His sweeping victory will shake up everything
11月 07, 2024 06:13 上午
A STUNNING VICTORY has crowned Donald Trump the most consequential American president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. After defeating Kamala Harris—and not just narrowly, but by a wide margin—America’s 45th president will become its 47th. The fact that Mr Trump will be the first to win non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland in 1892 does not start to do justice to his achievement. He has defined a new political era, for America and the world.
In some ways the Trump era is very modern. It was made possible by technological changes and media fragmentation, at a time when distinguishing law from politics and politics from showbiz is hard. But it is also a return to an old idea of America. Before the fight against fascism convinced FDR that it was in his country’s interest to help bring order and prosperity to the world, the country was hostile towards immigration, scornful of trade and sceptical of foreign entanglements. In the 1920s and 1930s that led to dark times. It could do so again.
After Tuesday’s victory, the world lies at Mr Trump’s feet. He has won a mandate and, probably, the control over Washington he needs to exercise it. In what was supposed to be a knife-edge election, Mr Trump carried most of the battleground states. Thanks to big swings in states that were never in doubt, including Florida, New Jersey and New York, he also won the popular vote. As the polls predicted, he enjoyed a big surge in support from Latino men. But women, whom Ms Harris had expected to move to her, also swung towards Mr Trump. His victory will be made complete by Republicans retaking the Senate and, as seems likely, holding on to the House.
There will be time for recriminations among Democrats about what went wrong, but the early answer is: almost everything. Poll after poll said that under President Joe Biden the country was going in the wrong direction. Voters never forgave him for the burst of inflation that began in the summer of 2021. The Biden administration promoted a view of culture that is out of step with most Americans, especially on sex and gender, which featured in a lot of Trump campaign ads. Most damaging of all, voters throughout the country were infuriated by the Democrats’ failure to stop people crossing the southern border illegally. The party compounded its errors by covering up Mr Biden’s disqualifying frailty until it was undeniable. By then they had no time to find a political talent capable of beating Mr Trump.
Something deeper is afoot, too. In 2016 some people comforted themselves with the thought that Mr Trump’s presidency was an aberration. By choosing to overlook his attempts to stop the transfer of power to Mr Biden in 2020, voters have shown how wrong that conclusion was. Instead they have endorsed Mr Trump’s unbounded exploitation of partisanship as the basis of his politics, including the slander of his opponents as corrupt and treacherous. This has spread a cynicism and despair about the merits of government that may serve him, but will not serve America’s democracy. MAGA is a movement of iconoclasm against the kind of benign internationalists who occupied the White House for 70 years. This week a majority of voters embraced it with their eyes open.
If Mr Trump has wrecked the old order, what will take its place? Whereas the old America championed free trade, Mr Trump will accelerate the return to pre-war mercantilism. He is a believer in tariffs. Trade deficits, he claims, are proof that foreigners are taking his country for fools. On his watch America is likely to be spendthrift, as he and his party push through tax cuts, which will further widen the budget deficit. Mr Trump has promised massive deregulation. That may well bring benefits, but the next president loves power and craves sycophancy. There is a risk he will carve out special deals for his supporters, such as Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.
Our hope is that Mr Trump will avoid these pitfalls, and we acknowledge that in his first term he mostly did. Our fear is that during this presidency he will be at his most radical and unrestrained, especially if, as America’s oldest-ever president, his powers begin to fail him. Having learned from Trump 1, his team will set out to ensure that no one who is likely to restrain him will be appointed to the administration. Mr Trump will therefore be able to put his control of Congress and his popular mandate to maximum use.
In the decades after FDR, American foreign policy worked through alliances. By contrast, Mr Trump’s instincts are to treat allies as suckers to be shaken down. He likes to say he is so unpredictable that America’s adversaries will be too cowed to try anything. He may indeed be able to strike a deal with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine that does not end up with Russian tanks in Kyiv. He may also be able to exert pressure on Iran and deter China from using military power to dominate Asia. But if Mr Trump’s threats seem like bluster, his unpredictability is just as likely to encourage Chinese and Russian aggression.
What is clear is that uncertainty will impose costs on America’s allies, especially in Europe. If they fear they cannot depend on Mr Trump to support them when they are threatened, they will take steps to protect themselves. At the very least America’s allies will need to spend more on their own defence. If they cannot muster enough conventional weapons to deter the local aggressor, some of them may follow Britain and France and seek to acquire nuclear weapons.
The imitation game
Part of America’s global influence came through the power of example. In their own politics and in their international conduct, its leaders were mindful of the precedents they were setting. What was remarkable was not that they sometimes broke the rules, but how much they stuck by them. Under Mr Trump the converse will be true. His victory will inspire imitators elsewhere. In Brazil Jair Bolsonaro was elected two years after Mr Trump won in 2016. In France Marine Le Pen now seems a more likely president in 2027. The international movement of nationalist populists that seemed to be waning after 2020 will be revived. If Mr Trump uses the justice system against his opponents, as he has vowed, it will set a dangerous example.
It will take time for the full significance of Mr Trump’s victory to sink in. America remains the pre-eminent power. Despite the debasement of its politics, its economy is world-beating—at least for now. It dominates artificial intelligence. It is rich and its armed forces are second-to-none, even if the People’s Liberation Army is catching up.
However, without American enlightened self-interest as an organising principle, the world will belong to bullies. Countries will be more able to browbeat their neighbours, economically and militarily, without fear of consequences. Their victims, unable to turn to America for relief, will be more likely to compromise or capitulate. Global initiatives, from tackling climate change to arms control, have just got harder.
The old order in the new world
Mr Trump would no doubt retort that this is the world’s problem, not America’s. Under him, Americans can get on with their lives free from the weight of foreign responsibilities. And yet, two world wars and the ruinous collapse of trade in the 1930s say that America does not have that luxury. For a time—possibly for years—America may do fine. Eventually, the world will catch up with it.