Well, he is certainly pretty bad, but sometimes a knee-jerk reaction is unhelpful, and the opposition (lets call them the liberals, which is what MAGA supporters call them) can be just as unthinking. After all, at least two of them tried to assassinate him. And American is even more polarised than Europe.
You wouldn’t want Donald Trump as your boss. He can certainly be crass and vindictive, though at least some of his pronouncements are meant to be funny, and he talks in sweeping statements. As a friend, if you were rich and extrovert, you might find him good company at a party, but his friendships are entirely transactional. I suspect that his bromance with Elon Musk will last only until Trump’s support for fossil fuels threatens the profitability of Tesla cars.
The biggest concern has to be Trump’s back-pedalling on climate change mitigation. I’m not an expert on climate change; I don’t know if it will be as bad as the worst predictions, but the consensus of scientific opinion is that it is certainly going to be bad. Even if his economic policies make everyone in the USA better off for the next few years, and however many wars he stops, and however well he controls immigration, he is likely to be remembered as the President who made climate change worse.
But on the plus side, at the time of writing (mid-February 2025) he appears to have gone further than anyone in bringing about peace in Gaza, and has a good chance of doing so in Ukraine, however imperfectly. As he promised, he gets things done.
No sooner had he become president-elect than his team had managed to get a deal between Israel and Hamas. Given the timing, it seems too much of a co-incidence for it not to have been the Trump team that concluded the talks. Biden’s administration had taken too long and had been reluctant to upset their Jewish voters. Netanyahu needs the support of the hard-line Zionists to prop up his coalition. Trump doesn’t need Jewish support and doesn’t care about Netanyahu’s problems. Of course his solution to the rebuilding of Gaza is insensitive and possibly self-serving given his real-estate business, but he is right that Gaza is largely an uninhabitable heap of rubble, and there was always going to be a problem of where refugees were going to live. But the inhabitants should at least have the choice of returning to Gaza if they wish.
Regarding Ukraine, it seems at the moment that peace will be achieved by Trump talking to Putin over the head of Zelensky, and the Ukrainians will feel that the Russians have won. Any deal now will depend on deciding exactly how much territory Russia will keep. But the reality is that a deal with Russia that excludes Ukraine will be feasible but possibly morally abhorrent, but a deal with Ukraine that excludes Russia is never going to work because Russia is so much more powerful. That is the real world. Crimea was part of Russia until Stalin gave it to Ukraine in 1954, so Ukraine’s claim to it is tenuous. But of course Putin’s original intention was to invade the whole of Ukraine, including Kiev. The Ukrainians can be proud that they have spent three years and many lives keeping a much more powerful invader out of four-fifths of their country. Trump’s appeasement of Putin may be compared with Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler. But Chamberlain was motivated by preventing a repeat of WW1. Was that so bad? We know how WW2 ended; but us winning was never a foregone conclusion, and the prospects looked pretty bleak at the time. (If the USA had not joined in we would have had to make peace with Nazi Germany eventually; we won the Battle of Britain without the USA but we would have lost the Battle of the Atlantic without American support).
Back to Trump. I still consider myself to have an essentially liberal worldview (but not really a socialist one), but liberals have to understand why the pendulum seems to be swinging against them all over the world. Perhaps a little humility would not come amiss. Are we sure we are right? Consider the anguished liberal outrage expressed by George Monbiot in this video: REVEALED: Trump & Elon Musk's BRUTAL Secret
His basic points are fair enough to an extent: Trump’s administration requires the support of billionaires who are seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us, and the immigrants are being used as a distraction from the real problems. But Monbiot can’t resist liberal virtue-signalling. In the first few sentences, he brings up the “military-industrial machine”. Read the room George: we are too late for pacifism. WW3 may not be inevitable but it is certainly possible: but peace will not come from laying down our weapons and appealing to the better nature of dictators who don’t have a better nature, and who lie to you. Apparently even British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, hardly a right-wing militarist, has said to Chancellor Rachel Reeves that defence spending will need to increase from less than 2.5% to Cold War levels of 7% of GDP, certainly if a peace deal in Ukraine is of a nature that makes Putin and Xi Jin-Ping think that aggression pays. And then Monbiot brings up the “Israeli Genocide in Gaza”. I agree that the actions of Israel are atrocious and a massive over-reaction (as per normal: read Genesis 34 v 25, and 1 Samuel 15 v 3). But why do liberals criticize Israel and not Hamas? The massacre on 23rd October 2023 by Hamas also fits the definition of genocide: violence targeted at a people group with the intention of ousting them from a locality; the definition does not depend on the number of victims. Sympathy for the people of Gaza should not imply support for Hamas.
Liberals need to understand why populations are increasingly voting to the right rather than the left: in the USA, in much of Europe, in Latin America. The UK only veered left at the last election because the previous Conservative government was so useless; if Labour fail to deliver there is likely to be a Conservative/Reform coalition in power next time. Marx has been proved wrong in the assumption that working people will vote Left if they are tired of the status quo; for too long the German election of 1933 was seen as an aberration. Some of the lean to the Right may be explained by propaganda from Mainstream Media; but is this too complacent as an explanation? In the USA, people really are turning against abortion and gay marriage: and interestingly Trump is more ambivalent about this than many of his supporters; he is personally libertarian in a way that the Religious Right are not. Perhaps we liberals are wrong to assume that people will always put liberty above all else. In reality they put personal prosperity and material wealth above all else. Overall the proportion of really poor people in the world has greatly decreased (Ref Rausing, “Factfulness”), but it is capitalism not socialism that is responsible for this. Working conditions in a Bangladeshi sweat shop may be brutal, but the life of the ancestors of those workers who toiled in fields all day was just as brutal and less secure, and the workers come from rural areas to work in factories just as they did in Britain in the Industrial Revolution. Capitalism may be far from perfect but it is necessary: even the Chinese have found that. The neo-liberals were not totally wrong about trickle-down economics: it works to some degree, hence the improvement in living standards mentioned above, but of course the gap between rich and poor is greatly increased. But they were very wrong to assume that liberal capitalism would lead to political freedom and an increase in democracy in the countries concerned. In reality, some of the most capitalist countries are the most repressive: China, Vietnam, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Russia. Capitalism combined with state control has another name: Fascism. And to that degree, Trump is a symptom of his times; he could not have been politically successful at any other time, and America has the government that it wants and deserves.
Adrian Roberts
16th February 2025.
Comments
Hi Adrian - Thanks for an intricate and substantial response to the US political situation - which clearly you have been considering for sometime.
Let me first add my support to Paul's remarks concerning the oh-so-convenient assassination attempts on DJT during the US election, particularly the first one by TMC. Several things stand out to me, suggesting that we don't know the full picture about that one. The ridiculous ease of access that TMC apparently had to the rooftop, for example. He's also using his father's semi-automatic assault rifle, etc - not a sniper's weapon. Everyone assumes that he had intent - but again, it's very unclear - he didn't really dislike DJT particularly - so there is a problem with adequate motive. I'll just add that it all seemed a bit Hollywood - but maybe I've seen way too many thrillers.
I find myself agreeing with some of what Adrian is saying - but by no means all. There is no doubt that DJT is an embittered old man, who presumably trawled his right-wing advisers for red meat issues to please his base, ensure his reelection and bring sweet, sweet revenge to rain retribution on his enemies. DJT cares exclusively about himself and has no interest in the welfare of the American people, or the national interest of the United States. None.
I'm not going to do a line-by-line critique of Adrian's article - I'll just pick out some general points of agreement and disagreement.
On DJT's people getting the Israel and Hamas deal finished before the inauguration, do you have any evidence for that? I have to agree that, given DJT's carefully cultivated erratic reputation, I think that the impending reality of DJT coming into office had some considerable focusing effect - but because Biden was still (notionally) in power as the Lame Duck, DJT couldn't easily assume bragging rights. So I don't think DJT "completed the deal" but instead influenced its completion. If DJT had "completed the deal", don't you think we would have heard endlessly about how DJT had to finish what Biden couldn't?
On Ukraine, DJT is clearly acting as a Russian asset - a difficult and danngerous place for a US President to occupy. He is echoing the long held views of Putin quite openly: "Ukraine started the war". What provoked Putin to invade was Ukraine's intentions to apply for EU and NATO membership. But its clear that NATO is going away fairly soon anyway now. Its been a long time going, but even Obama's first Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates, warned in a speech that unless the European nations substantially increased defence spending, the time would come where future US administrations would not regard NATO as key to US security. Being of a realist turn of mind, I do agree that the US generally has a point - Europe needs to pay up for its own security. I fully expect that DJT will entirely abandon NATO as not being cost-effective for US security. In a sense, what JDV said at the Munich Security Conference has helped Europe to focus minds more acutely - and has therefore been helpful in the end.
I would add that at some point in the next few years, DJT or his successor will very likely deem the United Nations not fit for purpose and anti-American, leading to the US leaving the UN. This will no doubt be swiftly followed by an order to vacate that nice United Nations building in New York - which will no doubt be renamed to something MAGA-ish. Its all just business, you see.
On Monbiot's rage against the billionaires - I thoroughly agree with his rage. Monbiot's main point is about scapegoating of immigrants, the global nexus of techno-anarchy (the "Atlas Network" - shades of Ayn Rand there), and neoliberalism. Monbiot mentioned "Israel's genecide" (without mentioning Hamas's initial terrorist attack) exactly once right at the start of this video (around:0:45 - 0:49). The Israel-Hamas-Gaza situation wasn't the point he was talking about but at the same time I do agree that Monbiot really should have been more nuanced and recognised at least the complexity of the situation.
Finally, I do agree that the rise of the far-right is something that is going on organically across the board in Europe (and of course in the US, as we have seen). What has fuelled that is the perception of unfettered immigration - allowing people to come to the richest parts of the world (e.g. Europe, the US) to seemingly partake unfairly in what society offers. Or so it seems. The **perception** of immigrants having an easy time coming to Europe, preferentially getting jobs, preferentially getting housing, preferentially being kept safe and protected has been used by far-right populists to say "They are coming for everything you have". The real problem of course is that many people are politically desperate for action, and what confirms everyon's darkest fears wipped up by the far-right is the scenes of immigrants getting all things. The thought is: Why doesn't the state help me to get that stuff? Why do they get it and not me, eh?
The only real solution is for Europe (and the US) to ensure that others share in their wealth and to export its wealth abroad e.g. through generaous trade deals and effective aid to other countries with similar political models. In that way, people will see that there is an incentive to live where they already are and not head elsewhere. If the problem is economic migration and its effect, then the solution is also economic as well.
Adrian,
Many thanks for another helpful and interesting article. As always, a lot to respond to!
Very quickly, I would like to comment on one small detail which 'pressed a button' for me. I accept that liberals can be "just as unthinking", but you go on to say, "After all, at least two [liberals] tried to assassinate him", and I think that needs some qualification. Neither of the attempted assassins were typical liberals. Ryan Wesley Routh voted for Trump in 2016; and Thomas Matthew Crooks not only registered as a member of the Republican Party as soon as he reached voting age, but he remained registered as a Republican until he died.
Personally, my initial instinct on seeing the details of Crooks' death was to assume this was a 'false flag' operation designed to bolster Trump's appeal. Perhaps I'm just overly cynical, but I have not seen anything that would contradict my assumption. In any case, it is clear that he was in no sense a typical liberal.
Well, I assume they weren't typical liberals if they tried to assassinate someone! But obviously they had turned against Trump for some reason.
Both left-wing and right-wingers have come up with conspiracy theories about Crooks and Trump's ear. Maybe the secret service were complicit in some ways, but it is difficult to see how Crook could have been intending to provide a false flag; he must have known that it would be virtually a suicide mission. Then again, many Americans believe that their government was prepared to kill nearly 3000 of it's own citizens by blowing up the World Trade Centre, to provide an excuse to attack Iraq.