Trumpism gives a perverse new meaning to the old Movement slogan, \u201cThe personal is political.\u201d\u00a0 It is a mistake, therefore, to consider the President an unprincipled politician with an unfortunate tendency to insult, demean, and threaten his opponents.\u00a0 Because his own moral character invites contempt, it is easy to forget that Trump is above all a certain type of political moralist. For him, virtue or vice (defined in terms of strength\/weakness, masculinity\/femininity, loyalty to the national tribe\/globalism, and so forth) produce virtuous or vicious policies.\u00a0 For him, politics is, at bottom, a struggle to defeat immoral and contemptible opponents.<\/p>\n
Conflict specialists have long been familiar with this sort of Manichean thinking.\u00a0 If you ask the parties to a serious dispute to name the causes of their conflict, each party will almost always point to their opponents and answer, \u201cThey are!\u201d\u00a0 President Trump\u2019s adversaries, however, do not seem to understand that in making attacks on his character their primary strategy, they are playing his game, in his stadium, according to his rules.\u00a0 By doing so, they reinforce the stereotypes of them that Trump has successfully marketed to his base.\u00a0 Most important, this sort of personalism excludes a form of discourse that is absolutely essential to solving the problems that, unsolved, gave Trump the presidency.\u00a0 I am talking about the discourse of systems and system-change.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n A few examples of current issues in dispute should make this clearer.\u00a0 For starters, take Trump\u2019s proposed border wall and the issue of immigration.\u00a0 The Democrats\u2019 principle response to the President\u2019s anti-immigrant campaign has been to portray him as a racist bully and heartless separator of families.\u00a0 (\u201cHow tender-hearted you liberals are,\u201d reply his supporters.\u00a0 \u201cBut he is protecting us<\/em>!\u201d) Now and then, the Dems offer some legislative proposal said to be an alternative to Trump\u2019s mural obsession, but their \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform\u201d packages basically concede his major point \u2013 our alleged need for border security \u2013 while trying to extract some compensation for the concession, such as protection for the DACA \u201cDreamers.\u201d<\/p>\n This response is typical.\u00a0 It involves two moves: first, attack Trump\u2019s character, then try to engage in old-fashioned bargaining.\u00a0 But the bargaining, if it happens, almost always takes place within the boundaries established by existing sociopolitical, and economic systems.\u00a0 In the case of immigration, what most anti-Trumps will not<\/em> propose or discuss are changes in the American system that would make the problem of border security easily soluble, if not obsolete.<\/p>\n For example, when working people voice fears that immigration will endanger their jobs and undermine current wage levels, many self-proclaimed progressives dismiss this as irrational \u2013 racism and\/or xenophobia in action.\u00a0 Well\u2026 racism often does play a role in anti-immigrant agitation, but the economic fears of many lower-wage workers are quite well founded.[ii]<\/a>\u00a0 The answer is not<\/em> to call them racists and cite statistics showing that the overall effects of immigration on the economy are positive. This is exactly the sort of bureaucratic response that turns working class people into right-wing populists.\u00a0 It makes far more sense to guarantee resident workers against job losses or wage cuts caused by immigration.<\/em><\/p>\n This may seem startling, but is it utopian?\u00a0 Is it crazy?\u00a0 Not at all.\u00a0 It simply requires stepping outside the boundaries set by our existing system and adopting a level of economic intervention in the interest of working people that is currently anathema to free market cheerleaders and their billionaire heroes.\u00a0 The same sort of planning would also make it possible to direct newcomers to locations where their services are needed, and where they are most likely to be economically successful.\u00a0 Canada, among other nations, has already taken some steps in this direction.<\/p>\n A second non-utopian solution to the immigration problem has already been proposed by President Lopez Obrador of Mexico.\u00a0 This is to recognize the factors that compel millions of Central Americans to migrate in search of employment and safety and take steps to eliminate or mitigate those factors.\u00a0 The Mexican President proposes a \u201cMarshall Plan\u201d for Central America.\u00a0 Why not create and fund an even larger and more comprehensive plan than the modest effort he suggests?\u00a0 Among other things, this would compensate our southern neighbors to some extent for a century of looting of their economies and corrupting or overthrowing their political leaders!\u00a0 And, we could easily pay for such a plan, with enormous sums left over for other worthwhile social projects, by slashing the wildly bloated U.S. military budget.<\/p>\n But, wait!\u00a0 The military budget, it turns out, is a key part of the same system that requires radical alteration if we are to deal successfully with the immigration issue.\u00a0 Remember the military-industrial complex?\u00a0 This huge, government-sponsored economic sector \u2013 an oligarchy if ever there was one \u2013 is kept afloat by practicing what Paul Krugman calls \u201cweaponized Keynesianism.\u201d[iii]<\/a> \u00a0By entering into enormously profitable cost-plus contracts with favored producers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and United Technologies, the government adds significant demand to an economy plagued by congenital overproduction.\u00a0 This system will not<\/em> be changed unless two things happen.\u00a0 First, we need to rethink and decide to dismantle the American Empire, which requires the U.S. to maintain global military supremacy, not just sufficient force for self-defense.\u00a0 Second, we need to figure out how to convert the military-industrial complex into a system that produces needed civilian goods and public services, and to do this in a way that puts it under democratic control.<\/p>\n Could a restructured socioeconomic system solve not only Central America\u2019s poverty problems but our own?\u00a0 As we know, deep poverty shatters families and neighborhoods, degrades schools and other public services, disempowers communities, lowers life expectancies, and generates crime and mass incarceration.\u00a0 Furthermore, these conditions, un-remedied, generate or reinforce racism and xenophobia on the part of working people struggling to stay out of poverty and terrified of descending into the abyss.\u00a0 For half a century, federal and state governments in America have been promising development programs that would rehabilitate ravaged cities and deindustralized or abandoned rural areas, but the only program creating significant jobs in most poor regions has been the illegal drug business.<\/p>\n To change this situation means:<\/p>\n In fact, looking at all the problems mentioned thus far \u2013 immigration and nativism, \u201cmilitary Keynesianism,\u201d the vicissitudes of the Empire, deep poverty, racism, and working class\/small business insecurity \u2013 we find that they are all related to failures and dysfunctions of the same mega-system.\u00a0 That is, they all point to a crisis of American capitalism.<\/p>\n In my view, the solution to these problems will very likely involve a transformation of American socioeconomic life in the direction of socialism.\u00a0 To put this in a nutshell, we are in desperate need of public institutions capable of managing the economy, guaranteeing decent jobs and incomes, eliminating oligarchic power, and mobilizing people to transform their communities.\u00a0 But Big Government that is not under democratic control moves toward fascism, so the great question is how to create a system that is fully capable of central planning and authoritative leadership, while fully responsive to workers\u2019 power, local initiatives, and our people\u2019s desire for personal freedom.<\/p>\n Another way of putting this is to say that the crisis of capitalism is also a constitutional crisis.\u00a0 This means that, however much we may disagree about the likely outcome of the discussion, we have to start talking with each other now<\/em> about how to characterize the breakdown of traditional systems and what kind of social and political arrangements could fix or replace them.\u00a0 Where systems fail, social-constitutional dialogues are the alternative to violent group struggles.\u00a0 But, these conversations will not take place in America if all we can think and talk about is Donald Trump\u2019s foolishness and brutality, or if all Trump\u2019s supporters can contemplate is the left\u2019s softness and self-righteousness.<\/p>\n Friends, if we do not move the consciousness of system-failure and the need for system-change to the center of our praxis \u2013 if we focus simply on replacing obnoxious with more sympatico<\/em> leaders \u2013 systemic problems will continue to multiply.\u00a0 And, if this happens, popular movements far more dangerous than Charlottesville\u2019s white nationalists, and authoritarian figures far more dangerous than Mr. Trump. will surely appear on our doorstep.<\/p>\n Do you want a slogan to summarize all this?\u00a0 Something pithy and a bit provocative?\u00a0 Consider this one (copyright waived):<\/p>\n Defeat Trump!\u00a0 Impeach the System!<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n NOTES:<\/strong><\/p>\n [i]<\/a> Charles Maurras was a French ultra-conservative who founded the anti-Semitic journal, \u201cAction Francaise,\u201d and who is one of Steve Bannon\u2019s intellectual heroes.<\/p>\n [ii]<\/a> See National Research Council, The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration <\/em>(1997), 140: \u201cTherefore, although immigration yields a positive net gain to domestic workers, that gain is not spread equally: it harms workers who are substitutes for immigrants while benefiting workers who are complements to immigrants. Most economists believe that unskilled domestic workers are the substitutes, so their wages will fall, and skilled domestic workers are complements, so their wages will rise.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n [iii]<\/a> Paul Krugman, \u201cWeaponized Keynesianism<\/a>.\u201d New York Times<\/em>, June 24, 2009. See also Seymour Melman, Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War <\/em>(McGraw Hill 1970)<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n President Trump\u2019s adversaries do not understand that in making attacks on his character their primary strategy, they are playing his game, in his stadium, according to his rules. By doing so, they reinforce the stereotypes that Trump has successfully marketed to his base. This sort of personalism excludes a discourse that is essential to solving the problems that gave Trump the presidency: the discourse of systems and system-change. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Richard-E.-Rubenstein-e1549787530916.jpg\")
<\/a><\/em>Richard E. Rubenstein is<\/em> a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a> and a professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University<\/em> in Virginia.<\/em>\u00a0 His recent book,<\/em> Resolving Structural Conflicts: How Violent Systems Can Be Transformed was published by Routledge in 2017<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"