An Inaugural Check-up
Tomorrow, Donald Trump will be inaugurated. Here is a quick look at the world he is inheriting: a nation bursting with anxiety, and a wobbling world order.
Those who voted for Trump did so in an effort to lash out against changing economic circumstances and a distant, unresponsive elite. The blue collar workers that won him Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — many of whom voted for Barack Obama in 2012, buying into the caricature of Mitt Romney as “the guy who fired you” — this time fell into Trump’s protectionist spell . Trump promised to bring industrial jobs back, force those remaining to stay, and to slap a tariff on any nation who dare not bow to his will.
The American manufacturing base is in a fast decline — but because of automation, not jobs sent overseas. Unfortunately, high tariffs will not bring those jobs back; instead, they will only make goods more expensive at Walmart, and disproportionately effect those most strained.
Those who voted against Trump fear he will act on some of his harshest campaign rhetoric. They fear that he will repeal Obamacare and leave millions without health coverage. They fear he will set up a muslim registry, and mercilessly deport undocumented immigrants and their children. More than anything, they fear he will damage the reputation of the United States as a world power; after eight years of a president who carried himself with the utmost dignity and grace, we now have a man with an almost neurotic need to tweet his frustrations.
It is true that long before the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump was not a nice guy. It also appears the Republicans in congress do not have a clear Obamacare-replacement. Further, the infamous wall appears to be high on Trump’s priority list.
Both of these groups are right to be anxious.
Millennials may be the first generation destined to make less than their parents. Winners are marrying other winners, moving where other winners live, and sending their children to school with other winner children. There is a growing divide, not just in wealth, but politically, educationally, and demographically. In colleges and universities, liberal academics outnumber conservatives five-to-one. Conservatives live near other conservatives, liberals live with other liberals, and no one knows how to talk to each other.
Despite optimism in the business sector for the new Trump presidency, it’s not all daisies. As big regulation outpaces big government, big businesses are becoming flabbier. Many big firms thrive because of government regulation, allowing them to expand while smaller companies wither on the vine, reducing competition. The share of companies older than eleven years old went from 25 percent in 1987 to half in 2012. Our population is aging, productivity is stagnant, and companies favor pleasing shareholders’ with quarterly returns than taking long-term, forward-looking risks. Opportunity is becoming increasingly difficult to come by, even for this who seek to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
When this happens, people begin to lose faith in free enterprise and democracy. In 1970, one-in-four people across the world lived in extreme poverty (on less than a dollar a day). Today, that number is below one-in-twenty. Capitalism and free enterprise has nearly eradicated extreme poverty, and yet present circumstances are causing people to lose faith in our economic and political systems. At the turn of the 20th century, under similar circumstances, the people turned to a leftist, socialist populism. Today, now that the looming socialist alternative has largely imploded with the fall of the Soviet Union, they instead turn to a right-of-center, nationalistic populism.
A toxic wave of this populism is sweeping the West. Interestingly, much of the turmoil can be attributed to the bungling of the conflict in Syria . Because Syria has been allowed to deteriorate, and Assad, with the help of Putin’s Russia, allowed to commit unspeakable war crimes, hundreds of thousands have migrated to Europe. This mass migration carried with it a culture shock for both the traveler and receiver. ISIS has then been able to use the backlash as inspiration for radicalization, leading to attacks in Paris, Nice, and Berlin. Anxiety of the number of migrants was a large reason for Brexit and many of the populist movements sweeping Europe. Besides Cameron losing power in Britain, Italy’s Renzi is stepping down due to backlash, and populist demagogues will be running in France and Germany during their elections next year.
The old post-war order appears to be faltering, much to the chagrin of Russia and China. In Russia, Putin seems to be determined to revive some 18th-century notion of Russian greatness by committing acts of aggression in Crimea and Syria, and cyber-hacking within the United States. Meanwhile, in the east, China is filling the vacuum of power left by the United States’ failure to secure the apparently-doomed Trans-Pacific Partnership by initiating her own trade deal, and presenting herself as the great commercial power of the 21st Century. When Trump and other western populists condemn the European Union, NATO, longstanding trade deals, and the United Nations, both nations’ positions are only strengthened.
John Wayne was a conservative Republican. After the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy, however, he famously told a reporter: “I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my President, and I hope he does a good job.” This kind of thinking is increasingly rare fifty years later.
Donald Trump is not JFK, but he will be (or is, depending on when you’re reading this) our President. Most of the problems laid out were not caused by Donald Trump, although he doubtlessly utilized a few of them during his remarkable rise to the Presidency. Our jobs as citizens can only be to help him when he tries to address these problems, and resist when we believe his actions will make them worse. The world will keep spinning Saturday, January 21. I’ll see you on the other side.
