Most political commentators failed to capture the true depth of the Trump problem. At the moment, many are wondering whether he would deliver on his promises, and just how different would he be in comparison to previous presidents. We have grown used to empty promises, and so, many on the left hope that president Trump would be much tamer than the candidate. While his campaign promises, inflammatory rhetoric, and questionable past should deeply worry us all, we should also take a look at the Trump phenomenon in its proper historical context. Properly positioned, Trump’s success – and the Democratic Party’s failure – can be seen as the natural progression of an ongoing degeneration of neoliberal hegemony in the United States and the West in general – and that’s not a good thing.
Trump is not a fascist. While fascism has many meanings, most would attach a strong ideological component to it nowadays, and, as Noam Chomsky noted in a recent interview for Al-Jazeera, Trump is no ideologue. He is self obsessed, unpredictable and dangerous, but he lacks many characteristics we associate with fascists leaders. Yet, his racist, sexist and xenophobic remarks, coupled with the ultra-nationalistic, white-supremacist groups that have been celebrating his victory, are rightly recognized by many as steps in that direction. Indeed, although Trump remains somewhat enigmatic and unpredictable, fascist groups have been celebrating his victory. While frightening, leftists everywhere should see these fascistic characteristics as the second act of an ongoing crisis of the neoliberal hegemony, rather than a culmination of a political crisis in the United States and elsewhere.
It is important to stress this before we proceed; that despite those worrying trends, the United States is far from showing true, structural signs of fascism in politics. Yet, especially in light of similar tendencies in many other parts of the world, the left ought to treat these collectively as a warning; as fascism in utero, even if the alarm is false. So let us, for a moment, consider the threat of fascism seriously.
Common Narratives
Many liberal commentators correctly expressed their concerns over the growing political polarization in the United States, as well as the public’s growing distrust in the political establishment. One of the more common narratives in both mainstream liberal media outlets and progressive outlets alike, is that the U.S population is longing for “real” political change, for which the system seems increasingly incapable of accommodating. Other common narratives focus on the proliferation of fake news, fragmentation of media outlets and the growing impact of online “echo chambers” that amplify similar political discourse as the culprits for the growing political divide. These phenomena are real, but mainstream commentators failed to weave them together – a necessary step in understanding the crisis of hegemony in the US today.
That the public lost faith in politics is a truism. Everybody knows the government is not to be trusted; that politicians are shady and that the system is rigged. Popular trust in the political process has been persistently low: According to a 2015 study by the Pew Research Center, Americans’ trust in their government “continues to be at historically low levels. Only 19% of Americans today say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right ‘just about always’ (3%) or ‘most of the time’ (16%)”. A 2016 Gallup poll reveals similar trends. While leftists have doubted both parties’ ability to make meaningful changes in a neoliberal era, the fact that “we all know” the government should not be trusted is an indicator, in and of itself, of worrisome processes underneath the surface of western liberal democracy.
One of Trump’s major campaign promises was to “drain the swamp” – to rid D.C of corrupt and self-interested politicians. And indeed, many of his constituents voted for him because he is not a politician; because he “tells it like it is”. The fact that this played a major role in his rise to power has been covered extensively before. We must ask ourselves, though, why is it that Americans lost their trust in government, if they ever had any in the first place, and why are we seeing the rise of right wing populism now?
There are many valid answers, but the simplest explanation is that the political system does not protect or empower the ordinary citizen in the neoliberal age. In the US, laborers’ rights have been systematically eroded since the ‘70s, undermining their collective political autonomy before their employers. Speaking of Ronald Reagan’s decertification of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve said that “[Reagan’s] action gave weight to the legal right of private employers, previously not fully exercised, to use their own discretion to both hire and discharge workers”.
This anti-labor policy continues to this day, but the government’s neglect of the working- and middle-class does not end there. Beyond the right to unionize, we can find countless examples of policies and agendas that benefit corporate over public interests. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a clear example. The ever-shrinking public expenditure on education is a clear example. The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, the 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, and the 2008 bailout are clear examples. The fact is, private interest is the most powerful “special interest” group in the United States, and the wealth, evidently, does not trickle down.
A clear manifestation of the public’s mistrust in neoliberal politics can be identified in the recent emergence of separatist sentiments in Europe. It is arguable that the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, along with recent anti-E.U sentiments expressed by other right-wing European leaders in France, Italy, and elsewhere, are a manifestation of distrust in an inherently neoliberal institution that primarily serves the financial and business sectors.
The Collapse of Neoliberal Hegemony
No one should be surprised that uneducated, systematically disenfranchised people fell out of trust with governmental institutions. They have every right to. But this story is incomplete: While it is certainly true that Western governments have neglected their working- and middle-classes in the neoliberal era, what is even more concerning is that the very legitimacy of the political system has been put into question. Concerning, because those moments in history where hegemony (meaning, the prevailing ideas and norms in both political and civil society) is lost, where consensus erodes, and where the public abandons traditional political parties, can very easily have disastrous social consequences unless they are properly managed.
This phenomenon was analyzed extensively by Antonio Gramsci in his Prison Notebooks. Any political machinery, according to Gramsci (and essentially all political scientists – he is in very good company in this case), exercises its power either by creating and maintaining ‘spontaneous’ consensus, or, by force. What is worrying, then, is not simply that people no longer agree with each other – this common analysis is much too superficial – but that a majority of citizens on both sides of the political spectrum no longer see the political class and the hegemony it represents as legitimate. Certainly, “echo chambers” have amplified similar-minded (and often, conspiratory and fake) narratives online, but the real driving force behind this phenomenon is a growing distrust in the political mechanism.
This is a organic crisis of authority, where the political class loses its legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Gramsci summarizes this point very neatly in this passage: If the ruling class has lost its consensus, i.e. is no longer “leading” but only “dominant”, exercising coercive force alone, this means precisely that the great masses have become detached from their traditional ideologies, and no longer believe what they used to believe previously, etc. The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear (PN, 276). Fascism, Gramsci says, is not an end-product. Rather, it is a symptom; an intermediate stage of an ongoing crisis of hegemony.
It is an organic crisis in that it is pertains to the superstructure of both political and civil society, as opposed to, say, economic or political crises which are contained in their respective spheres and are quite easily manageable by the modern state, heavily entrenched in its bureaucracy. Writing in prison in Mussolini’s Italy, Gramsci witnessed this organic crisis firsthand and, indeed, those morbid symptoms of fascism. He writes that, faced with such a crisis – a degeneration of consensus (i.e. – when citizens no longer legitimate state power “spontaneously”) – the state will likely resort to “coercive force alone”. While we have not quite reached this point in the United States, we should certainly be worried, especially if Trump is true to his word. His proposals will not go unchallenged.
Evidence for the existence of such a crisis in the US can also be found in the Sanders campaign. We may be shocked by Trump’s victory, along with those of other far-right leaders in Europe, but we should also remember that a socialist left has been raising its head, expressing similar anti-establishment sentiments. While we ought to be careful in comparing Sanders with Trump, we can say that both campaigns reflected a deep, explicit mistrust in the political establishment. Furthermore, for progressives, Bernie Sanders’ defeat not only represented a justified lack of trust in the political system, but also the final blow to the idea that the Democratic Party can accommodate for a truly progressive candidate. Both camps recognize a systemic problem.
What We Need to Do
While Gramsci’s notion of hegemony is as relevant as it ever was in our turbulent sociopolitical atmosphere, there are many aspects of his work that are unappealing to 21st-century readers. For one, Gramsci was somewhat of a Leninist, and had no problems with one-party political systems as an intermediary tool for creating an alternative consensus to capitalism. Nevertheless, there is much to learn from his writing on crises of hegemony, and he had a lot to say about the role the left ought to play in such crises.
Some of us argue that “the worse, the better”; that trump will “shake up the system” in ways that are beneficial to the left in the long run. We should be very skeptical towards arguments of this kind. We ought not to take a positivistic approach: the masses rarely follow a predetermined path, and history shows that oppression may indeed be sustainable, if properly managed. To quote Chomsky again, “the same was said about Hitler in the early thirties … The left could have been organized to keeping [Clinton’s] feet to the fire and pushing [her progressive programs] through. What it’ll be doing now is trying to protect the rights and gains that have been achieved from being destroyed. That’s completely regressive”. Trump’s presidency would likely put the left on the defensive, as Chomsky notes in the interview, and if we are indeed experiencing the sort of crisis Gramsci described, the state might resort to violent coercion. We must defend what we have achieved actively.
Our job is to organize and advocate. Above all, to advocate. To present a strong and uncompromising social-democratic alternative to neoliberal politics, as well as the emerging far-right nationalists. Gramsci insists that hegemony is inherently cultural; that states rule primarily by consensus, rather than force. Furthermore, he insisted that the hegemony will never be challenged spontaneously. In these turbulent times, we need to set differences aside and actively prove that a cultural, ethical and political alternative is alive and feasible. At the same time, we need to organize politically to protect ourselves from this very serious threat. Not an easy thing to do.
Trump is likely to disappoint many, if not most of his constituents. Gramsci insisted that fascism is unsustainable: as a symptom (rather than the result) of a crisis of hegemony, it cannot produce an “ethical phase” whereby consensus is reconstructed. Trump will not drain the swamp, nor restore economic security for those that voted for him. While the Trump presidency will likely force us to react and defend what we have painstakingly achieved, we should treat it as an opportunity, to educate those around us about political alternatives that support public rather than private interest, and to continue reinvigorating the left. We must break through echo chambers and organize in the real world. After all, many of the Trump’s constituents are working people; potential allies. We can not afford to wait around.