[Special Feature: The Future of Free Trade] Is President Trump Truly an Outlier?

2018/08/06

Since the inauguration of the Trump administration in January 2017, the world has been constantly tossed about by President Trump. Certainly, President Trump is not the kind of American president the world has grown accustomed to. The expectation that "once he becomes president, his rhetoric from the campaign will settle down, and while he may be unconventional, things might work out surprisingly well" was utterly betrayed. Nevertheless, the first year might have been relatively calm. Even the self-confident President Trump may have been overwhelmed by the sheer weight of responsibility upon taking office. His complete lack of experience in Washington might have also acted as a slight restraint. When Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon, the ideological pillar of Trumpism, was dismissed last summer, it was taken as evidence that the administration recognized that the unconventional messaging effective during the campaign was no longer valid when it came to the actual responsibility of governing as president.

Furthermore, it was perhaps only after becoming president that he realized the office is not that of an "emperor," but a "president" bound by the Constitution. Entry restrictions from several Muslim-majority countries were halted by the judiciary (though later approved after revisions), and the repeal of Obamacare, a key campaign promise, could not be achieved despite a Republican majority in Congress. While he announced withdrawals from the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and the Paris Agreement on climate change, one could view the first year as a period where he did not fully steer toward "Trumpism," but rather applied it selectively. Regarding relations with allies, while the president's remarks significantly shook the foundation of trust, the actual policies did not deviate greatly from conventional lines. The "National Security Strategy" and "National Defense Strategy," key foreign policy and security documents issued between the end of the year and the beginning of the next, were within expectations, despite being peppered with Trump-esque language. Focusing on Japan-U.S. relations, the personal relationship between the leaders also played a role, and the "worst-case scenario" imaginable during the election was somehow avoided.

However, entering the second year of the administration, it appears he is deepening his tilt toward Trumpism. Having spent the first year warming up, he may have gained confidence that he can get by using the "Trump way." In what might be a sign that he believes he can manage alone, he dismissed his second Chief of Staff, John Kelly, and rumors suggest he has no intention of naming a successor. The Trump color has also become evident in foreign policy, where he was previously relatively cautious. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster—appointments endorsed by the foreign policy establishment—were dismissed as the second year began. Furthermore, the position of Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who had quietly prevented the encroachment of Trumpism into defense policy, is said to be no longer secure. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Mattis's greatest mission was to protect America from Trumpism. Gary Cohn, the Director of the National Economic Council who clashed with President Trump over the introduction of punitive tariffs, resigned. The bastions preventing "Trumpification" have been almost entirely dismantled.

In response, Trumpification has also progressed on the policy front. President Trump's behavior at the G7 Charlevoix Summit was, in effect, a declaration that the United States no longer intends to support the international order or norms. The photo uploaded to Instagram by German Chancellor Merkel—showing world leaders surrounding Trump and desperately trying to persuade him—reiterated the impression that the U.S. is withdrawing from maintaining order and norms. Despite desperate persuasion from French President Macron, Trump announced the withdrawal from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the nuclear deal with Iran. The U.S. also withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council. The relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and the introduction of unilateral punitive tariffs followed suit. All of these were campaign promises, but the international community's reaction was one of shock that he would actually go this far. The U.S.-North Korea summit in June can only be described as "Trump-style." President Trump decided on it unilaterally, overriding the opposition of those around him. It took on the appearance of an international reality show co-produced by the U.S. and North Korea.

Why does President Trump go this far? Is it a mere whim, or is there some kind of underlying ideology? To answer this question, it is necessary—though seemingly counterintuitive—to step away from President Trump for a moment and focus on the changes occurring at the root of American society.

If one is only distracted by President Trump's unconventional actions, one tends to miss the phenomena occurring in the undercurrent. By treating President Trump as an anomaly, one might think that as long as a "normal administration" is born "after Trump," the Trump administration can be neutralized as an exceptional event. Furthermore, this line of thinking seals away the fact that the "pre-Trump" era was the very soil that gave rise to the Trump phenomenon, leading to an idealization of the "pre-Trump" period. Because President Obama was a "common-sense" president, it is particularly easy to drift toward such thinking. The formulaic "theory of America" that states "America swings, but the pendulum always swings back" also encourages this mindset.

However, is that really the case? As Rebecca Lissner and Mira Rapp-Hooper point out, "President Trump is not the architect of the Trump phenomenon, but rather its avatar" (Washington Quarterly, Spring 2018). Unless we decipher it with this mindset, we will misjudge the depth of this phenomenon. A leader who takes over America after Trump will likely not be able to return to pre-Trump America as if nothing had happened. If President Trump is skilled at anything, it is as a destroyer. President Trump has exposed the dark forces swirling in the undercurrent of American society (I discuss this in detail in my article in Leviathan No. 62). President Trump mocked the public stances (tatemae) that somehow held America together and effortlessly stimulated people's anxiety and anger. And the people rejoiced. After all, at the time of writing, President Trump's approval rating among Republicans is in the high 80s, reaching 90 percent between June 4 and 17 (according to Gallup; though it is not unusual for a president to have over 90 percent support from their own party).

While these figures are a consequence of partisan polarization reaching its extreme, they are also a sign that the Republican Party itself is being encroached upon by Trumpism, having accepted Trump—who was not even originally a Republican. Leveraging this resonance phenomenon, President Trump is overturning established lines one after another.

So, what lies at the core of this resonance? Perhaps it was the impulse to fundamentally overturn the conservatism that had been the Republican Party's official stance. Trumpism was more than a rejection of the "changing America" symbolized by President Obama; it was also a rejection of the conservatism embodied by the Republican Party. Indeed, one could even say that Trump awakened the "reactionary thought" that had been dismissed under the name of conservatism. In the sense that it rejects the principles that have supported America, it is un-American; yet, it can also be seen as typically American in that such currents have always existed in the undercurrent of American society. President Trump is likely not practicing this consciously. Rather, he has given words to the grievances coiled among those he calls the "forgotten people," and this is creating a resonance in a way no one imagined.

The most common explanation is that the conservatism the Republican Party has championed is supported by three pillars. It is often likened to a stool supported by three legs. For conservatism to gain momentum, these three legs must be firm and stable. The first is limited government, the second is a muscular foreign policy, and the third is traditional values. Although it tends to be somewhat mythologized, President Ronald Reagan is said to have best embodied this "three-legged conservatism." It is likely no coincidence that Reagan's name was less prominent in the 2016 presidential election than in any other recent election. Among conservatives, it is no exaggeration to say that Reagan is a saint-like figure. However, it was clear that the Trump phenomenon was driven by something different from the "three-legged conservatism" Reagan embodied.

It was a reactionary ideology that is "politically incorrect"—previously sealed within neatly packaged conservatism—but resonates more deeply with the grievances of the "forgotten people." President Obama highlighted an America that had broken away from "the reactionary," but it cannot be denied that this conversely had the effect of awakening reactionary thought. This reactionary thought rejected all three legs that had supported conservatism.

First, regarding "limited government," they rejected it as an idea that only benefited big business. Even if told that the smaller the government, the better for stimulating entrepreneurship, such things become irrelevant when one's own life is unsustainable. Furthermore, their call for limited government stemmed from dissatisfaction with the government's active introduction of policies to rescue minorities (as they perceived it); in that sense, limited government itself was not a pure objective. From the perspective of those barely maintaining middle-class status and facing the "fear of falling" daily, "preferential policies" for minorities highlighted a sense of unfairness. President Trump unhesitatingly sent a message to them from the highest position in the executive branch: "The federal government is for you." This was an idea unrelated to limited government.

Next, regarding a "muscular foreign policy," while they unhesitatingly affirm American nationalism, they could not accept the foreign policy establishment's idea that it should be projected toward the world and that the U.S. should lead in maintaining international order and norms. The foreign policy establishment uses sterile terms like "liberal international order" to advocate for America's international role. However, when translated into reality, there was a definite sense of grievance that it is their own sons and daughters who are mobilized and sent to the other side of the world to support it, and if the result is a prolonged conflict in Afghanistan or Iraq, they do not want to take on such a role. It is no coincidence that Trump, as a presidential candidate, took a critical stance toward intervention in Iraq. Rather than going out to slay monsters, they would close the country. The wall was a physical expression of such an idea.

And regarding "traditional values," there was previously the official stance of "living correctly as a Christian," with specific issues revolving around abortion and same-sex marriage. However, no matter how one looks at it, President Trump can hardly be called a model Christian. Yet, support for President Trump remains solid among the religious right, a robust support base for the Republican Party. This is because, even if he does not pretend to be a person of deep faith, he understands what the religious right wants and is surely trying to respond to it. Furthermore, the religious right is said to feel particularly strongly that American values are being threatened by "foreign elements" from the outside, and they hold expectations for President Trump as a guardian of a certain "(restorative) American way of life." Concrete expressions of this were the wall to be built on the border with Mexico and the entry restrictions from several Muslim-majority countries he attempted to introduce immediately after the administration began. It cannot be denied that this preservation of the American way of life has always been embedded within "traditional values." However, the discomfort toward "foreign elements" has not been expressed so directly at the presidential level in recent years. In that sense, President Trump's actions during the Charlottesville riots last year could even be said to have had consistency in that regard. It was an expression of discomfort toward change.

In this way, whether President Trump himself was conscious of it or not, traditional conservatism was pushed aside within the Trump world.

While I have discussed the reactionary thought awakened by President Trump in a negative context, it is also undeniable that it holds a strong reality for the "forgotten people." President Trump was the only one who responded to their "sense of no exit." It was by no means an economic answer, but it responded to their grievances that had nowhere else to go. If the Trump phenomenon is supported by such deep-seated rejection impulses, it is better to think that the America that has supported the post-war international order is facing a major challenge from within.

Looking at President Trump's behavior at the G7 Charlevoix Summit, we cannot expect Trump's America to return to the "beaten path" as a guardian of the free trade system. After all, it is reported that during the process of drafting the statement, the U.S. itself expressed discomfort with the phrase "rules-based international order" (New York Times, June 6, 2018). "America First" runs deeper than President Trump himself. It is a robust, regressive nationalism relying on an aggressive defensive instinct—a declaration of defiance that, like countries that have "free-ridden" on American internationalism until now, the U.S. will act based on narrow national interests and immediate gains. Thomas Meaney and Stephen Wertheim argue that Trump's foreign policy should not be viewed as an anomaly, but rather as part of the lineage of "radical American imperialism" in the undercurrent of American politics, which no one wants to accept (New York Times, March 11, 2018). Their claim is that, to that extent, it is American. Moreover, Trump supporters understand this intuitively.

Now, how do we deal with this kind of America? The world does not yet have the answer.