It is a Thomas Hobbes world: Everyone against everyone.
Donald Trump is an extraordinarily effective politician. He does not appear to be a deep thinker or be well versed in the philosophies of Western Civilization, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a coherent philosophy.
The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes presented Trump's thinking in his classic work Leviathan in 1651:
Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called War; and such a war as is of every man against every man. . . . In such condition there is no place for Industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently . . . no account of Time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Trump's world is a jungle of every living thing in a struggle for survival against everything else. The fit survive. The weak are crushed or eaten.
Trump is exceptional among American presidents in his open disregard for established process and constitutional norms. He doesn't respect that "common Power" of the state, unless he is the undisputed leader of it. The referee in any contest is just one more participant, to be coopted, made an ally, or to become.
Americans fetishize our Constitution and reflect with pride on the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Wise men met and debated ideas and policies. They created a government of rules, agreed upon first by convention delegates, then by states after hearing arguments printed in pamphlets and newspapers.
Mao Zedong gave a different explanation of the origin of political power, an explanation more in line with Hobbes and Trump:
Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
State power is seized and maintained through the threat and exercise of violence, and armed forces are the primary mechanism to maintain state power. It is the threat of violence, up front or in the background, underlying all debate or negotiation.
We hear the word "transactional" repeatedly in discussion of Trump. He tests the relative power of each participant at any one moment. It is a market. It is a supply and demand curve. There are no set rules, only a continuing contest of relative power.
One of the participants in every match of power is the system in place by history and inertia. The referee. State power itself. Trump was able to stiff vendors in his real estate developments because the referees of contracts -- our legal system -- is full of delay points. Trump could game that system. Trump routinely stalled vendors who needed prompt payment, saying the vendor would go bankrupt long before a judge decided the vendor was right all along. The strong do as they will; the weak suffer as they must.
Trump is not shamed by assertions that he wants to be king or that he is flouting the Constitution. He does not care about being kind to recipients of U.S. foreign aid, or being fair to immigrants, or that he is flouting international law by bombing boats in the Caribbean. Fairness, kindness, and circumspect process are the gentlemanly civilizational veneer obscuring the real relationship between people. Mao Zedong said it: It is power, backed by armed forces.
The Supreme Court is justifiably afraid of Trump. He will obey their decisions only if it serves his purposes. They know that. They will be careful not to put Trump into a corner. They are bluffing. Trump is not. He has the armed forces.
There is only one power currently able to stop Trump: his health and mortality. His right leg drags. He writes increasingly unhinged tweets. Something is wrong.
I suspect Trumpism will end with Trump. He fostered a personality cult, and there is only one Donald Trump. Americans elected a constitutional head of state who does not believe in a constitutional head of state.
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2 comments:
I’ve known some criminals that wouldn’t stop until they were put in prison, that wouldn’t behave unless they were put in segregation, and after being put in segregation mostly did behave because they understood they would be put in segregation again, but for a longer, possibly indefinite period of time.
Donald Trump's support is, as they say, a mile wide and an inch deep. Chairman Mao was correct about the barrel of a gun. However, he delivered China from subservience to Western colonialists and challenged the United States in Korea. He could do no wrong despite the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. He was nothing like Donald Trump, and vice versa.
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