Presidential candidate Donald Trump, December,2015. Flickr/ Matt Johnson. Some rights reserved.He
seems to have come out of nowhere; is immoderate and choleric, and he uses a rhetoric
full of rage and a mystifying almost unfathomable message. His policy positions
do not square with those of the party he claims to represent and, at the
moment, he dominates public discourse and the political process. He is of
course, Donald Trump. But what type of politician is he? And why should the
answer to this question matter?
As
for the first question, theories vary widely and confusion abounds. While some
consider him an authoritarian, authoritarian populist, incipient fascist, and
even a downright fascist
leader, others, rather strangely, have seen in him the textbook example of an
ideological moderate. When asked whether Trump may be a pure
populist, Michael Kazin, an authority on American populism, is perplexed
because he “[didn’t] really get much of a sense of who the people are” in
Trump’s discourse. What is more certain is that Trump, unlike his other
establishment rivals, is not a true conservative. What
is he, then?
I
suggest, pace Kazin and other baffled pundits, that Trump is a most authentic
example of insurgent populist leadership, which belongs squarely within a long
tradition of populism in the US – and, in fact, is breathing new life into it.
The
beginning of wisdom about populism is the content we assign to this term. This
must be sufficiently precise and, no less demanding a task, point clearly to
some negative pole to indicate what populism is not. As suggested elsewhere, populism
may be well defined minimally as democratic
illiberalism, which also reveals its polar opposite, that is, political
liberalism.
The chief
implication of this view is that, while populism is democratic by definitional
fiat, it bespeaks a conception of democracy that is openly hostile to liberal
principles. Populism, in other words, is the idea of a certain democracy in
which illiberalism trumps liberalism.
The next
step must involve giving “liberalism” and “illiberalism” more substantive
content. In a nutshell, a political liberal is someone (or some party) who
abides by each and all of the following principles: first, the acknowledgement
that modern society is divided by many, and most often crosscutting, cleavages;
second, the need to strive to bridge those cleavages by promoting political
moderation, consensus, and negotiated agreements; and, third, the commitment to
the rule of law and the protection of minority rights as the best means to
attain political liberalism.
In sharp
contrast to the above, illiberal politicians, or parties, consider society to
be divided by one single cleavage, ostensibly dividing the ordinary people from
some ‘establishment’; hence, such leaders encourage polarization and political
adversity while rejecting compromise; and, finally, based on the belief that
they represent the greater and best part of ‘the people’, illiberal leaders
dismiss minorities and disregard institutional legality, while favoring
majoritarianism.
Now, enter
Trump. He is angry against
the “establishment” (which has become his term) and various other elites, who,
he claims, have betrayed the American people. He talks to taxpaying white
middle and working-class Americans who are getting left behind and feel they
are neglected by conservative elites. But, being himself a billionaire, he is
not an anti-elitist! He is in fact ready to form his own elite, and put it in
his cabinet.
Trump
thrives on adversity. In his campaign (and his campaign memoir entitled Crippled America), he is not the
compassionate and caring champion of the people. Instead, he is the candidate
who takes advantage of social and economic misfortune to produce polarization.
He not only rallies against Wall Street (“Hedge fund managers are getting away
with murder”), but also revels in such terms as “weakness,” “losing,”
“pathetic.” In this way he generates strong emotions, bad feelings towards
others in society, and strong moral dilemmas.
Finally,
Trump rallies against ethnic and religious minorities in open disrespect for
constitutional rights. Among his proposals are calls for a “total and complete
ban” on Muslim immigration and the rounding up and deportation of 12 million
undocumented immigrants, and the building of a “great beautiful wall” on the
border with Mexico. He has openly embraced torture, treats the press with total
contempt, and is intolerant regarding several civil liberties, including free
speech.
Does
Trump the populist matter? Yes, a lot, for at least three major reasons. For
one thing, populism, however ubiquitous
in American politics, was until now evident just in the cracks of both parties.
But it has now blown up and wants to live its own independent life; nor is it
an accident, presumably, that Trump’s populism has emerged at exactly the same
time as Sanders’ leftist populism.
For
another thing, Trump is radically transforming the Republican Party,
also putting at risk that party’s unity over its identity and principles. He
jettisons conservative liberal orthodoxy and challenges the GOP traditional
platform on a number of key issues ranging from free trade, which Trump wants
to stop, to entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security, which he vows to
preserve.
Lastly,
if Trump wins the next Republican presidential nomination, he is surely going
to reshape the face of American politics and society from the most
fundamentally liberal in the world to one that will be outright populist. For,
as social choice theorist William H. Riker
once argued, there are only two views of modern democracy, liberalism and
populism – and those views, as Riker further affirmed, “exhaust all the
possibilities for democratic theory.”