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The Trump presidency

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brogdale said:
That's a fair question.
FWIW here's my take on the evolution of neoliberalism and Trump's role.
Whilst I'd agree that globalisation was a key element of neoliberalism I think there are newer, more important elements to advanced neoliberalism.
Firstly, I'd say that the processes that Streeck sums up as those of the consolidator state are key to understanding modern political economy. Put simply, financialised capital refuses to pay tax to nation states, preferring to profit from usury; making good the fiscal deficit by extending loans to debt states. As creditor, capital can simultaneously use the state as some sort of 'sub-contracted' wealth extractor, exert leverage over policy programmes (via bond market/capital strike threats) and use the growing public debt as a pretext for austerian shrinkage of the state. This last process facilitating the transfer of public/state owned assets into the private ownership of financialised capital. Trump's populist promises of massive state investment in infrastructure would seem to be entirely consistent with these processes with the additional benefit of increased corporate welfare/subsidy.

Secondly, I'd highlight the importance of the oligarchic class produced by neoliberalism. The obscenely rich economic elite who, pre-Trump have been happy to delegate their wealth defence to a professional political elite, appear to have lost faith in globalised institutions, especially any with supra-national aspiration to tax harmonisation or coordination. Both Brexit & Trump could easily be interpreted as an attempt to secure 2 national 'citadels' of wealth defence from which tax dodging can continue to be co-ordinated. Trump's EOs regarding renewed deregulation of financial services and promises of slashed corp taxes would indicate his determination to secure the USA as a bastion of oligarchic wealth defence.

Thirdly, I'd suggest that advanced neoliberalism could be characterised as post-juridical. The post-war consensus of interventionist governments, managed economies and welfare states relied on professional elites with defined jurisdictions within which they were expected to make judgements of political-economy. Planners, civil servants, economists, lawyers, journalists, educators etc. were all essential experts to the management of an efficient and productive economy. For neoliberalism's true believers of the power of markets to decide upon allocation, any 'expert' group entitled to make judgements wrt resource allocation are now seen as a threat to un-restrained accumulation and wealth defence; hence the antipathy towards and de-legitimisation of these groups. Trump's campaign and administration, (& the 'high priests' of Brexit) thus far, would suggest that this trend against elites will continue.

Added to which, I'd imagine that much of Trump's more protectionist hysteria will prove to be as real as the £350m/week for the NHS.
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Btw, I've scoured this longer post of yours, and can find no mention of the cultural elites - the ones that Trump has been disparaging.
 
belboid said:
Globalisation is absolutely at the heart of neoliberalism, and if Trumps actions meet his pre-election rhetoric, it will be a major shift away from the economic policies of the last forty years. But that is the big question, whether he'll do what he said. His low taxes pledge is perfectly compatible with neolib, but the massive state investment and potential tariff's are very much not. the 'crackdown' on 'illegals' will depend very much on how it is done, the reality will be that actually they wont stop the circulation of human capital too much, because it would be shit for the economy. But that still leaves room for him to come up with something headline grabbing, that wont affect numbers too much, but will be absolutely horrible to one group (while quietly ignoring the majority)
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"but the massive state investment and potential tariff's are very much not"
Depends on how they are 'tailored'
infrastructure? The perfect vehicle to hand over zillions to the construction industry ( PPI, anyone)
tariffs? Bit more difficult, but not unreasonable to assume they could be 'marketed' as protecting US jobs but used in such a way as to line the 1%ers pockets.
 
coley said:
"but the massive state investment and potential tariff's are very much not"
Depends on how they are 'tailored'
infrastructure? The perfect vehicle to hand over zillions to the construction industry ( PPI, anyone)
tariffs? Bit more difficult, but not unreasonable to assume they could be 'marketed' as protecting US jobs but used in such a way as to line the 1%ers pockets.
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Yep, and further reliance upon the usury of financial capital.
Trebles all round!
 
bimble said:
Yes! We are all paid by Soros, and as liberal elite snowflakes also have the keys to the lying failing MSM :cool:
But seriously, do you think it would've been better for the speaker to have shut up?
I think it's brave. Looks like he's getting a lot of flack.
"Government sources described the intervention as “hugely political and out of line”.
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Aye, must be nice to sit there on yer cosy bed of principles, as Bellocks ( and others are doing) they aren't going to join the dole queues if May gets it wrong.

Personally, I imagine she hates having to scmooze the bastard but it's her job to protect the UKs interests and I imagine she is looking beyond Trump.
She's done ok up to now, but she will have to be careful, nobody will forgive her if she becomes 'Trumps bitch' esp after the meltdown following 'Blairs poodle'
 
CrabbedOne said:
Well one shift is he's no deficit hawk as he sees leverage at very low rates as good thing. Basically tribute from bankers in terror of a huge client defaulting. In any case Republicans tend to lose focus on the debt in office and spend like drunken sailors. Bush certainly did.

Trump hasn't offered massive state investment beyond the usual porky military build up. His infrastructure stuff is basically a huge privatisation scheme of crumbling national assets with perks thrown out to well placed cronies. So is selling off Fanny&Freddy, the US mortgage markets, that were almost completely taken over by the state when they failed and are ripe highly profitable pickings once more. This is a Great Loot in preparation. It's not really neoliberal that's just crony capitalism red in tooth and claw but let's face it a lot of that has gone on previously. There's in fact lots of continuity in swampy matters.

I'd put laissez-faire economic liberalism at the heart of neoliberalism. An almost fanatical belief in markets and the guiding hand. Trump believes in markets but like most successful businessmen likes them bent to his advantage. None of this guiding hand bullshit. That's his model of government's role. Trump's a true capitalist but he sees great market value in that.

There's fundamentally no reason why you can't combine protectionism with free markets. The argument for Free Trade is fundamentally one of specialisation. A country the size of the US for instance could plausibly operate an unregulated market economy internally and be a complete autarky but Trump's never suggested that. He just believes the deals that construct the global system do not award the US the full economic primacy he (and he alone) could extract by using the country's might to divide and rule.

Indeed Trump's is not a vision without global ambitions or trade links. He likes trade just not on good terms for others. The others must lose. America must take most of the pie. He still covets Iraq's oil seeing it as a wicked sin that the US did not profit from it when it might have.

What he's after may be more like the early 20th system of globalisation that collapsed with WWI with the mighty US in the British role as the biggest pillaging mercantile empire. Once "Great Again" having newly rigged the global system in its favour America will be able to slap any lesser nation around and extract tribute from kowtowing vassals. Never again will this giant be tied down by Lilliputians and systems of law and alliances. He'll be like his huuugely more wealthy robber baron hero Putin. Putin is a piratical John Galt that he touches on with reverence like a talisman.

It will be a new assertion of US power not unlike when Ike effortlessly took the Limie's and Frog's Imperial toys away after Suez. A new world order. He hints at an American Greatness that hasn't existed. A gilded age of toweringly greedy Randian figures like himself. This isn't a new version of Pax Americana where he just diddles along with the Russians it is USA Rex.

This is a real estate's guys own Hobbesian vision born out of a playboy life of pussy grabbing, bullying competitors and fucking over the little guy. I don't actually think it has much to do with Bannon's clash of civilisation ravings. Trump loves his money as he does himself. Trump does not like Mexicans. Trump does not like the Chinese. Trump does not like Muslims. Trump does not like SNL. Trump persecutes on a whim because he can. It shows what a great guy Trump is. Trump likes quite a lot about neoliberalism. Trump's problem with it is it's not a good enough screw for a guy as great as Trump. And a lot of Americans like the singleminded gaudy selfishness of Trump. Lord help us.
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"Lord help us"

If "god" exists, then the elevation of Trump et al suggests a seriously warped sense of humour, or a classic example of 'divine retribution'
 
Johnny Canuck3 said:
'Elites' is a broad term. The argument can be made that Trump's popularity with the hoi polloi arises from his disparagement of the cultural elites. He doesn't disparage so much, the financial elite, to which he and many of his Cabinet members, belong.
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Any organisation that campaigns for the poor, the environment,AGW or any other issues not pertaining to increasing the wealth of the 1%ers is a "cultural elite" and will be hammered and demonised by the idiots administration.
 
bimble said:
I think it would mean something yes. If you stayed home that day or voted for 'neither of them', and then after the fact went out to protest about trump, because you really didn't want him as your president, I think that's kind of interesting yes.
You won't agree but I think people 'should' have voted not trump, even if they did not like HC at all, to prevent this administration getting into power.
I'd have voted for your mum.
A lot of people just didn't bother, some felt that it would be stooping too low. I agree with the old man on this. Noam Chomsky on the biggest mistake the left made in this election
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And there you go ska invita, exactly what I was talking on the French election thread liberals finger wagging at non-voters and 3rd party voters.

EDIT: Of course it's particularly silly in this case as only in one of Nebraska's three districts would third party voters have made a difference. And even in that case Green party voters alone would not have changed the result.
 
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Long article, but well worth reading.

Civil unrest will not be a problem for the Trump presidency. It will be a resource. Trump will likely want not to repress it, but to publicize it—and the conservative entertainment-outrage complex will eagerly assist him. Immigration protesters marching with Mexican flags; Black Lives Matter demonstrators bearing antipolice slogans—these are the images of the opposition that Trump will wish his supporters to see. The more offensively the protesters behave, the more pleased Trump will be.

Calculated outrage is an old political trick, but nobody in the history of American politics has deployed it as aggressively, as repeatedly, or with such success as Donald Trump. If there is harsh law enforcement by the Trump administration, it will benefit the president not to the extent that it quashes unrest, but to the extent that it enflames more of it, ratifying the apocalyptic vision that haunted his speech at the convention.
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How to Build an Autocracy
 
This is also real; Melania is suing the Mail for saying she was an escort.... on the basis it is reducing her money making potential.

It describes the post of First Lady as a 'once in a lifetime' money making opportunity.

Linking to this report as it has a link to the court filings if you fancy reading something that will leave you with your mouth hanging open.
https://thinkprogress.org/1999314fb8f1
 
Manter said:
This is also real; Melania is suing the Mail for saying she was an escort.... on the basis it is reducing her money making potential.

It describes the post of First Lady as a 'once in a lifetime' money making opportunity.

Linking to this report as it has a link to the court filings if you fancy reading something that will leave you with your mouth hanging open.
https://thinkprogress.org/1999314fb8f1
Click to expand...

Melania Trump's lawsuit against the Daily Mail is not going very well
 
Johnny Canuck3 said:
'Elites' is a broad term. The argument can be made that Trump's popularity with the hoi polloi arises from his disparagement of the cultural elites. He doesn't disparage so much, the financial elite, to which he and many of his Cabinet members, belong.
Click to expand...
Trump was simply wildly inconsistent on Wall St.
As Donald Trump has barnstormed his way across America in recent months stirring up the Republican heartland with populist invective, it is not just immigrants the billionaire property tycoon has had in his sights.

The frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination has also waged a vituperative campaign against Wall Street, accusing hedge funds of "getting away with murder" — somewhat to the entertainment of the bankers who helped finance the rise of his business empire.

"I have been highly amused about Trump's comments about us given he's almost one of us, at least in a business sense," said one Wall Street banker whose group has provided Mr Trump's properties with millions of dollars in financing. "He is totally comfortable around Wall Street and bankers."

Mr Trump characterises himself as not beholden to special interests, ridiculing hedge funds as "guys that shift paper around and . . . get lucky" and highlighting a contrast with his own record of building large construction projects.
...
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Like he's a fecking bricklayer or something. Of all his bullshit ladened rhetoric it always sounded really false. Trump plainly hates a lot of poor folks but he's always revelled in very rich men making a dishonest buck. That his finance team is made up of a set of Wall St's finest vultures is no surprise.

There was also this:
...
Trump did not seem amenable to that kind of advice. If not hate, precisely, he was ready to indulge a willingness to blame a mysterious cabal.

“This election will determine if we are a free nation or whether we have only the illusion of democracy, but are in fact controlled by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system, and our system is rigged,” he said.

“Our corrupt political establishment, that is the greatest power behind the efforts at radical globalization and the disenfranchisement of working people. Their financial resources are virtually unlimited, their political resources are unlimited, their media resources are unmatched.”

Others heard echoes between Trump’s rhetoric and classic anti-Semitic tropes. Like Greenblatt, a number of writers on Twitter said the intent and the effect is essentially toxic whether or not Jews are explicitly mentioned.

“Trump is priming his supporters to believe the election was stolen from them by a cabal of Jews, blacks, bankers and media,” said Todd Zwillich, a public radio correspondent.

“Is it just me or is much of this Trump speech Jew-baiting?” said Julia Ioffe, who suffered a barrage of anti-Semitic abuse after writing a critical article about Trump’s wife Melania – attacks Trump refused to repudiate.
...
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”Plaintiff had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person…to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world,” the Manhattan suit says.
“These product categories would have included, among other things, apparel, accessories, shoes, jewellry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance,”

:rolleyes:
 

He's just parroting Alex Jones here. Trump is behaving almost as if wishing terrorist attacks into being. He's basically an inciter.

In general press reporting of any sort of violence in The West is hysterical. Creating an atmosphere of intense fear that's really not commensurate with threat levels. US levels of violent crime are much lower than in the 90s for instance but the drumbeat of fear is just as intense. A great gift to the likes of Trump playing on the fears of a comfortable burb dwelling middle class base.

He'd have a point in Pakistan where you have to have a few people killed in a terror attack to get even the local press to cover it. It doesn't get covered internationally unless its a really big kill. And Pakistanis get on with their lives worrying more about the price of rice. As they are used to it. That's what living with a real terrorist war is like. It becomes a annoying hazard like traffic.
 
On TSG TSG’s Patrick Skinner Quoted in Voice of America: Europeans Fear Breitbart Will Be Used as Propaganda Channel
...
“There’s a big concern that you’re having this Breitbart-ization of the National Security Council,” said Patrick Skinner, director of special projects at The Soufan Group, a strategic risk company. He says people being added to the NSC have a “stated preference to burn things down.”

“That is the exact opposite of what you want in a National Security Council,” he said. “You don’t want agitators. You don’t want people who want to see the world burn. In fact, you want people standing there with a bunch of fire extinguishers.”
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Fear of the fire-starter Bannon.

The other thing European and Israeli security folk worry about is the practicalities of passing the NSC Russia related intelligence material with a Putin-fancier sitting on it. But of course that finally applies to the NSC boss Trump as well. Obama was in his way a slim customer for some allies but the US under Trump is suddenly at a whole new level of untrustworthy.
 
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