just for the rich.

The third and last phase—more extended in time (I give it a three-year span)—will be characterized by an administrative disorder, less benefits for a large sector of the population and a deterioration in health of the popular sectors. This is the “visibility” phase of the social setback produced by the Trump’s regime, and can turn against his regime. I dare to call these three phases in the following way: (1) Public bragging with partial demolition of the current social protection measures, (2) deregulation in favor of insurance companies; and (3) greater inequality and health deterioration of the low-income population.

The picture of public health in US is bad and it will turn worse. One example will suffice to prove it: recently I received an email from a Canadian friend who was returning from Europe and was visiting some friends in Massachusetts before returning to Canada: “Taking the bus, from my friend’s place back to Boston, I was struck by how really poor and miserable so much of the population (on bus and subway) look compared to Europe….SO fat, such awful teeth, exhausted faces. A population NOT in good shape!  And yet, on the other hand, so much of the Mass countryside near my friend so unspoiled and beautiful…” It is a precise description of social inequality and human poverty present in US today. Inequality and poverty will increase with the new administration.

In the Middle West and Northeast zones, worst affected by deindustrialization, a population with no work or hope turned massively in favor of Trump, especially those white former workers with no higher education and of older age. Given the relative apathy of traditionally democratic voters (who could not feel even slightly enthusiastic about Mrs. Clinton), that social sector (characterized by psychological depression, drug-addiction, and alarming indexes of bad health and suicide) gave the final blow that took Donald Trump to the presidency in the present electoral system that favors their overrepresentation. It was a true last-ditch attempt. Curious inversion: the electoral forefront of Trump’s regime is the social rearguard of the globalized economic system[6]. Expressing the despair with one vote is one thing; managing  social reinsertion is another much more different thing.

In economic policy (as with other previous republican governments), it is foreseeable a great “home free” for the financial sector (betraying the promise to control Wall Street). The new Secretary of Treasure is a loyal dynastic offspring of Goldman Sachs (second generation).

The only novelty would be the launching of some important public works, initiative that could have the support of the Democratic Party[7]. But the government will try to leave this initiative in private hands, through fiscal stimuli and subsidies, and not through public spending.

Let us bear in mind that the new administration will be a true feast for all kinds of lobbies, especially those of the pharmaceutical industry, construction, banks, insurance companies, real estate, certain media and entertainment groups, and even some other Hollywood sectors. More than “draining the Washington swamp,” as Trump promised this marshland will permeate his administration. And that without taking into account the inertia of the large State bureaucratic apparatus. Together they will stop any “revolutionary” temptation of the extreme right.

The toughest issue will be foreign trade as Trump has showed a strong preference for mercantilism and against free market, especially in multilateral treaties. If this trend gains momentum, together with similar protectionist tendencies in Europe, global growth will be hampered and protectionism, today as in the past, will have negative consequences for the current economic model. I dare to predict that this will be the central issue in the next Davos Summit.

The key question is will there be a true setback in the current globalization model? Which outline will replace it and with what results? For the time being, “markets” seem to react with a similar euphoria than the one that welcomed the election of Ronald Reagan in 1982. Will this euphoria last or will it be replaced by uncertainty and anguish in the greedy circles? In the short run, it will be a party for the privileged social sectors, something like wearing black tie for a ride on a Ferrari through Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue. But watch out! Fasten the seatbelts because there are many bumps in the road. How long will the wealth and insolence party last, coin whose flipside is decadence?

In immigration terms there will be more deportations of undocumented workers, without reaching the extreme of “ethnic cleansing” promised by candidate Trump. There will be other controls and restrictions on immigration, with the negative consequences in human capital quality and productivity. Anyway, anti-immigration policy will be a serious social and economic mistake, but with popular support of those more reactionary sectors of the republican electoral base.

The list of internal contradictions of the government the US is about to inaugurate is much longer. It is not my intent in this article to make an exhaustive inventory of them. What interests me the most in this essay is to ponder on the geopolitical impact of this change in the American regime.

Which will be the geopolitical consequences of the internal upheaval in the US?

First, Trump’s election will reinforce all European nationalisms (some of them clearly fascist). These will be able to deliver de coup de grace to the tottering European Union.

Second, the disregard displayed by the new American regime for NATO—the cornerstone  of the international political order after World War II—will provoke the readjustment of the different European countries, especially those of Eastern Europe with Russia.

A strategic mistake made by US more than 10 years ago will bear its bitter fruit under Trump’s regime: instead of accommodating Russian geopolitical interests with an American initiative, now there will be a rapprochement between East and West irrespective of the US. Europe will end up divided into various xenophobic nationalisms inside weak states that will make concession after concession to a dictatorial and reemerging Russia.

Third, in the marshland of Middle East, Trump’s US will also accommodate to the Russian script in Syria and Iraq, and, in the best-case scenario (though I doubt Trump has Machiavelli’s astuteness), they will try to pass the burden of fighting against the Islamic extremism to Putin. At the same time, if US were to unilaterally repudiate the current international agreement with Iran, there will be a rapid nuclearization of the region, with the consequent danger of a regional atomic conflagration.

Fourth, hostility against China in terms of trade and security as well as the rejection of any multilateral treaty with or without the participation of that country, will pave the path for a much greater regional hegemony of the People’s Republic of China in East Asia. Also in this region, it is possible that Trump’s regime will produce the preventive nuclear armament of Japan and South Korea, countries that will feel unprotected in front of North Korea’s bombs.

In sum, it is probable that Trump’s “Great America” will provoke a dislocation in the international order, a setback in globalization without a better alternative, and the exponential increase in the risk of a partial and general war.

Since the progressive dissolution of the pax romana I do not think there is another overwhelming example of an imperial downfall that can be at the same time ridiculous in its expression and dangerous for civilization.

 

[1] . With this phrase, that appears in his Anales, I.1, Publius Cornelius Tacitus (Roman senator 56-117 a. C.) described how to analyze the Administrations of August and Tiberius during the empire.

[2] . Francesco Alberoni, Movimento e istituzione. Come nascono i partiti, le chiese, le nazioni e le civiltà, Milano: Feltrinelli, 1977.

 [3] . In the direct vote Mrs. Clinton won the majority of votes by 2.8 million, but that was not the case in the Electoral College, the indirect election mechanism established in the Constitution.

[4] . See the classical text by Barrington Moore, Jr. The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Boston: Beacon Press, 1966.  For the Latin American case, I would like to refer the reader to my book The Fitful Republic, Colorado: Westview Press, 1985.

[5] . The German fascism, and to a lesser extent the Italian one, was characterized by giving central and absolute importance to the State—from which all national activity must be organized under a supreme warlord—and promoting a visceral nationalism that lead to conquering other peoples. Local and regional leaders as well as other positions were not elected; rather, in accordance with the “authority principle” they were directly named by the dictator. Power and authority emanated from the leader, not the base. The US has not reached such situation.

[6] . See the revealing statistical analysis of the oscillating vote at: The Economist,  http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21710265-local-health-outcomes-predict-trumpward-swings-illness-indicator

[7] . At best it would be a pale and anemic copy of the famous XXI century “New Deals” (democratic or authoritarian). See Wolfgang Schivelbush, Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933-1939, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006.

 

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