A Right-Wing, Populist Critique of President Trump
Critics of the President have a variety of arguments that seem to fall on deaf ears with most Republican voters. I’m going to try to explain why that is, then suggest some arguments that might have a chance of being more persuasive. I don’t want to make the liberal, or libertarian, or even non-partisan case against the President here. I want to give a critique from the precise political standpoint that he appeals to.
First, Some Failed Attacks
Example 1: Joe Walsh (one of the Republicans who is mounting a primary challenge to Trump in 2020) addressed a crowd in Iowa, at which Walsh promised to be “honest”, “decent”, and not “cruel”. He went on to criticize how the President “makes everything about himself”. The crowd of fellow Republicans booed Walsh. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtzkLR2Jv9k) Many other conservative figures have gone after Trump, with similar results.
Example 2: Jordan Klepper from The Daily Show talked to some Trump supporters in Iowa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cas2wXZz1PE. At one point, a woman says that one can tell that Trump has done nothing wrong, since he has been completely open and not trying to hide anything in the impeachment trial. Klepper points out that Trump actually blocked witnesses from testifying. The woman pauses, then announces, “I don’t care.” (3:05-3:35)
Hypothesis: The arguments against Trump have no effect on Trump-supporters, because they appeal to values that those supporters do not care about (or do not care enough about). Take the Ukraine story: Trumpists might start by denying that Trump tried to blackmail Ukraine. But there is no point in trying to present evidence that he did it, because their real position is not that he didn’t do it. The Trumpists’ real position is complete indifference to that issue.
Example 3: The repeated complaints that Trump said some racially insensitive thing or other. These obviously are not going to have any effect. Anyone who is supporting Trump does not care about that sort of thing.
What Does the Alt-Right Care About?
General rule: If you want to persuade someone, it is necessary to (i) understand what that person cares about, and (ii) appeal to those values in making your argument. These are not sufficient for persuasion, of course, and I don’t know whether any persuasion is possible in the present case. But if it could be done, that's how it would be done. So, here is what I think the alt-right/populist base wants:
They want America to be respected.
They want the nation to be strong and to be defended from foreign enemies.
They want to preserve American jobs.
They want the Republican party to beat the Democrats.
They want there to be less immigration.
Because many are evangelical Christians: they want Christianity to spread in this society. They want abortion to stop, and they want more traditional, conservative moral values.
Notice that I am not trying to pillory the alt-right; I am trying to best understand the concerns and values that they themselves would appeal to. My argument against President Trump is not to reject those values. My argument is that President Trump will not give us those things. He is promoting and will continue to promote the opposite of most of those things.
The Alt-Right Case Against Trump
1. Respect
Trump does not encourage respect for our country. Respect for America is eroding due to its current leader. Other world leaders literally laugh at our leader (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-3FyvZTIuU, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hne29xkUPbg). Regardless of how Republican voters in America perceive him, Mr. Trump is not regarded around the world as an intelligent, knowledgeable, or competent person. This is for a variety of reasons, including his lack of the sort of political knowledge that most leaders have; his frequent language and factual errors; his failure to take his duties seriously; and so on.
2. Strength
President Trump does not make America strong. He weakens America, in several ways.
a. He weakens our relationships with allies. For example, in the Middle East, one of the very few groups that strongly supported America was the Kurds. But back in October, Trump betrayed them by letting Turkey attack them, probably because Turkish strongman Erdogan called up Trump and talked him into it (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/turkey-syria-the-kurds-and-trumps-abandonment-of-foreign-policy). Trump showed no concern about ISIS fighters being released as a result. In the Ukraine case, Trump tried to stop military aid to a U.S. ally that was under invasion by a U.S. adversary. He has showed no concern about Russian aggression. He even toyed with the idea of leaving NATO. Long-standing U.S. allies and potential allies are now on notice that they cannot count on America.
b. He admires enemies of the U.S., including communists and former communists such as Kim Jong-Un and Vladimir Putin. Russia is most definitely not our friend, and it is dangerous to have a leader who doesn’t understand that, or doesn’t care. There is ongoing speculation that Putin has kompromat on Trump, which is fed by Trump’s strange refusal to criticize Putin or to recognize any bad behavior by the Russian government. Even if false, this sort of speculation weakens respect for America. If true, it is extremely damaging to America.
c. Trump’s presence weakens America internally, by dividing America against itself. His modus operandi is about fueling tribalism and division. He spurs the most angry reactions, and rather than trying to defuse tensions or encourage compromise, he carries on public insult wars with citizens and other government officials and makes the most extreme and reckless accusations (calling the impeachment inquiry a “coup”, calling his predecessor “the founder of ISIS”, etc.). This is probably why Putin wanted Trump to win in 2016, as Putin’s goal is to weaken America, especially through sowing internal discord. Putin has acknowledged that he wanted Trump to win (though of course he did not admit that his motive was to weaken America) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O1piTvGt_A).
d. Trump’s leadership weakens the U.S. government specifically (but not in the good way, which would be by reducing its responsibilities and expenditures). One way it does so is by the very high turnover in the government – competent people are constantly quitting or getting fired, due to the extreme difficulty of working with Trump. Morale in the government must be low, especially among honest, non-corrupt people, and respect for our institutions is eroding, due to Trump’s tendency to attack any person or institution that does not just slavishly praise him, and to make any reckless accusation that suits him at the moment. His stances also can be expected to call forth the most extreme partisanship on the part of Democrats.
3. The Economy
Actually, employment statistics are doing surprisingly well. However, Trump’s trade war is estimated to cost average Americans about $1300 a year (https://www.salon.com/2020/02/07/trumps-trade-war-is-making-americans-average-incomes-decrease-government-report-says/). His trillion-dollar deficits are also something that our descendants for a long time are going to pay for, something that conservatives have traditionally worried about.
4. The future of the GOP
Trump is not helping the Republican party. He is weakening it, much as he weakens America. He has caused prominent, staunch allies to turn against the Republican party. George Will, one of the most articulate and influential voices for conservatism for the last fifty years, finally left the Republican party in 2016, due to Donald Trump. Trump and his voters are on their way to alienating every serious conservative intellectual. This is due not only to Trump’s anti-intellectualism, but also to his disregard of core conservative principles. He has no loyalty to the party, as he will freely attack any other Republican, and any Republican principle, whenever he feels like it (McCain, Romney, the Bushes, etc.). By the time Trump leaves office, the Republican party may be left with no serious intellectual voices, and no leaders with integrity or decency, since Trump and his base seek to destroy anyone who tries to stand on principle. In the long run, this is a powerful blow to the conservative movement, far outweighing a single election victory.
Though Trump energizes a large portion of Republicans, he also alienates moderates in a way that may do lasting damage to the GOP, beyond Trump’s own term. He creates an impression of what Republicans are about that is extremely unappealing to voters in the middle.
5. Immigration
Trump’s administration may have slowed the rate of immigration into the U.S., but not by much (https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/immigration/immigration-and-immigration-enforcement/immigrants/). He has not built the wall. Some old fencing has been updated, but approximately zero new miles of barrier have been added to the U.S.-Mexico border (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_wall). Mexico is not paying for it.
6. Christianity and morality
Mr. Trump is not Christian, nor is he helping Christianity in the long run. He is among the least pious public figures in America and is probably the first atheist President (though he will not publicly admit that). He shows no interest in such Christian virtues as humility, or charity, or chastity, or piety; he is if anything an enormous advertisement for the opposite of all those traits. His position as the nation’s leader helps to promote his combination of deeply profane attitudes, to make them seem socially acceptable and even to encourage admiration for them.
His current putative pro-life stance is probably just a stance of convenience, as he previously called himself “pro-choice in every respect”. Most likely, he does not care about the unborn, any more than he cares about conservatism or the Republican party. But, just as he is weakening the Republican party, he is probably weakening American Christianity, through dividing Christians and turning ordinary Christians against core values that their belief system has hitherto supported.
By the way, he also used to be a ‘liberal’ and a fan of Hilary Clinton, before he was running against her. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK1QzLW13hI, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7BsXluIq-0). He just decided to become a “Republican” so he could get power. Mr. Trump does not care about the things that sincere Republicans or Christians care about; he just says whatever he thinks is useful for manipulating other people, to get himself money and power. His business career was focused on tricking other people into giving him as much as possible of what he wants, while giving them as little as possible of what they want in return (often refusing to pay even what he agreed to pay). And that is exactly what he has done to the Republican party, and to the country.
When he dies, Mr. Trump will go to his grave laughing at all the people he scammed in his life, not least of all the American voters.