On Tariffs, Domination, and a Better Way
More than two weeks have passed since President Trump’s much-heralded “Liberation Day.” In the President’s telling, this was the day when the United States, armed with steep tariffs imposed on nations across the globe, would stand athwart the forces of globalism that have corroded American industry and fueled the rise of a militant China and other nations at the expense of the United States and yell “stop.” Liberation Day was not only to be a blow to China, but also to the professional class, who from the comfort of their air-conditioned desk jobs signed off on the dismantling of American industry in exchange for cheap goods made abroad.
A day that began with pomp and grandiosity was followed by incredible turmoil in the financial markets, wounded alliances and potential shifts in geopolitical realignments, infighting amongst the President’s supporters, and, ultimately, a withdrawal of most of President Trump’s proposed tariffs. In pursuit of an industrial renaissance, America has become lost in a muck of its own making, with more damage and turmoil almost certain to come.
It need not have happened this way.
There is much that Donald Trump, fundamentally, has correct. He was correct in his long-held belief that China is best understood to be an adversary of the United States, and is correct today in assessing that greater industrial capacity and a trillion dollar defense budget is needed to contain Chinese aggression. He is correct that in response to the Chinese challenge, Europe will need to contribute more to its own defense, as American presence on the continent will be reduced, and he has been correct to denounce progressive excess (wokeness, in other words), in governance and culture as a niche values set that yields unfavorable if not outright harmful results. The paradox of Donald Trump is that despite his ability to identify problems and challenges, he struggles to alleviate those problems and resolve those challenges, in large part on account of a zero-sum mindset and a fixation on domination. Donald Trump, especially in his second term, is perhaps the ultimate manifestation of American domination politics. Where identity politics and grievance politics respectively seek to advance the welfare of a group or seek recompense for an alleged wrong or injustice, domination politics fuse both into something more aggressive and punitive. Identity and grievance politics are concerned foremost with the welfare of one’s respective group, with indifference towards the others. In domination politics, the purpose is imposition of one group’s will upon others. In domination politics the common good and popular will are disregarded in the pursuit of personalist or ideological projects.
Today Donald Trump seeks to establish dominance over progressives, but in elections past progressives sought dominance over conservatives, albeit usually in more subtle and implicit ways. Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign was anchored on the belief that progressive, cosmopolitan values and a credentialized global economy were not only destined to defeat the archaic worldview of conservatives, but that they deserved to. Her anticipated victory over Trump would, to her supporters, mark the triumph of modernity over the ways of old, with those left behind having only themselves to blame for their situation. When Joe Biden challenged Donald Trump four years later, he, to his credit, made an earnest attempt to move beyond the politics of domination. He believed that reindustrialization and a slow walkback of credentialism alone were sufficient to bring unity, but he erred in assuming that the beneficiaries of such policies would tolerate domination of American culture by progressives. This was foolish. A manufacturer working at a newly opened factory in Pennsylvania will struggle to feel that he has a place in his country so long as jokes and comments about “mediocre white men” are not only tolerated, but commonplace. A carmaker in Georgia whose adult children have postponed marriage and childrearing in favor of endless brunches, nights out, and vacations will not look favorably on the culture that celebrates such decadence as progress. A Hispanic woman in Arizona, who is both a blue collar worker and a devout Catholic, will scoff at white progressives who value diversity, equity but have little appetite for accommodating the traditional values central to Latin culture.
The result of at least a decade of domination politics is a spiraling conflict between a Democratic Party at loggerheads with the values of much of the country, particularly the economically downtrodden who it claims to be the historic champions of, and a Republican Party in open conflict with civil society and longtime allies abroad, something that would make Ronald Reagan and the conservatives who presided over the victory of the West in the Cold War red with fury. It is past time for America to exit this death spiral by abandoning the politics of domination and reacquainting itself with the common good and the popular will. This will be accomplished not by hollow appeals to moderation, but an eagerness for our parties to transform themselves. This is a race that will be won by either a Democratic Party that rejects elitism, cosmopolitanism and maximal secularism in favor of tradition and a healthy form of pluralism, or a Republican Party that reconciles with the professional class at home (including business, academia, and the nonprofit sector, among others) and American allies abroad, be they European, Asian, or otherwise.
We live in interesting times, and may America face them with full confidence in itself.