[D66] Trump in the White House: An Interview With Noam Chomsky

[J.N.]

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38360-trump-in-the-white-house-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky

Trump in the White House: An Interview With Noam Chomsky

     By C.j. Polychroniou, www.truth-out.org
     View Original
     November 14th, 2016



On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump managed to pull the biggest upset in 
US politics by tapping successfully into the anger of white voters and 
appealing to the lowest inclinations of people in a manner that would 
have probably impressed Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels himself.

But what exactly does Trump's victory mean, and what can one expect from 
this megalomaniac when he takes over the reins of power on January 20, 
2017? What is Trump's political ideology, if any, and is "Trumpism" a 
movement? Will US foreign policy be any different under a Trump 
administration?

Some years ago, public intellectual Noam Chomsky warned that the 
political climate in the US was ripe for the rise of an authoritarian 
figure. Now, he shares his thoughts on the aftermath of this election, 
the moribund state of the US political system and why Trump is a real 
threat to the world and the planet in general.

C.J. Polychroniou for Truthout: Noam, the unthinkable has happened: In 
contrast to all forecasts, Donald Trump scored a decisive victory over 
Hillary Clinton, and the man that Michael Moore described as a 
"wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full-time sociopath" 
will be the next president of the United States. In your view, what were 
the deciding factors that led American voters to produce the biggest 
upset in the history of US politics?

Noam Chomsky: Before turning to this question, I think it is important 
to spend a few moments pondering just what happened on November 8, a 
date that might turn out to be one of the most important in human 
history, depending on how we react.

No exaggeration.

The most important news of November 8 was barely noted, a fact of some 
significance in itself.

On November 8, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) delivered a 
report at the international conference on climate change in Morocco 
(COP22) which was called in order to carry forward the Paris agreement 
of COP21. The WMO reported that the past five years were the hottest on 
record. It reported rising sea levels, soon to increase as a result of 
the unexpectedly rapid melting of polar ice, most ominously the huge 
Antarctic glaciers. Already, Arctic sea ice over the past five years is 
28 percent below the average of the previous 29 years, not only raising 
sea levels, but also reducing the cooling effect of polar ice reflection 
of solar rays, thereby accelerating the grim effects of global warming. 
The WMO reported further that temperatures are approaching dangerously 
close to the goal established by COP21, along with other dire reports 
and forecasts.

Another event took place on November 8, which also may turn out to be of 
unusual historical significance for reasons that, once again, were 
barely noted.

On November 8, the most powerful country in world history, which will 
set its stamp on what comes next, had an election. The outcome placed 
total control of the government -- executive, Congress, the Supreme 
Court -- in the hands of the Republican Party, which has become the most 
dangerous organization in world history.

Apart from the last phrase, all of this is uncontroversial. The last 
phrase may seem outlandish, even outrageous. But is it? The facts 
suggest otherwise. The Party is dedicated to racing as rapidly as 
possible to destruction of organized human life. There is no historical 
precedent for such a stand.

Is this an exaggeration? Consider what we have just been witnessing.

During the Republican primaries, every candidate denied that what is 
happening is happening -- with the exception of the sensible moderates, 
like Jeb Bush, who said it's all uncertain, but we don't have to do 
anything because we're producing more natural gas, thanks to fracking. 
Or John Kasich, who agreed that global warming is taking place, but 
added that "we are going to burn [coal] in Ohio and we are not going to 
apologize for it."

The winning candidate, now the president-elect, calls for rapid increase 
in use of fossil fuels, including coal; dismantling of regulations; 
rejection of help to developing countries that are seeking to move to 
sustainable energy; and in general, racing to the cliff as fast as possible.

Trump has already taken steps to dismantle the Environmental Protection 
Agency (EPA) by placing in charge of the EPA transition a notorious (and 
proud) climate change denier, Myron Ebell. Trump's top adviser on 
energy, billionaire oil executive Harold Hamm, announced his 
expectations, which were predictable: dismantling regulations, tax cuts 
for the industry (and the wealthy and corporate sector generally), more 
fossil fuel production, lifting Obama's temporary block on the Dakota 
Access pipeline. The market reacted quickly. Shares in energy 
corporations boomed, including the world's largest coal miner, Peabody 
Energy, which had filed for bankruptcy, but after Trump's victory, 
registered a 50 percent gain.

The effects of Republican denialism had already been felt. There had 
been hopes that the COP21 Paris agreement would lead to a verifiable 
treaty, but any such thoughts were abandoned because the Republican 
Congress would not accept any binding commitments, so what emerged was a 
voluntary agreement, evidently much weaker.

Effects may soon become even more vividly apparent than they already 
are. In Bangladesh alone, tens of millions are expected to have to flee 
from low-lying plains in coming years because of sea level rise and more 
severe weather, creating a migrant crisis that will make today's pale in 
significance. With considerable justice, Bangladesh's leading climate 
scientist says that "These migrants should have the right to move to the 
countries from which all these greenhouse gases are coming. Millions 
should be able to go to the United States." And to the other rich 
countries that have grown wealthy while bringing about a new geological 
era, the Anthropocene, marked by radical human transformation of the 
environment. These catastrophic consequences can only increase, not just 
in Bangladesh, but in all of South Asia as temperatures, already 
intolerable for the poor, inexorably rise and the Himalayan glaciers 
melt, threatening the entire water supply. Already in India, some 300 
million people are reported to lack adequate drinking water. And the 
effects will reach far beyond.

It is hard to find words to capture the fact that humans are facing the 
most important question in their history -- whether organized human life 
will survive in anything like the form we know -- and are answering it 
by accelerating the race to disaster.

Similar observations hold for the other huge issue concerning human 
survival: the threat of nuclear destruction, which has been looming over 
our heads for 70 years and is now increasing.

It is no less difficult to find words to capture the utterly astonishing 
fact that in all of the massive coverage of the electoral extravaganza, 
none of this receives more than passing mention. At least I am at a loss 
to find appropriate words.

Turning finally to the question raised, to be precise, it appears that 
Clinton received a slight majority of the vote. The apparent decisive 
victory has to do with curious features of American politics: among 
other factors, the Electoral College residue of the founding of the 
country as an alliance of separate states; the winner-take-all system in 
each state; the arrangement of congressional districts (sometimes by 
gerrymandering) to provide greater weight to rural votes (in past 
elections, and probably this one too, Democrats have had a comfortable 
margin of victory in the popular vote for the House, but hold a minority 
of seats); the very high rate of abstention (usually close to half in 
presidential elections, this one included). Of some significance for the 
future is the fact that in the age 18-25 range, Clinton won handily, and 
Sanders had an even higher level of support. How much this matters 
depends on what kind of future humanity will face.

According to current information, Trump broke all records in the support 
he received from white voters, working class and lower middle class, 
particularly in the $50,000 to $90,000 income range, rural and suburban, 
primarily those without college education. These groups share the anger 
throughout the West at the centrist establishment, revealed as well in 
the unanticipated Brexit vote and the collapse of centrist parties in 
continental Europe. [Many of] the angry and disaffected are victims of 
the neoliberal policies of the past generation, the policies described 
in congressional testimony by Fed chair Alan Greenspan -- "St. Alan," as 
he was called reverentially by the economics profession and other 
admirers until the miraculous economy he was supervising crashed in 
2007-2008, threatening to bring the whole world economy down with it. As 
Greenspan explained during his glory days, his successes in economic 
management were based substantially on "growing worker insecurity." 
Intimidated working people would not ask for higher wages, benefits and 
security, but would be satisfied with the stagnating wages and reduced 
benefits that signal a healthy economy by neoliberal standards.

Working people, who have been the subjects of these experiments in 
economic theory, are not particularly happy about the outcome. They are 
not, for example, overjoyed at the fact that in 2007, at the peak of the 
neoliberal miracle, real wages for nonsupervisory workers were lower 
than they had been years earlier, or that real wages for male workers 
are about at 1960s levels while spectacular gains have gone to the 
pockets of a very few at the top, disproportionately a fraction of 1%. 
Not the result of market forces, achievement or merit, but rather of 
definite policy decisions, matters reviewed carefully by economist Dean 
Baker in recently published work.

The fate of the minimum wage illustrates what has been happening. 
Through the periods of high and egalitarian growth in the '50s and '60s, 
the minimum wage -- which sets a floor for other wages -- tracked 
productivity. That ended with the onset of neoliberal doctrine. Since 
then, the minimum wage has stagnated (in real value). Had it continued 
as before, it would probably be close to $20 per hour. Today, it is 
considered a political revolution to raise it to $15.

With all the talk of near-full employment today, labor force 
participation remains below the earlier norm. And for working people, 
there is a great difference between a steady job in manufacturing with 
union wages and benefits, as in earlier years, and a temporary job with 
little security in some service profession. Apart from wages, benefits 
and security, there is a loss of dignity, of hope for the future, of a 
sense that this is a world in which I belong and play a worthwhile role.

The impact is captured well in Arlie Hochschild's sensitive and 
illuminating portrayal of a Trump stronghold in Louisiana, where she 
lived and worked for many years. She uses the image of a line in which 
residents are standing, expecting to move forward steadily as they work 
hard and keep to all the conventional values. But their position in the 
line has stalled. Ahead of them, they see people leaping forward, but 
that does not cause much distress, because it is "the American way" for 
(alleged) merit to be rewarded. What does cause real distress is what is 
happening behind them. They believe that "undeserving people" who do not 
"follow the rules" are being moved in front of them by federal 
government programs they erroneously see as designed to benefit 
African-Americans, immigrants and others they often regard with 
contempt. All of this is exacerbated by [Ronald] Reagan's racist 
fabrications about "welfare queens" (by implication Black) stealing 
white people's hard-earned money and other fantasies.

Sometimes failure to explain, itself a form of contempt, plays a role in 
fostering hatred of government. I once met a house painter in Boston who 
had turned bitterly against the "evil" government after a Washington 
bureaucrat who knew nothing about painting organized a meeting of 
painting contractors to inform them that they could no longer use lead 
paint -- "the only kind that works" -- as they all knew, but the suit 
didn't understand. That destroyed his small business, compelling him to 
paint houses on his own with substandard stuff forced on him by 
government elites.

Sometimes there are also some real reasons for these attitudes toward 
government bureaucracies. Hochschild describes a man whose family and 
friends are suffering bitterly from the lethal effects of chemical 
pollution but who despises the government and the "liberal elites," 
because for him, the EPA means some ignorant guy who tells him he can't 
fish, but does nothing about the chemical plants.

These are just samples of the real lives of Trump supporters, who are 
led to believe that Trump will do something to remedy their plight, 
though the merest look at his fiscal and other proposals demonstrates 
the opposite -- posing a task for activists who hope to fend off the 
worst and to advance desperately needed changes.

Exit polls reveal that the passionate support for Trump was inspired 
primarily by the belief that he represented change, while Clinton was 
perceived as the candidate who would perpetuate their distress. The 
"change" that Trump is likely to bring will be harmful or worse, but it 
is understandable that the consequences are not clear to isolated people 
in an atomized society lacking the kinds of associations (like unions) 
that can educate and organize. That is a crucial difference between 
today's despair and the generally hopeful attitudes of many working 
people under much greater economic duress during the Great Depression of 
the 1930s.

There are other factors in Trump's success. Comparative studies show 
that doctrines of white supremacy have had an even more powerful grip on 
American culture than in South Africa, and it's no secret that the white 
population is declining. In a decade or two, whites are projected to be 
a minority of the work force, and not too much later, a minority of the 
population. The traditional conservative culture is also perceived as 
under attack by the successes of identity politics, regarded as the 
province of elites who have only contempt for the ''hard-working, 
patriotic, church-going [white] Americans with real family values'' who 
see their familiar country as disappearing before their eyes.

One of the difficulties in raising public concern over the very severe 
threats of global warming is that 40 percent of the US population does 
not see why it is a problem, since Christ is returning in a few decades. 
About the same percentage believe that the world was created a few 
thousand years ago. If science conflicts with the Bible, so much the 
worse for science. It would be hard to find an analogue in other societies.

The Democratic Party abandoned any real concern for working people by 
the 1970s, and they have therefore been drawn to the ranks of their 
bitter class enemies, who at least pretend to speak their language -- 
Reagan's folksy style of making little jokes while eating jelly beans, 
George W. Bush's carefully cultivated image of a regular guy you could 
meet in a bar who loved to cut brush on the ranch in 100-degree heat and 
his probably faked mispronunciations (it's unlikely that he talked like 
that at Yale), and now Trump, who gives voice to people with legitimate 
grievances -- people who have lost not just jobs, but also a sense of 
personal self-worth -- and who rails against the government that they 
perceive as having undermined their lives (not without reason).

One of the great achievements of the doctrinal system has been to divert 
anger from the corporate sector to the government that implements the 
programs that the corporate sector designs, such as the highly 
protectionist corporate/investor rights agreements that are uniformly 
mis-described as "free trade agreements" in the media and commentary. 
With all its flaws, the government is, to some extent, under popular 
influence and control, unlike the corporate sector. It is highly 
advantageous for the business world to foster hatred for pointy-headed 
government bureaucrats and to drive out of people's minds the subversive 
idea that the government might become an instrument of popular will, a 
government of, by and for the people.

Is Trump representing a new movement in American politics, or was the 
outcome of this election primarily a rejection of Hillary Clinton by 
voters who hate the Clintons and are fed-up with "politics as usual?"

It's by no means new. Both political parties have moved to the right 
during the neoliberal period. Today's New Democrats are pretty much what 
used to be called "moderate Republicans." The "political revolution" 
that Bernie Sanders called for, rightly, would not have greatly 
surprised Dwight Eisenhower. The Republicans have moved so far toward a 
dedication to the wealthy and the corporate sector that they cannot hope 
to get votes on their actual programs, and have turned to mobilizing 
sectors of the population that have always been there, but not as an 
organized coalitional political force: evangelicals, nativists, racists 
and the victims of the forms of globalization designed to set working 
people around the world in competition with one another while protecting 
the privileged and undermining the legal and other measures that 
provided working people with some protection, and with ways to influence 
decision-making in the closely linked public and private sectors, 
notably with effective labor unions.

The consequences have been evident in recent Republican primaries. Every 
candidate that has emerged from the base -- such as [Michele] Bachmann, 
[Herman] Cain or [Rick] Santorum -- has been so extreme that the 
Republican establishment had to use its ample resources to beat them 
down. The difference in 2016 is that the establishment failed, much to 
its chagrin, as we have seen.

Deservedly or not, Clinton represented the policies that were feared and 
hated, while Trump was seen as the symbol of "change" -- change of what 
kind requires a careful look at his actual proposals, something largely 
missing in what reached the public. The campaign itself was remarkable 
in its avoidance of issues, and media commentary generally complied, 
keeping to the concept that true "objectivity" means reporting 
accurately what is "within the beltway," but not venturing beyond.

Trump said following the outcome of the election that he "will represent 
all Americans." How is he going to do that when the nation is so divided 
and he has already expressed deep hatred for many groups in the United 
States, including women and minorities? Do you see any resemblance 
between Brexit and Donald Trump's victory?

There are definite similarities to Brexit, and also to the rise of the 
ultranationalist far-right parties in Europe -- whose leaders were quick 
to congratulate Trump on his victory, perceiving him as one of their 
own: [Nigel] Farage, [Marine] Le Pen, [Viktor] Orban and others like 
them. And these developments are quite frightening. A look at the polls 
in Austria and Germany -- Austria and Germany -- cannot fail to evoke 
unpleasant memories for those familiar with the 1930s, even more so for 
those who watched directly, as I did as a child. I can still recall 
listening to Hitler's speeches, not understanding the words, though the 
tone and audience reaction were chilling enough. The first article that 
I remember writing was in February 1939, after the fall of Barcelona, on 
the seemingly inexorable spread of the fascist plague. And by strange 
coincidence, it was from Barcelona that my wife and I watched the 
results of the 2016 US presidential election unfold.

As to how Trump will handle what he has brought forth -- not created, 
but brought forth -- we cannot say. Perhaps his most striking 
characteristic is unpredictability. A lot will depend on the reactions 
of those appalled by his performance and the visions he has projected, 
such as they are.

Trump has no identifiable political ideology guiding his stance on 
economic, social and political issues, yet there are clear authoritarian 
tendencies in his behavior. Therefore, do you find any validity behind 
the claims that Trump may represent the emergence of "fascism with a 
friendly face?" in the United States?

For many years, I have been writing and speaking about the danger of the 
rise of an honest and charismatic ideologue in the United States, 
someone who could exploit the fear and anger that has long been boiling 
in much of the society, and who could direct it away from the actual 
agents of malaise to vulnerable targets. That could indeed lead to what 
sociologist Bertram Gross called "friendly fascism" in a perceptive 
study 35 years ago. But that requires an honest ideologue, a Hitler 
type, not someone whose only detectable ideology is Me. The dangers, 
however, have been real for many years, perhaps even more so in the 
light of the forces that Trump has unleashed.

With the Republicans in the White House, but also controlling both 
houses and the future shape of the Supreme Court, what will the US look 
like for at least the next four years?

A good deal depends on his appointments and circle of advisers. Early 
indications are unattractive, to put it mildly.

The Supreme Court will be in the hands of reactionaries for many years, 
with predictable consequences. If Trump follows through on his Paul 
Ryan-style fiscal programs, there will be huge benefits for the very 
rich -- estimated by the Tax Policy Center as a tax cut of over 14 
percent for the top 0.1 percent and a substantial cut more generally at 
the upper end of the income scale, but with virtually no tax relief for 
others, who will also face major new burdens. The respected economics 
correspondent of the Financial Times, Martin Wolf, writes that, "The tax 
proposals would shower huge benefits on already rich Americans such as 
Mr Trump," while leaving others in the lurch, including, of course, his 
constituency. The immediate reaction of the business world reveals that 
Big Pharma, Wall Street, the military industry, energy industries and 
other such wonderful institutions expect a very bright future.

One positive development might be the infrastructure program that Trump 
has promised while (along with much reporting and commentary) concealing 
the fact that it is essentially the Obama stimulus program that would 
have been of great benefit to the economy and to the society generally, 
but was killed by the Republican Congress on the pretext that it would 
explode the deficit. While that charge was spurious at the time, given 
the very low interest rates, it holds in spades for Trump's program, now 
accompanied by radical tax cuts for the rich and corporate sector and 
increased Pentagon spending.

There is, however, an escape, provided by Dick Cheney when he explained 
to Bush's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that "Reagan proved that 
deficits don't matter" -- meaning deficits that we Republicans create in 
order to gain popular support, leaving it to someone else, preferably 
Democrats, to somehow clean up the mess. The technique might work, for a 
while at least.

There are also many questions about foreign policy consequences, mostly 
unanswered.

There is mutual admiration between Trump and Putin. How likely is it 
therefore that we may see a new era in US-Russia relations?

One hopeful prospect is that there might be reduction of the very 
dangerous and mounting tensions at the Russian border: note "the Russian 
border," not the Mexican border. Thereby lies a tale that we cannot go 
into here. It is also possible that Europe might distance itself from 
Trump's America, as already suggested by [German] Chancellor [Angela] 
Merkel and other European leaders -- and from the British voice of 
American power, after Brexit. That might possibly lead to European 
efforts to defuse the tensions, and perhaps even efforts to move towards 
something like Mikhail Gorbachev's vision of an integrated Eurasian 
security system without military alliances, rejected by the US in favor 
of NATO expansion, a vision revived recently by Putin, whether seriously 
or not, we do not know, since the gesture was dismissed.

Is US foreign policy under a Trump administration likely to be more or 
less militaristic than what we have seen under the Obama administration, 
or even the George W. Bush administration?

I don't think one can answer with any confidence. Trump is too 
unpredictable. There are too many open questions. What we can say is 
that popular mobilization and activism, properly organized and 
conducted, can make a large difference.

And we should bear in mind that the stakes are very large.