US Politics in an Age of Uncertainty

by Lance Selfa

  The 2008 recession radicalized this base, leading them to challenge key components of the Republican establishment’s agenda. Faced with declining living standards and the possibilities of downward social mobility into the working class,15 the Tea Party, and later the Trump campaign, put forward a distinctively populist political and economic agenda. The new middle-class right wanted the wholesale deportation of undocumented immigrants, threatening the supply of cheap and vulnerable workers capitalists in agriculture, large-scale construction, garment, and other industries depend upon. They opposed the pro-corporate immigration reform proposals that would institute a permanent guest-worker program in the United States and offer a circuitous “path to citizenship” for the undocumented. The Tea Party was also willing to shut down the federal government—threatening the US public debt and the entire global financial system—to achieve their goals, alienating the major organizations of the capitalist class, the Business Roundtable and the US Chamber of Commerce.

  While the Chamber helped defeat a majority of Tea Party supporters in the 2014 Republican congressional primaries, their middle-class supporters radicalized further in 2016. Not only were traditionally Evangelical Christian voters willing to support a thrice-divorced, profane billionaire who routinely made jokes about his penis size, but they rejected key elements of neoliberal economic and political policies for a populist nationalism. No significant segment of the capitalist class in the United States wants to dismantle the North American Free Trade Agreement or slap prohibitive tariffs on Chinese imports.16 Nor is there a substantial group of capitalists willing to threaten the existing system of military and diplomatic alliances (NATO, alliances with conservative Arab and Muslim regimes, etc.) in favor of an “America First” foreign policy. It is the radicalized middle-class supporters of Trump who have embraced economic protectionism and diplomatic iso-lationism.17 Caught between a decimated labor movement and an extremely aggressive capitalist class, parts of the middle classes globally have been drawn to a politics that scapegoat immigrants, unions, women, LGBTQ people, and people of color, fueling the growth of Trumpism in the United States, as well as the United Kingdom Independence Party, French National Front, Italian Five Star Movement, and similar formations across Europe.18

  Recent sociological studies demonstrate how populist nationalism, with its deadly mixture of antielitism, racism, sexism, and homophobia, has provided a “mental road map of lived experience” for the middle classes since 2008. Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson in The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism point to growing economic and social anxiety among the older, white middle classes, who see undocumented immigrants as threats to their “quality of life” and competitors for scarce social services, particularly Social Security pensions and Medicare.19 Mass deportations and denying the undocumented any path to citizenship (and access to social services), combined with lower federal deficits, would protect the “earned” social benefits (Social Security, Medicare) upon which they rely. Arlie Russell Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land portrays people who believe they are “hard workers” who “play by the rules” and never ask for “handouts” (e.g., government subsidies) but are constantly falling behind socially and economically.20 They are threatened both by powerful economic and social elites and “line jumpers”—undocumented immigrants, refugees, and African Americans, Latinos, and women who benefit from affirmative action.

  The Marxist left has a rich analysis of the attraction of the middle classes—what Trotsky described as the “human dust”—to right-wing populist demagogues. Caught between the fundamental social classes, capitalists and workers, the middle classes are attracted to political “strongmen” who promise to defend the “little man” against the forces that squeeze them from above and below. However, the socialist left has had a more difficult time explaining the support of a minority of workers for right-wing politics. Why have approximately 40 percent of union households supported Republicans or other right-wing candidates (e.g., Ross Perot in 1992) in most of the elections since 1980?21 Why did another, minute group of white, working-class voters embrace the nationalist populism of Trump?

  For many on the left, working-class support for the right is some form of “false consciousness”—a mistaken identification of their own interests with those of their bosses as the result of capital’s control of the means of ideological production (press, media, etc.) For others, working-class racism and sexism is the defense of some form of racial or gender “privilege” against threats from below. Both of these explanations are inadequate. “False consciousness” makes capital and its ideologists all-powerful, and portrays workers as passive consumers of capitalist ideologies. Simplistic notions of “defense of privilege” ignore the increasing precarity all workers face today.

  Grasping the contradictory character of capitalist social relations of production allows us to explain the attraction of some workers to right-wing politics. The objective, structural position of workers under capitalism provides the basis for both collective, solidaristic radicalism and individualist, sectoralist, and reactionary politics. As Bob Brenner and Johanna Brenner pointed out in their 1981 analysis of Reagan’s election,

  workers are not only collective producers with a common interest in taking collective control over social production. They are also individual sellers of labor power in conflict with each other over jobs, promotions, etc. This individualistic point of view has a critical advantage in the current period: in the absence of class against class organization, it seems to provide an alternative strategy for effective action—a sectionalist strategy which pits one layer of workers against another.22

  As competing sellers of labor power, workers are open to the appeal of politics that pit them against other workers—especially workers in a weaker social position. Without the lived experience of mass, collective, and successful class organization and struggle, it should not surprise socialists that segments of the working class are open to right-wing politics.

  Workers in the United States have experienced forty years of attacks on their living and working conditions. The labor movement has responded with one surrender after another, as concession bargaining and futile attempts to forge “labor-management cooperation” have destroyed almost every gain workers made through mass struggles in the 1930s and 1970s. Faced with an impotent labor movement that tails after an ever-rightward-moving Democratic Party, it is not surprising that a minority of older white workers are attracted to politics that place responsibility for their deteriorating social situation on both the corporate “globalists” and more vulnerable workers—African Americans, Latinos, immigrants, Muslims, women, and queer folk. Kirk Noden, writing in the Nation, grasps why the Republican right wins working-class votes:

  Two narratives emerged about the collapse of the industrial heartland in America. The one from the right has three parts: First, that industry left this country because unions destroyed productivity and made labor costs too high, thereby making us uncompetitive. Second, corporations were the victims of over-regulation and a bloated government that overtaxed them to pay for socialist welfare systems. Third, illegal immigration has resulted in the stealing of American jobs, increased competition for white workers, and depressed wages…. The second narrative, promoted by corporate Democrats, is that the global economy shifted and the country is now in transition from an industrial to a knowledge-based economy. This story tacitly accepts the economic restructuring of the heartland as inevitable once China and other markets opened up.23

  Trump and his nationalist populist ideologues from Breitbart and the “alt-right” added a fourth element to the right’s narrative—the role of globalizing corporations and “free trade.” Given a choice between an elitist neoliberal who refused to speak to the realities of their lives (and rejected Sanders’s social democratic program as “unrealistic”) and a populist demagogue who offered an illusory solution to their problems, it is not at all surprising that a minority of white workers
embraced Trump.24 Trumpism is the fruit of decades of the politics of “lesser evilism,” where the left tails after the labor officials who continually surrender to capital, while tailing after a rightward moving Democratic Party in the name of “fighting the right.” Without a clear and potent, independent, working-class political alternative—one rooted in mass struggles in the workplaces and communities—more and more workers will see no alternative to the neoliberal capitalist offensive other than white populist nationalism.

  Trump in Office

  Not only were left and liberal commentators shocked by the election results, but so, it seems, was Trump himself. Like a drunken frat boy who wakes up after a bender to discover that he is now the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, Trump appears to be completely out of his depth. Ultimately, the chaos in his transition team and the behind-the-scenes struggles over key appointments was the result of the contradictory pressures pulling on Trump.25 On the one hand, there are the establishment Republicans, with their ties to key segments of the capitalist class, whom Trump consistently denounced throughout his campaign. On the other, there are the alt-right nationalist-populists, who helped script his simultaneously anti-corporate, isolationist, and racist appeals. A situation of veritable “dual power” exists within Trump’s team with his concurrent appointment of Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff, and his campaign manager, former Breitbart editor Steve Bannon, as senior counselor and strategist.26 The Republican establishment is outraged that a “right-wing media provocateur”—an economic populist and “America First” critic of the US role in the world—has the ear of the President. The alt-right is deeply angered by Priebus’s appointment, denouncing him as “the enemy within” and “everything the voters rejected.”27

  What are the politics of Breitbart and the alt-right? Despite their claims to the contrary, the alt-right is racist. They eschew the biological racism of openly white supremacist and fascist groupings, whom they refer to as the “1488ers”—a reference to a neo-Nazi slogans “We Must Secure the Existence of Our People and a Future for White Children” and “Heil Hitler.” The alt-right instead embraces cultural racism—that certain groups have superior, and others inferior, values and behaviors—to justify the exclusion of non-European immigrants and the segregation of “cultural groups.”28 Trump and Breitbart have attempted to distance themselves from open white nationalists, like Richard Spencer, who originally coined the term alt-right, defining themselves as primarily nationalists and populists.29

  In a multipart article in Breitbart, the pseudonymous “Virgil” argued that a successful Trump administration would need to achieve two goals. First, it must revamp US foreign policy, ending the subordination of America to its historic allies (NATO). Trump needs to put “America first” and “treat China and Russia as great powers to be dealt with as potential partners, not as bad actors to be ‘reformed’ by America.” Second, Trump has to defend “blue-collar America” against the “globalist” corporate elite.30 In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Bannon insisted: “I’m not a white nationalist, I’m a nationalist. I’m an economic nationalist…. The globalists have gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f-ed over.”31 Central to saving “blue-collar Americans” is the dismantling of neoliberal “free trade” deals and the deportation of all undocumented immigrants. The forces around Bannon are clear that they are at war with the Republican establishment, and, in particular, House Speaker Paul Ryan, over both cabinet appointments and economic and military policy.32

  The battle over cabinet appointments has produced mixed results.33 Most of Trump’s appointees come from the extreme right of the Republican establishment. Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education, is a bitter foe of public education and teacher unions, but is a mainstream Republican on economic policies and did not support Trump’s candidacy. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a nasty racist and early Trump supporter, is well within the Republican consensus on trade and diplomatic alliances. Nikki Haley, his UN ambassador, broke with many southern Republicans’ defense of the Confederate flag in the aftermath of the racist shootings in a Charleston church in 2015 and opposed Trump’s populist nationalism. Elaine Chao, the second Bush’s labor secretary and wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Trump’s pick for transportation secretary, is a consummate Washington insider. Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, is a close ally of the energy companies and a climate change denier, but not an opponent of “free trade.” General John F. Kelly, the homeland security secretary, shares the bipartisan consensus for “greater border security,” but is not an advocate of wholesale deportations. Ben Carson, secretary of housing and urban development, advocates massive privatization of public housing, but is a mainstream neoliberal on trade.

  Several supporters of the populist camp were nominated but face real limits on their ability to implement their politics. Tom Price, the choice for Health and Human Services, is a militant critic of Obamacare and “free trade.” Mike Pompeo, nominee for director of the CIA, has been highly critical of “free trade” and is hostile to the United Nations. Michael Flynn, Trump’s choice for national security advisor, is a former Democrat and Islamaphobe whose ties to Putin’s Russia led to his resignation. Price appeared to have the greatest room to pursue his agenda of dismantling Obamacare, but now supports the mainstream Republican alternative, which not only preserves the popular aspects of the program (coverage for preexisting conditions and coverage for children to the age of 26) but provides massive tax subsidies to private healthcare corporations as well.34 Pompeo will have to negotiate any changes in policy with the “professional staff” of the CIA.

  Ultimately, the appointments to head the four most important cabinet offices—State, Defense, Commerce, and Treasury—will shape the Trump agenda. Trump chose two Wall Street financiers for Commerce and Treasury. Both Wilbur Ross at Commerce and Steven Mnuchin at Treasury, have made statements hostile to “free trade” in general and Chinese “currency manipulation” in particular. However, it is unclear whether they actually want to dismantle the neoliberal financial and trade policies of the past three decades. In fact, Trump has selected Iowa governor, Terry Branstad, a longtime advocate of free trade with China, as US ambassador to the People’s Republic.35 James “Mad Dog” Mattis, the choice for secretary of defense, was critical of the Obama administration but has unswerving allegiance to NATO and the traditional US alliance system. The actions of Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, Trump’s secretary of state, are at odds with Trump’s pronouncements—including Tillerson’s moves to strengthen sanctions on Russia and to continue diplomatic engagement with China and his public commitments to NATO.36

  In Congress, the populist nationalists will face resistance from the Republican establishment. Despite Trump’s victory in the presidential election, the congressional Republican party is solidly pro-corporate. The US Chamber of Commerce announced that “95 percent of Chamber-endorsed candidates in House and Senate won.”37 This is reflected in Ryan’s “A Better Way” legislative proposals.38 Most of Ryan’s proposals continue “business as usual,” with new cuts to public education and social welfare and more deregulation of capital. However, in both “A Better Way” and in public statements, Ryan and the establishment Republicans in Congress have made clear their opposition to any retreat from “free trade” or the central military and political role of the United States in preserving and defending global capitalism. They are also adamantly opposed to mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, other than the “felons” already targeted by Obama, and support expanding guest-worker programs to provide cheap and vulnerable workers to capital in labor-intensive industries.39 Despite the bitter opposition of the remnants of the Tea Party, Paul Ryan was overwhelmingly renominated for Speaker of the House by the Republican caucus.40

  What’s Next? Neoliberalism Is Not Dea
d!

  Despite riding to the White House on the revulsion of a segment of the white middle and working classes to the political class (“Drain the swamp”) and its commitments to neoliberal policies, the Trump administration will continue and intensify neoliberal attacks on working people, racial minorities, immigrants, women, and LGBTQ folks. Put another way, do not expect a sharp break with the forty-year-long bipartisan capitalist offensive. There is no question that the minor regulations placed on the financial industry after the economic meltdown of 2008 will be repealed, while new cuts to corporate taxes are on the agenda. Although Wall Street overwhelmingly supported Clinton in the elections, they appear willing to give the new administration “a chance.”41

  Similarly, there are few obstacles to Trump’s removing the modest environmental regulations the Obama administration imposed. He can easily rely on the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a creation of the Clinton administration, which has the final say on authorizing new regulations.42 Both Trump and the Republican congressional leadership agree that the time is ripe to massively reduce funding for antipoverty programs like Head Start, Medicaid, and food stamps (which suffered their sharpest cuts under Obama).43

  Trump will also intensify the Obama administration’s policy of deporting “criminal” undocumented immigrants, utilizing the massive deportation apparatus created under Obama,44 while back-pedaling on Trump’s own promise of wholesale deportations and even hinting he may not roll back Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which protect undocumented immigrants who arrived as children.45 For all of Trump’s “law and order” rhetoric, his policies will continue the Obama presidency’s toleration of police killings. The first two African American attorney generals in US history, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, did not indict a single cop for violating the civil rights of the young Black men they have murdered. We can expect the Justice and Defense Departments to continue the sale of surplus military equipment to local police forces that began under Clinton. While the Democrats, who are the primary beneficiaries of union election contributions and support, will oppose a National Right to Work Act, they are unlikely to stop its serious consideration.46