Republicans Are Drowning Lashed To Trump's Mast

Republicans in the US have lashed themselves to the mast of Trump's storm tossed and sinking ship. They have used their own life preservers to keep his ship afloat for a while longer, but only to stave off the inevitable. In the process, they have sealed their own doom along with his. The truth is, of course, that, in terms of the popular vote, Trump lost in 2016 by 4 million votes. It was only the peculiarities of the Electoral College system, and his ability to win wafer thin majorities, in a number of states, that enabled him to become President. That is unlikely to happen again, particularly if the Democrats do not repeat the mistake of electing another centrist candidate as their nominee. All of the potential Democrat candidates are currently beating Trump in the national opinion polls, but in order to win, the Democrats need to choose a Bernie Sanders who will mobilise their base, and who will also get the millions of disillusioned US voters to come out to vote. 

The centrist leadership of the Democrats has, of course, been pushing the same old line of the Blairites and Clintonites that its only possible to win from the centre. In fact, there are plenty of examples of where that is patently untrue. Moreover, compared to Britain, Sanders himself would be considered firmly in the centre ground. But, the truth is that elections that mean anything are rarely won in the centre ground, almost by definition. Being in the centre, by definition, means that you do not really differ from the existing status quo, and so, from the start, your ambition to change anything, in a meaningful way, has been self-limited. For politicians who talk a lot, in vague terms, about aspiration, it shows a marked lack of aspiration, on their own part. What really brings about sizeable electoral victories that bring about change is a party, a programme and a leadership that is able to mobilise its own base, and which is able to also mobilise a sufficient number of those voters who have tired of centrist politics and become apathetic. In the process of doing so, it is able to, often, then draw behind it some of the softer elements of support for the opposition party. Nothing succeeds like success, and a large part of voting behaviour, for these layers of soft support for any party, is a desire to be on the winning side, to conform. 

Being in the centre ground can never achieve that, because it can never mobilise those wider disaffected layers, and, often, only results in that layer getting even bigger, or throwing its support behind some other party offering cheap and easy answers. That is what happened to the support for social-democratic parties across Europe, in the post-war period, and its also what has happened with the Democrats in the US. It is in fact, Corbyn in Britain, Sanders, along with Ocasio de Cortes, in the US, and similar figures in Greece, Spain and Portugal that have offered the potential way out of that. With the upsurge in radicalised opposition to Orban in Hungary, and to the Polish government, we are likely to see similar new young radical figures emerge there too. 

There is a close parallel between the trajectory of Trump as with Brexit. Both squeezed in with tight margins. Trump indeed lost the popular vote; had the EU referendum enabled 16 year-olds, and EU citizens, as well as UK ex pats to vote, the result would have gone the other way; immediately after the vote it sparked a huge rebellion against it, driven by younger voters; in the US there was a similar upsurge in response, again driven by younger voters and activists. It manifest itself in the selection of left-wing Democrat candidates, and their election, in 2018, to positions in the House of Representatives, and into state legislatures across the country. It dislodged the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. In Britain, its clear that a new vote on Brexit would see it reversed, and, in the US, its clear that there is a clear majority against Trump, whose standing in the polls has sunk to lows that no President has been able to win from, despite the fact that he inherited a rapidly growing economy that has continued to grow under his Presidency, though at a slower rate due to his insane economic policies, and his global trade war. 

The Republicans, fearful of their own base, have acted to try to keep the Trump Presidency afloat. They have perjured themselves, they have cynically reversed dozens of stated positions they have advocated over the years, they have closed their eyes to Trump's illegal actions, and, even when they have been forced to accept that he acted illegally, immorally or corruptly, as with the current impeachment, they have demanded that there is “nothing to see here.” Charged with acting as impartial jurors in Trump's impeachment trial, in the Senate, the leading senators like McConnell went into it saying that they were not impartial, and would not act impartially, which should have debarred them from taking part. The whole trial was turned, by the Republicans, into a farce, even voting to prevent witnesses like John Bolton, or indeed any witnesses at all, from giving evidence. What kind of trial is it, you might ask, that proceeds without witnesses being called by the prosecution or the defence. But, this is the reality of democracy and the rule of law in the land of the free under Trump Bonaparte. 

But, as with the 2018 elections, the Republicans have bought themselves a little time to keep Trump Bonaparte in the White House at the expense of dragging themselves down with him. No one can doubt that Trump will continue to lie and spin to keep his base support on side. With Trump it has always been the case that everything about him and his regime is superlative. Even when it was plain to see that he was lying, he claimed that more people turned out for his inauguration than for Obama etc. The only thing that provides support for Trump, at the moment, is the state of the US economy. It continues to grow at a clip around 2.5%, and employment has continued to rise. Hourly wages have been rising since 2010, and, now, they are rising at around 3.25%, compared to the 2.25% under Obama. 

However, the truth is that little of the current US GDP growth is down to Trump. Indeed, growth under him has been lower than under both Obama and Bush. Trump inherited the growth, as the US economy recovered from the recession in 2009 that was itself caused by the global financial crisis of 2008. Growth has slowed under Trump, and compared to his prediction that it would rise to 4 or 5%, it has slowed, more recently, as a direct result of his own insane economic policies, in particular his global trade war, and imposition of tariffs. Similarly, although employment has continued to rise under Trump, it has actually grown proportionally less than it did under Obama. That, of course, would not be surprising, because the more employment levels came closer to full employment, the harder it is to find additional employment without drawing back into the workforce workers who have previously retired etc., or else by increasing immigration. Employers prefer at first to employ existing workers for longer hours, even if they have to pay overtime rates, rather than take on additional full-time workers, and Trump's xenophobic agenda makes increasing immigration problematic. So, even with employment continuing to grow, even at a slowing rate, that inevitably means that hourly wage rates rise, as the demand for labour-power begins to exceed the supply. That itself causes a squeeze on profits. 

The economic performance has been sufficient, so far, to keep the huge blimp of hot air that is Trump afloat. Voters do not delve into the detail of economic statistics and reality. They just look at their own immediate position. In Britain a majority of voters still believe that Labour created the 2008 financial crisis, and that they were guilty of overspending and so on, despite the facts showing the opposite, for example. Yet, even with the benefit of a relatively benign economic climate, Trump's standing has never been high, and, today, all the opinion polls indicate he will lose. As with 2016 that is a long way from saying he will lose. If the Democrats engage in the same kind of rigging they did in 2016, to get Clinton on the ticket rather than Sanders, they will lose again. If they choose a centrist like Biden or Buttigieg, they will lose, because, to win, the Democrats need not to win over centrists or Trump voters, but to mobilise their base to the maximum, and to draw in the millions of disaffected voters who currently feel that neither party offers them any future. 

There is every indication the Democrats can do that. The Republicans are helping them. Any reasonable person that has watched the performance of Republican politicians knows that they are a useless, spineless bunch of liars, careerists, and toadies. Its not that they are all tinged with the same kind of corruption, sleaze and incompetence that characterises Trump himself, alongside his moronic and boorish behaviour, but that they are unwilling to call him to account for it. In so doing, they have all tarred themselves with that same brush. If the Democrats seize the day, they can clear Trump Bonaparte from the White House, and clear his toadies from their positions in the Senate and House of Representatives too. In doing so they will do a great service to all those fighting the same kind of Trumpist politics elsewhere, not least here in Britain.