OPINION
What Trump’s Election Represents David Sylvan Professor of International Relations/Political Science
UNITED STATES, Washington, DC. US President Donald Trump, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, and Counselor to the President Stephen Bannon. 28 January 2017. AFP/Mandel NGAN
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t the time this article was written, Donald Trump had occupied the White House for just over a month. His entire set of Cabinet nominations had not yet been approved, and although executive orders had begun to be issued, most were still in the drafting stage; meanwhile, almost no legislation had yet passed Congress. Nonetheless, even these early actions speak volumes: they are an unsettling combination of practical small steps and symbolic huge ones. Thus far, Trump’s appointees have begun making it easier for financial advisers to work against the interests of their ostensible clients, for polluters to pay less attention to environmental laws, for immigration agents to harass and deport undocumented residents, and for armed forces to launch attacks that will likely result in significant civilian casualties, to name but a few of the policies undertaken by the Trump administration. The fact that the last two of these initiatives are different only in degree, not kind, from those of the Obama administration, or that any number of other initiatives, from noncondemnation of Israeli settlement expansion to the two-China policy, are already down the memory hole does not change the frenziedly reactionary quality of the orders issuing from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue every few hours.
For Trump, and his hard-core supporters in the electorate, what matters is neither the efficacy (at best contestable, quite likely negative) of his policies, nor whether they are affordable, based on facts, or even followed through. The important thing is that the policies aim at stigmatising large numbers of people: refugees, immigrants, Muslims, welfare recipients, transgender persons and gays, non-British members of the European Union, the news media, judges, and of course anyone considered as having supported Hillary Clinton. This stigmatisation is an end in itself, where the intent – to say, “we hate you” – is far more important than the legality or the practicality of the actions. Indeed, the more the actions are contested, the happier Trump and his supporters are. Already, Trump’s election, as well as his policies, have had a marked effect on politics in other countries, encouraging authoritarian leaders and their illiberal supporters. That effect, much more than the details of Trump’s policies, is a serious threat to the entire post-1945 order both internationally and in terms of domestic politics in countries around the world. We may well be in for what Auden called “a low dishonest decade”. The question is whether leaders and ordinary citizens have the tenacity, day after day, to stand up for honesty, for tolerance, and for peace.