Trump must be a puzzle to our political realists. He certainly shares their scorn for seeing politics in moral terms. Unlike George W. Bush, he doesn’t speak of an axis of evil in the world; and unlike Obama and the Democrats, he is little concerned with the issue of human…
Donald Trump has already made a number of serious mistakes in his political career. I am not talking here of decisions over which the political parties might disagree. I am talking rather of mistakes due to his incompetent handling of political matters. Politics is also a craft which can be employed in the service of different policies. Trump is proving that he is not a master of this kind of skill.
Here is an easily understood series of graphics on the state of the American economy. Put together by the Wall Street Journal, it shows that the wealth distribution in America has changed dramatically from 2004 to 2016. The top 1% now own 5% more of wealth and the bottom 90%…
Conformism is a danger to any society, including democratic ones. The Americans, who pride themselves on their individualism, are, in fact, often quite conformist in their behavior. Look at the American cities or how people dress and what they eat, and you discover a great deal of conformity. Strangely enough,…
For those living in the United States the conditions of American politics will, for obvious reasons, be of some interest. But given the economic, political, and military power of the US it is not surprising to discover that American politics is scrutinized all over the world. When one looks at the International media one notices how much attention they pay to American affairs.
Does this mean that American politics also has a particular interest for political philosophy?
Joshua Green, Devil’s Bargain. Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising, Penguin Books 2017, republished with a new preface 2018.
Joshua Green’s book has been somewhat overshadowed by the publication of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury but it adds significantly to Wolff’s account and corrects it at some important points. It tells in fascinating detail the story of bad bargain the American people accepted when they elected Trump.
February 11, 2018. After reading Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, Inside the Trump White House it becomes difficult to believe that the Trump presidency will have a happy outcome either for Trump himself or the United States as a whole. If this turns out to be the case, Wolff’s book will surely be read for a long time. Even if it comes otherwise, I hope the book will be remembered for its vivid depiction of a deeply disquieting moment in US history.
Populism is the political fashion word of the moment. But do we know what the word stands for?
Who is Donald Trump and what does he stand for? Do we know? Does he himself know? Or is he caught, like all of us, but perhaps even more deeply in that precarious state of disorientation that characterizes our current political situation? While Trump regularly uses populist rhetoric and symbols, his policies seem mostly aimed at benefitting the rich. We should think of him as a plutocrat rather than a populist. But what kind of plutocracy does he stand for?
January 21, 2018 – Over the course of the last twelve months, both laymen and experts have sought to diagnose Donald Trump. They have been asking again and again after each one of his many bewildering tweets: What is wrong with the man psychologically? I am interested in another kind of diagnosis. My question is what Trump’s elections means politically…
On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump, a most unlikely contender, was elected to the office of the presidency of the United States of America. In the course of that year he had beaten a slew of Republican rivals, major political stakeholders, for the right to run for this office. Disliked by the leadership of the party, he had won his candidacy with a campaign of vilification and an irresistible (though largely unfounded) self-confidence, declaring himself an opponent of the political establishment and an advocate of the common people. He had then turned with the same brutal energy on his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, denouncing her as another corrupt insider. With appeals to fear, prejudice, nationalism, and social resentment he had brought together an unlikely coalition of billionaires, right-wing conspirators, fundamentalist Christians, and working-class victims of globalization. Exorbitant promises of a national renewal had in the end secured him enough votes from a deeply divided electorate to win out over Clinton. And so, there he was on November 9 with no political experience, a spotty business record, limited verbal resources, and a simplified confrontational view of the world at the point of taking on the most demanding political office on Earth.
