Fighting Liberal Democracy – An Attempt to classify Trump

Trump seems to be an unique phenomenon. At the same time, it is important to understand that Trump articulates older ideologies. And because current political problem-situations are highly complex, it sometimes hard to understand what he is about, and what is happening in the world. The confusion and the speed of digital communication such as a, seemingly, insensate economic megalomania lead to a rambling concurrency of activities. A challenge which, not uncommonly, caters for disorientation and overexpansion ending up in ambiguous, if not paradox, actions. By providing an introduction into (anti-)Enlightenment as a basis of analysis, the following article attempts to classify US-President Donald J. Trump. To begin with an insight into his stance on democracy, followed by the use of media and his assessment of the public press as ‘Fake News’. Concluding, the finding that Trump’s way of politically acting could be described as neoliberal nationalism will be further elaborated.  

Enlightenment versus Anti-Enlightenment

Liberalism, often associated with the famous French motto Laissez faire, laissez passer, arose from the historical era of the 17th and 18th century, referred to as Enlightenment. One famous, classical, however rather moderate, definition of the Enlightenment stems from Kant: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance." (Smith, n.d.) 

The Enlightenment is thus determined by the utilization of reason and especially the self-contained, autonomous ability to think individually. Characteristically, the epoch fostered the distancing from authority and traditions, liberating individuals from the constraints of history and breaking with the Ancien Régime (Maly, 2017). The value of freedom, not least of speech, debate, religion, arts, politics etc. (Maly, 2017), such as the ability to find reasonable and scientific solutions to any question fostering progress (for example seen in the Industrial Revolution), were highly estimated. 

Rationalism, focusing on the understanding of reality through thinking, such as empiricism, grounding this understanding on sensory experiences, coined the curios attempt to understand the universe. Socially, the Enlightenment was minted by the advancement of the bourgeoisie, also known as middle-class, mainly through economic developments. This process was closely linked with the concept of liberalism which points at the rule of reason such as the realization of individual freedom within free enterprise (Kunzmann & Burkard, 2013). 

Paradoxically enough, it still happened frequently that ownership was being put over equality. Also, exploitation and racist behaviour was still widely spread. Never the less, the overall goal of the Enlightenment philosophers was to reach socio-economic equality and even happiness for all. One important basis for this was also the securing of individual equal rights which naturally requires equality before the law that ideally should be universal.

For the understanding of contemporary politics, and especially for understanding democracy, we should understand what the 'radical Enlightenment' has to say. The Enlightenment, says Israel, 2011  is “ best characterized as the quest for human amelioration occurring between 1680 and 1800, driven principally by ‘philosophy,’ […] leading to revolutions in ideas and attitudes first, and practical revolutions second, or else the other way around, both sets of revolutions seeking universal recipes for all mankind and, ultimately, in its radical manifestation, laying the foundations for modern basic human rights and freedoms and representative democracy.” (Israel, 2011). It is thus this radical Enlightenment, in contrast with the moderate versions of Kant and Voltaire who promote absolute monarchs, that we need to take on board to understand democracy.

On the note of a more radical definition, also the counter-movement of the Enlightenment, namely the anti-Enlightenment, forming an enduring feature of our world up until today (Maly, 2017), will be adduced. As opposed to the Enlightenment, the anti-Enlightenment can be considered to be a revolution for a second modernity, a revolution into the opposite direction. More precisely, it can be described as comprehensive, ideological and intellectual revolt against the Enlightenment’s fundamental views". (Maly, 2017) 

In this anti-Enlightenment tradition, nations are seen to be natural and organic making up the world. Organic nationalism is the norm and this organism should be cherished at all costs. Any fight for equality or democracy, in this tradition, is understood as an attack on natural order which is regarded to be precisely the opposite, namely inequality as natural state of affairs. 

Following the understanding of anti-Enlightenment, it is a necessity for a healthy nation to acknowledge that everyone has a place and a function within the society. Furthermore, the state is seen to be the core of the nation and the application of reason is a privileged task for the intellectuals who lead the nation. Once Sternhell, a Polish-born Israeli historian and political scientist, said: "Very soon ‘materialism’ - that is, liberalism, democracy, socialism - became the code word par excellence for evil." (Sternhell, 2012). Overall, liberalism and socialism is nothing to strive for since it destroys the moral order.

Obviously, the Enlightenment and the anti-Enlightenment are two contrasting movements. In order to analyse societal and political positions it can be a helpful basis to know about them such as to find out where to pin down an investigated person or party.

Trump versus Democracy

Democracy is first and foremost a political system that allows to choose and replace the government through free and fair elections. But that is not all, if we follow the radical Enlightenment philosopher the democracy is also an ideology based on freedom and equality. People are encouraged to actively participate as citizens in politics such as civic life, to become and be informed and educated as democratic men. The rule of law foresees a solid protection of human rights and applies them equally to all citizens. (n.d., 2004). Hearing this, a clear link to the concepts of the Enlightenment movement can be drawn. 

Donald J. Trump however, based on his way of thinking and arguing, would rather be categorized to fortify the anti-Enlightenment. This being observed, it is apparent to start wondering about Trump's position towards democracy. Only looking at the American electoral system, which enabled Trump to win the elections, without actually holding the voter’s majority, might cause frowning. Surveys conducted by a Harvard lecturer showed that generally, "…the share of Americans who thought it essential to live in a democracy was dropping with every generation… "(Klein, 2017).

This matter of fact might actually represent a contributing factor to Trump's’ electoral victory. Not because he was fighting to re-establish the lost trust in democracy, but to the opposite, because he acknowledged it by sharing people’s scepticism. 

The culture such as economic reach of the USA does not translate into political fellowship any longer. Messages are being heard but not bought, sometimes not even understood. More globally, an interesting, but rather disappointed phenomenon needs to be realized. If a US-politician talks about democracy, the Islamic world perceives it to be offensive, if not as direct attack. Throughout the last decade 'democracy promotion' was a euphemism for war. 

If the talk is of free-trade, it might sound like a request for submission to Europe. Promoting universal human rights might automatically lead to people thinking of the prisoner camps in Guantanamo... Just like that, the cultural, economic and millenarian hegemony does not appear as a vaunting factor for America, but rather as a source of resentment and hostility. This dominance is eventually not protecting the USA from vulnerability but rather enhancing the latter. 

Most of the Americans themselves however still see the state as a major power which implies that many do not realise that power, within the contemporary, multicultural global society, needs to be reformatted. (Steingart, 2017). Trump is seemingly aware of the issues around democracy which does not mean that he works on figuring them out but that he makes strategic use of them to his advantage.

Trump, Fake News and the Public Sphere

The use of media is a great, and therefore commonly used, means to create a wide reach, subtly or directly influencing and communicating with the public sphere. Trump is for example very active on Twitter and of course a target of high interest for journalists and the press. He is aware that whatever message is initially being put out to the local and global audience will always be co-constructed by many others, not least by influencers, in many different ways. So, what Trump does, is warning by twittering that he finds it “fascinating to watch people writing books and major articles about me and yet they know nothing about me & have zero access. # FAKE NEWS!” (Trump, 2017).

Though not all publications about him, being created by third-parties, might be so called ‘fake news’, the statement certainly offers a core of truths. Most of the time such publications are overexaggerations of what has actually happed or been said.

Following, a couple of examples of influential – since many people believe what he says – Trump-Tweets. In November 2012, Trump tweeted the following: The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. (Trump, D.J., 2012). The statement he uttered in his campaign trail in December 2015 further underlined the underlying assumption of this tweet. What he said was:"So Obama’s talking about all of this with the global warming and the—a lot of it’s a hoax, it’s a hoax. I mean, it’s a money-making industry, okay? It’s a hoax, a lot of it.” (Beckwith, R. T., 2017). 

Trying to make the issue of global warming look like a conspiracy for economic profit especially highlights a distinct relativism and shows the conviction that reason is a task for the leaders of the nation which clearly can be found back in the anti-Enlightenment.

Next to that, in March 2017, Trump proposed to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities in his first federal budget plan. (Deb, S., 2017). However, this makes part of education, communication and exchange of ideas such as generation of (new) ideas and not least also of the economy. What Trump is aiming to defeat with such an elimination includes “…the bedrock tenets of the Enlightenment and of American democracy — that rational thought, informed debate, and measured discourse form the basis of good government.” (Nossel, S., 2017)

However, when it comes to Liberalism, America as a whole, still can be categorized as a liberal democracy. One very important point, at times unfortunately not self-evident, is the endurance of free press. Of course,

Trump does make use of so called 'friendly news outlets' that distribute contents speaking positively about him (Brammer, 2017) and he attacks many of the mainstream news agencies and media. He does try to break down the walls that make up a healthy democracy. Nevertheless, he is not illiberally trying by all means to dominate media and suppressing public opinions.

Another point to consider is that the courts remain independent and the people feel free to make use of the courts. …in the first two weeks of Trump’s presidency, his Administration was sued 55 times. (Brammer, 2017). Further, there is no inner state organ that would refuse responding to the civilian political leadership. (Brammer, 2017). Last, but not least, the congress has its own agenda and parties have the freedom to push through their respective ones if they can manage to. (Brammer, 2017). Overall, it has to be said though that any democracy can become an illiberal one and the lines are often blurry.

Trump’s Neoliberal Nationalism

Having been shifting member of as well the Democratic as the Republican party, Trump won the elections in 2016, representing the latter (A&E Television Networks, 2017). He has never been member of the Libertarian Party which promotes classical liberalism (Inside Gov.,n.d.). However, the Democrats, of whom Trump used to be member, do promote modern liberalism and progressivism (Inside Gov.,n.d.). His current party, the Republicans, yet rather promote conservatism. (Inside Gov.,n.d.). Nevertheless, all this doesn’t provide any solid evidence if Trump’s is actually liberal or not. When referring back at the definition of Liberalism, looking at it as economic doctrine, one of the elements it entails, is the realization of individual freedom within free enterprise (Kunzmann & Burkard, 2013). What stands in contradiction to this, is that Trump is building economic (trading barriers) such as integrational barriers, not least literally in form of a wall to keep migrants out of the country. He aims to

“…protect our borders, keep jobs in our country, take care of our veterans, strengthen our military and law enforcement, and renegotiate bad trade deals, creating a government of, by and for the people…making America First, again, restoring our nation’s faith, ushering in a bright, new future now and for generations to come.” (Donald J. Trump for President., 2017).

On a first glimpse, his nationalistic approach to act restrictively in favour for the Americans might seem logical, even a good idea. However, implementing restrictive manners against third (foreign) parties, will eventually also impose internal, harming restrictions, especially when it comes to imports and exports. This macro-economic field has underestimated, large-scale impacts on the global monetary policy and financial markets. Thus, the intention to restrict free-trade in a country that is highly dependent on imports in order to increase welfare seems paradox. Trump’s promises are contradictory and the fact that it was still possible for Trump to succeed with his electoral campaigns gives a slight idea of a certain overextension of the hallucinating society, including its elites (Steingart, 2017). So, Aiming to make the nation flourish to its full potential, the Americanism Trump is trying to create can be described as …‘non-economic interpretation of economic ills’ and …captured as radical neoliberal ethno-cultural nationalism.' (Maly, 2016).

To be clear, neoliberalism usually critiques market-fundamentalism which is why it may be hard not to overlook that Trump’s actions taken, like tax cutting on the wealthy, deregulations of big business and the financial industry such as the wide range of privatizations plans, actually are very much in line with the neoliberal principles. So, what can be observed is a somehow contradictive": - an economic nationalism on the one side, but neoliberal actions taken within this framework on the other side which reasons why one could speak of neoliberal nationalism.

Trumpism

Trying to reach a clearer understanding of the main contents of (anti-)Enlightenment, it becomes obvious that the current President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, would rather be assigned to pursue anti-Enlightenment principles. It remains questionable if he still truly supports democracy. Lucidly, Trump strategically makes use of the critique and negatively noticeable challenges that currently arise from American democracy. Not least, is he making use of media to influence and interact with the public sphere. Also ensuring to convey a picture of untrustworthiness about other publicly reporting media channels. Regarding Trump’s actual political and legal actions, they appear to be, paradox enough, neoliberal but within a nationalistic frame. So, whether to discern him to be liberal or not, is not clearly black and white and thus remaining a grey zone with a strong tendency, eventually dependent though on the perspective that is taken on. Perfectly rounding up this discussion is a hope-providing observation by Sternhell that

“…within the anti-Enlightenment tradition, liberal values always need to be tempered by the anti-liberal ones that are part of our heritage.” (Maly, 2016).

References

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Beckwith, R. T. (2017, September 27). Does Donald Trump Still Think Climate Change is a Hoax? Retrieved October 28, 2017.

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Donald J. Trump for President. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30, 2017.

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Maly, I. (2016). ‘Scientific’ nationalism. Nations and Nationalism,22(2), 266-286. doi:10.1111/nana.12144

Maly, I. (2016). Why Trump won (Working paper).

Nossel, S. (2017) Donald Trump’s Assault on the Enlightenment. Foreign Policy – the Global Magazine of News and Ideas. Retrieved October 28, 2017.

n.d. (2004, January 21). Lecture presented at What is Democracy? in Hilla University for Humanistic Studies. 

Smith, M. C. (n.d.). What is Enlightenment. Retrieved October 30, 2017.

Steingart, G. (2017). Weltbeben Leben im Zeitalter der Überforderung. München: Penguin.

Trump, D. J. (2017, September 12). Fascinating to watch people writing books and major articles about me and yet they know nothing about me & have zero access. #FAKE NEWS! Retrieved September 18, 2017.

Trump, D. J. (2012, November 06). The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. Retrieved October 28, 2017.