Hello Trump; goodbye rational politics

Martin Shipton

The return of Donald Trump to the White House should worry us even more than the first time he became president eight years ago.

It proves that his first election victory was no fluke, and that all the negativity he represents has more allure to American voters than what they were offered as an alternative.

Joe Biden’s final broadcast message as president contained a poignant truth: that an oligarchy of extremely wealthy men would be running the country for the benefit of themselves rather than the people as a whole.

But for all its truth, the message demonstrated a naivety about power relations in the United States and most of the rest of the world. The fact is that for all the mythology surrounding the American dream, where everyone has the opportunity to achieve and be successful, that is far from the truth.

The tent cities that constitute rudimentary accommodation for the unhelped homeless are the most visible sign of a profoundly unequal society, but the tough lives of those who work long hours for low pay and struggle to get by are the norm for many millions.

It is a mark of shame that the “progressive left” has been unable to come up with a deliverable programme that offers hope and engenders enthusiasm.

Manipulated

Instead, people who deserve so much more have been manipulated into believing that the likes of Trump and Musk have their interests at heart.

In the absence of strong leadership from politicians on the left who concentrate on combatting the economic exploitation that damns so many, people get diverted into believing wild conspiracy theories that have no rational basis.

The global nature of social media means that such mental cul-de-sacs are not confined to the United States. Only the other day a conspiracy theorist living in Wales argued online with the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru group that the pandemic did not exist.

Playing the ill-informed know-it-all with a woman whose father had died after contracting Covid in hospital, the conspiracy theorist insisted that there had been no increase in the overall number of deaths between 2019 and 2020, when the outbreak began, A statistician joined in, quoting official figures that showed total deaths in England and Wales in fact increased by 76,811 (14.6%) over that period, the biggest increase in 102 years. Needless to say, the conspiracy theorist went off at another tangent.

In the United States, the return to power of Trump will make it increasingly difficult for rational voices to be heard. He has no appetite to regulate the lies told via social media, and legislation is coming in that will make it easier to close down publications that offer a dissenting point of view from what is becoming the new mainstream.

With a compliant Congress, he has the leeway to throw his weight around in an unpredictable way, veering between US isolationism and a willingness to bully other countries (Greenland, Panama and Canada) when they stand in the way of where he perceives the American national interest to lie.

Trump’s threat to impose punitive tariffs on imports will, if implemented, lead to a trade war that would cause serious economic damage to the UK and many other countries, not excluding his own.

Brexit

His erratic behaviour is further proof of the folly of Brexit, exposing the absurdity of abandoning EU membership in the hope that a souped-up trading relationship with America would plug the gap.

The UK Labour government appears clueless about how to repair the damage caused by Brexit. Faced with another Trump administration that would only do a trade deal with the UK if it could force us to accept a lowering of environmental and food standards, it makes sense to strengthen our ties with the EU. But despite some unconvincing rhetoric, there’s a reluctance to do the right thing and rejoin the Single Market and Customs Union. Without doing so, any improvement in relations will be very much at the margins and of little economic benefit.

I found it quite dispiriting the other day when Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey suggested that the UK should return to the Customs Union but not the Single Market. Without being in the Single Market, people from the UK would not have the freedom to live and work without restriction in the EU, and vice versa. As the most pro-EU of the UK parties, it seemed to me that the Lib Dems were going into reverse.

Asked why the party was adopting this position, a spokesperson for the Welsh Liberal Democrats told me: “My understanding is that it is thought the UK could strike a more beneficial deal if it was bespoke between the UK and EU, in addition to having broader political support from the general population and political actors.”

I fear that such a position fails to display leadership of the calibre we need.

While Trump manifests a perverse kind of leadership that isn’t desirable, leadership is what it is. And it’s leadership that we’re lacking on this side of the Atlantic.

Rabbit-in-the-headlights

Keir Starmer knows that Brexit was disastrous for the British economy. He campaigned against it and, after the exit negotiations with the EU led to a bad deal, he wanted another referendum. But after Boris Johnson won the 2019 general election on a pledge to “get Brexit done”, Starmer changed his tune. More than five years later he’s become a rabbit-in-the-headlights prime minister over the issue, in effect handing a veto over progressing our relationship with the EU to the most reactionary section of the electorate.

Such willingness to surrender over a crucial issue that would provide a boost to the British economy while courting unpopularity over such matters as the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners and compensation for WASPI women demonstrates an uncanny ability to embrace political incompetence.

This lack of leadership by failing to be honest with people is losing Labour support at a time when the party in Wales is preparing for what it knows will be a difficult Senedd election.

Trump managed to regain the presidency by presenting himself as a populist insurgent. After running the National Assembly and now the Senedd for 27 years, it’s going to be a tough campaign for Labour in a political context where the odds are stacked against it.