End the complacency, yes, but get the facts right too
Liberals must face up to the consequences of the world they have created, before it's too late
Unsurprisingly, it’s left to Simon Jenkins to tell Guardian readers they need to get real about the causes of populism and the reasons for Donald Trump’s consistently high polling figures, three months into election year.
His central message is spot on: in politics, as in war, unless you understand the reasons for your enemies success, you will have little chance of defeating him. But some of Jenkins’ claims go too far, and like nearly every commentator out there, he misses a key reason for the rise of populism and Trump’s success.
His suggestion that ‘Colorado’s attempt to stop [Trump] running for office was as legally wrong-headed as it was counterproductive’ doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, unless his only source of legal advice was Trump’s former Attorney General, William Barr.
Jenkins would do well to read Timothy Snyder, who may be a mere historian, but whose understanding of US constitutional law makes you wonder if Barr even attended law school. Snyder has spent months researching, writing and speaking about the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court that, under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, Trump is barred from standing again for President, or indeed for any other government office.
The language might be a little archaic (it was adopted in 1868) but the intention of those who drafted the amendment is absolutely clear:
‘No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.’
Unless you believe that Trump did not incite an insurrection on 6th January 2021, the day Congress met to certify the results of the election which Joe Biden won, there can be no doubt that Trump is disqualified from running again.
Perhaps Jenkins meant to write ‘politically wrong-headed’ rather than ‘legally wrong-headed’. If so he might have had a point: the legal system in the United States is now so politicised that it’s no longer fit for the purpose of adjudicating legal questions that require interpretation of the constitution. The Colorado ruling was bound to be reversed, allowing Trump’s name on to the ballot in every state. But this happened for reasons of politics, not law.
Notwithstanding the political hijacking of the Supreme Court, liberals’ disbelief at the fact that enough Americans are still willing to vote for him on 5th November is disingenuous. The average voter doesn’t engage at this level of legal complexity. Trump hasn’t even been charged with insurrection, let alone convicted. Yes the legal system is not fit for purpose. But this is the political reality. Throwing up our arms in disbelief is not going to prevent him winning again.
Jenkins is living in fantasy land with his next pronouncement:
Vladimir Putin, with whom [Trump’s] relations remain obscure, did not invade Ukraine while he was in the White House.
Let’s break this down: relations between Trump and Putin remain obscure? I’m not going to dive too deeply into what kind of relations might exists between a pathological narcissist and an authoritarian psychopath who kills his political enemies with impunity, but it’s clear that the main characteristic of the relationship between these two deeply damaged human beings, neither of whom, in a sane world, would be allowed anywhere near nuclear codes, is this: Putin sees Trump as a useful idiot. He’s rubbing his hands at the thought of a second term. And while it’s true that he didn’t invade Ukraine on Trump’s watch, I’m pretty sure he would never have invaded Ukraine at all had the USA not revealed the extent of its democratic failings by electing Trump in 2015.
Jenkins third dubious claim at least allows us to get the nub of the matter:
The US economy did well under Trump, better than Britain’s.
The fact that the US economy did relatively well during his presidency has nothing to do with Trump making astute decisions about the management of the world’s largest economy from his desk in the Oval Office. He inherited an economy in good shape from his predecessor, because Barack Obama (unlike most of his counterparts in Europe) did not listen to those economists who argued that the correct response to the 2008 financial crisis was a sustained period of austerity. Had Trump been calling the shots during Obama’s first term, as a supporter of small government (excepting of course when it comes to his own expense account) he would surely have imposed swinging cuts on the public sector and used the savings to justify tax cuts for his wealthy chums.
In any case, and as I have written elsewhere, politicians today have little power when it comes to shaping economic outcomes, because, over the last four decades, they have delegated that responsibility to central banks and the financial markets.
But perhaps we can forgive Jenkins here. After all, how many voters understand the the modern-day disconnect between what politicians say about the economy and what actually happens? For many people, if the economy improved when Trump was president, then that’s one less reason not to vote for him. That, again, is the political reality and also, of course, a central problem of democracy.
But there is, nonetheless, a strong link between the economy and Trump’s electoral success. As I discussed here recently, real wages have stagnated for most Americans for four decades now. Life is no better for them than it was for their parents, and in some cases is markedly worse. At the same time many people have been duped by the claim - a central tenet of consumer-capitalism - that they can have it all. All they need to do is play by the rules and work hard. But millions of Americans have been working damned hard for the last four decades and have considerably less to show for it than they were promised.
Donald Trump might be a charlatan, and he certainly didn’t invent the economic system that has served too many Americans so badly. But until those who have given tacit support to current economic arrangements by enjoying its spoils come to understand the consequences for democracy; and unless liberals can come up with a narrative to explain what has gone wrong, and how we might correct our mistakes and so create a more inclusive economy, then people like Trump will continue to garner widespread popular support.
Jenkins is right one one thing though:
Those who oppose [Trump] should study what makes him so popular in the eyes of most Americans.
But we should also be honest with ourselves about the harm we have done in condoning an economic system that delivers the goods almost exclusively to a narrow band at the top of society while largely disregarding the interests of the majority and condemning a sizeable minority to penury.