Part Two: Populism under Trump and the Erosion of Democracy. This created the environment for the rise of the populism that threatens to unravel the fabric of American democracy. In 2016, enter the reality show star, business executive, and media savvy, Donald Trump, who had learned the “win no matter what the costs” principle from his father and while attending military school. He learned the populist playbook from his mentor, Roy Cohn, the counselor to the infamous, populist Senator Joe McCarthy of the “Red Scare” in the 1950s. Trump, with no government experience, played the populist card by tapping into the growing fears and insecurities of these white, evangelic Christian, middle and working classes primarily from southern and the rust-belt states. This group, while not as politically prominent as during the Reagan years, continues to have dramatic influence in a Republican Party that is increasingly “white” and has made few efforts to reach out to people of color. Trump’s nationalistic theme “Make America Great Again” reminded the members of this group of a golden age of a so-called “Christian nation,” that they believe is disappearing. He promised to appoint anti-abortion jurists to the federal courts. His promise to bring back high paying “factory” jobs via a “winnable tariff war” appealed to the working classes in the old rust belt. He promised to address all their fears and insecurities. He mobilized them; rode their votes to the presidency in 2016 (more than four of five self-described evangelicals voted for him and white while working class individuals made up 30 percent of his support); and played on their insecurities and fears throughout his presidency via social media with its algorithmic echo chambers, active disinformation campaigns, and conspiracy theories.
Populists are nationalists. Nationalism provides a convenient and identifiable target or “other” for his supporters. Trump’s nationalism blamed the Chinese, members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union, Canadians, Mexicans, Iranians, people from “shithole” countries in Africa, illegal and legal immigrants, Muslims, the UN, and “others” for the problems, fears, and insecurities of his mobilized supporters. His supporters came to believe his rhetoric and rally to his side when he implemented populist and nationalist policies such as immigration restrictions, tariffs, and withdrawal from international agreements. Blaming the “other” was not limited to those outside the country. Trump constantly blamed minorities; “unpatriotic” black football players; powerful, educated women; gender and sexual minorities; Democrats; Obama; the “deep state;” “disloyal” whistleblowers, civil servants, and inspector generals in the major executive agencies; scientists and intellectuals; news reporters; and the “fake news.” With the COVID 19 pandemic negatively affecting his mobilized supporters in 2020, Trump blamed the “other” such as the Chinese, Democratic Governors, Obama, scientists, and the World Health Organization. Black Lives Matter, ANTIFA, and thugs, the “polite” N-word, were to blame for the destruction of property in the wave of massive civil rights unrest across the country led by Black Lives Matter. The fact that less than seven percent of the marches led by BLM were characterized as violent was ignored. In sum, populists, like Trump, mobilize a politically powerful group, such as white, evangelic Christian, middle and working classes primarily from the south and the rust belt states and give them someone or something else to blame for their problems and insecurities despite other factual explanations. Populists are dividers. They can only govern by dividing the citizenry. This is both their strength and weakness.
Successful populists create their own reality against “others” for their mobilized supporters via conspiracy theories (President Trump frequently “tweeted” and publicly stated the conspiracy theories of Qanon, Alex Jones, and others), misinformation, disinformation, and lies, which counter and crowd out facts that serve to shine a negative light on their personae and policies. Perhaps this was Trump’s greatest accomplishment via social media and other enabling media outlets. Populism flourishes when a large percentage of the population no longer accepts facts and lacks even the most basic knowledge of American government and its policies. All surveys show how woefully uninformed most Americans are about basic government. In a recent survey nearly 75 percent of respondents could not name the three branches of government (Deborah Pearlstein). Constitutional civics classes in high schools are only required in one in five states. Crucial to a basic knowledge base, local newspapers are dying in America. This has enabled Trump to create and maintain his own reality show for his mobilized followers. The traditional media, rather than social media, is a check on presidential and/or populist power. Traditional media has fact checkers and editors that assess the veracity of the reporting and can speak “truth to power;” whereas social media has few, if any such filters or fact checkers. Trump waged a constant battle with the traditional media, such as national/global newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post; news magazines such as Time; ABC, CBS and NBC news networks; Public Broadcasting Service; National Public Radio; the British Broadcasting Corporation; and others. The fact that fewer and fewer Americans receive their news from these traditional sources assisted Trump in his ability to shape his reality show. Of the 24-hour networks, FOX is the most viewed and it was overtly supportive of Trump. It was consistently ranked lower than CNN and MSNBC in terms of providing factual material to its audience who were primarily Trump supporters. Trump, who spent much of his time watching FOX, mimicked the lies, misinformation, disinformation, clichés, and conspiracy theories offered by popular Fox host Sean Hannity. All of this served to aid and abet Trump’s reality show.
Like other populists, he has transformed the vehicle that put him into power, the Republican Party, into a hollow organization that became his enabler and cheerleader. Traditional Republican policies such as globalization, free trade, deficit reduction, limits on presidential power, congressional checks on the presidency, judicial restraint, and state’s rights were no longer promoted for fear of losing Trump’s mobilized supporters in the next election or being called out and humiliated by Trump in his social media reality show. These traditional policies might as well be hieroglyphics on an ancient Egyptian papyrus that only a handful of Republicans support today. Republican Senators, such as Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham,Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and others, who bitterly despised Trump in the primary election, became his enablers and cheerleaders. McConnell’s iron grip on the Senate blocked hundreds of proposals from the Democratic-controlled House and guaranteed complete control of judicial appointments. The Republican Party majority in the Senate refused to remove Trump from office after his impeachment by the House in 2020 despite clear evidence of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power. After his impeachment by the House in 2020/21 despite clear evidence that he incited the violent rioters who attempted to overthrow the US government on January 6, the Republican Senate refused to remove him from office again. Only 7 Senate Republicans voted to remove him from office during his second impeachment trial. Most Republicans in the House and Senate continue to support and give voice to his baseless and false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
The President dominates the federal government and policy making today (primary theme in any university-level introductory to US Government class). It is from this very powerful position that Trump, like all populists, attempted to destroy the remaining checks and balances on him. The constitutional power of congressional oversight of the executive branch is a case in point. During the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the impeachment proceedings, the President simply refused to comply with congressional subpoenas. Subpoenas are the only way to force the executive branch to provide information to the Congress. Congress took the President to court to force him to comply. A federal District of Columbia Circuit Court Panel ruled that the courts could not enforce congressional subpoenas that ask the executive branch for information. As it stands, this gives the President complete power to ignore Congressional subpoenas for any information. This is a very dangerous expansion of presidential power and it effectively ends Congress’ authority to exercise constitutional oversight such as investigating possible violations of law by the executive branch. A possible appeal of this decision to the US Supreme Court would come before three Trump appointees, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Conen Barrett, who look favorably upon expanding executive power and shrinking the capacity of the congress and the courts to serve as a check on presidential power. Partisanship in the Congress has also made oversight even more difficult and was on display during the first impeachment trial in the Senate. Senate Republicans completely ignored both the facts of the case against the President and the finding of the General Accounting Office that President Trump violated federal law by not informing Congress that he was delaying payments to Ukraine. Partisanship ended the threat of his removal from office via impeachment despite overwhelming evidence.
Another source of checks and balances is found in the executive branch itself. Career civil servants apply their expertise across all the bureaucracies of the executive branch. It is their independent expertise and career service that serve as a check on the power of the Presidency. Trump, who quickly became aware of the independent power of these civil servants, acted upon the populist principle that loyalty to him is more important than expertise. He constantly questioned the loyalty of these civil servants whom he believed were part of the “deep state” that he believed opposed him. Inspector generals, who provide government oversight within the executive branch, were routinely dismissed by Trump for the lack of loyalty. During a six week period starting in early April of 2020, the President fired five Inspector Generals. Those scientists and public health experts that reported facts concerning COVID 19 lost their jobs. Total loyalty to Trump, rather than expertise, was the primary requirement for an individual to receive an appointment to the top positions in the major executive agencies and departments. The President tangled with the Department of Justice for two years claiming it was disloyal until William Barr rewarded him with a subservient legal department that represented the President rather than the American people and the constitution. Evidence of political sanitizing of important reports by the Center for Disease Control and Homeland Security to make them more in alignment with the President’s views politicized these departments. The demonstrated policies and actions by Louis DeJoy to “slow down” mail delivery by the Postal Service during the 2020 presidential election illustrated its politicization under Trump. The same happened to the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education, and the Department of the Interior. It should be noted that the executive branch witnessed the resignations of hundreds of demoralized high-level civil servants who were unwilling to check their expertise at the door in favor of loyalty to the President. This represents a loss of institutional memory, which also serves to strengthen the president. The chilling effect of these actions against the federal bureaucracy is neutering its check on presidential power. The Merit Systems Protection Board was without a quorum in 2017 and in 2020 Trump signed an executive order which significantly weakened the civil service protection of due process for employees of the executive branch.
Populists destroy the traditional norms of civil-military relations and use the military to further their own individual political goals. The president’s visits to the troops abroad which should focus on building morale were nothing more than campaign rallies. The covering of the name of the missile destroyer John S. McCain was not only an insult to the crew, it politicized his first visit to the 7th fleet. Politicization was evident when Air Force personnel displayed Trump’s campaign slogan on their hats. Trump publicly berated and insulted senior military staff and the Joint Chiefs. He referred to those who serve in the military as “losers.” His dismissal of Lt. Col. Alex Vindman for carrying out his duty and testifying during the impeachment trial and the subsequent dismissal of Vindman’s brother from the National Security Council smacked of simple vindictiveness toward a decorated soldier. Military professionalization was undercut by his interference into the trial of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher for war crimes. He then overruled a Navy decision to expel Gallagher from the SEALS and fired Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer for opposing him. Without consulting the military at all, he halted military exercises with South Korea and changed US policy toward our Kurdish allies. The hesitancy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and senior military officials to push back on these actions illustrated the politicization and undermining of our military institutions.
Populists use all of their powers to affect election outcomes and Trump was no different in this respect. The Mueller Report and other agencies documented Russian efforts to affect the 2016 election in favor of Trump. It documented more than 140 contacts between the Trump election team and Russians, WikiLeaks, and Russian intermediaries prior to the 2016 election and the inauguration ceremony. Trump overtly attempted to delegitimize the 2020 presidential election by focusing on the myth of mail-in voting fraud, initiating frivolous law suits against swing-states for using mail-in voting, sowing the seeds of doubt in the postal service’s ability to handle the large number of mail-in ballots, and insisting that the election must be fraudulent simply because he lost. Ultimately his incessant fraudulent claims led to a violent attempt on January 6, 2021 by his supporters to prevent the Congress from certifying the 2020 election results.
With the Trump reality show holding the attention of his supporters and his media enablers, rather than “draining the swamp,” Trump simply “turned the foxes loose in the hen house” in order to reward and coopt economically powerful businesses and groups. All populists must be able to have the support and control of powerful business groups in society. Throughout his four years in office, Trump appointed individuals to Cabinet positions who had close ties to powerful economic groups. Some examples include the director of the Environmental Protection Agency is Andrew Wheeler, whose prior job was to lobby in favor of the coal industry. Alex Azar, who was a lobbyist and executive in the pharmaceutical industry, served as head of Health and Human Services. Mark Esper, a former defense contractor and lobbyist, served as the Secretary of Defense. Mark Mnuchin, who served as the Secretary of the Treasury, was a hedge fund manager, chief information officer of Goldman and Sachs, and CEO of OneWest Bank. Elaine Chau, shipping heir with ties to China and wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, was the Secretary of Transportation. Dan Brouillette, a former auto industry executive and lobbyist, served as the Secretary of Energy. David Bernhardt, a former lawyer representing mining, oil, and gas interests, served as the Secretary of the Interior. The regulations and policies of these agencies reflected the goals of the very industries they are supposed to regulate. There were many other examples but Robert Weiss, of the watchdog group Public Citizen, phrased it best by stating that this amounted to a “total handover of the levers of government to corporations, especially empowering corporate representatives to oversee the very companies they work for.” This allowed Trump to gain both the support of and the control over these extremely powerful groups in the American political economy.
With Congress lacking the ability and the unwillingness in the Senate to provide oversight and the Trump reality show receiving the focus of his supportive media, violations of presidential norms and procedures, conflicts of interest, and corruption in plain sight became standard operating procedures. His mobilized supporters, who live in the Trump reality show bubble, simply refused to acknowledge this. His use of the pardoning and clemency powers to his personal benefit was unparalleled in American history. The Department of Justice over-turned its previous legal rulings to Presidents Nixon, Carter, and Reagan, and declared that the President was exempt from nepotism laws. Trump, contrary to established norms, simply waived the inability of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to achieve the necessary security clearances for his official position. His daughter, Ivanka, who was also an official adviser, in a case of conflict of interest, received trademark protection for her business in China while visiting President Xi Jingping in an official capacity. In the two months prior to November 2018, her companies received 18 trademark protections from China. Trump’s company also received many trademark protections from the Chinese.
Trump refused to disclose his tax returns, which violates presidential norms. Rather than divest from his company, another norm, he maintained a financial interest in the Trump organization and this sets a dangerous precedent for future presidents. The problem is that Trump simply refused to provide the Congress with information to make an adequate investigation into possible conflicts of interest between his own private business interests and US government policies. Other problems have to do with his use of his own businesses to conduct government activities. A GAO Report shows that just four trips to Mar a Lago to play golf in February and March of 2017 cost the government/taxpayer 13.6 million dollars. He has logged more than 115 visits to his golf courses at Mar a Lago and Bedminster. Members of foreign governments routinely visited Trump properties in what most believe to be a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. Supportive lobby groups, businesses, and foreign governments such as Saudi Arabia “pay to play” by routinely using Trump properties to gain preferential access to him. It is the populist playbook of corruption in plain sight.
In sum, Trump’s populism eroded American democracy. He controlled his reality show via a social media that lacks constraints on the spread of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation and had the full support of Russia. He mobilized a group of insecure but politically powerful supporters through his nationalistic slogan “make America great again” and by blaming “others” for their insecurities. He controlled the Republican Party and had the support and control of economically powerful groups who had access to him. He attempted to eliminate the remaining checks and balances on the presidency. He politicized the military, the Department of Justice, the State Department, the Center for Disease Control, the Environmental Protection Agency, Homeland Security, the Postal Service, and other agencies. He attempted to manipulate election outcomes. He violated presidential norms and regularly had conflicts of interest as do many in leadership positions who were appointed by him. Corruption in plain sight was common. While it appeared that the only check on the growing populism of President Trump and the erosion of American democracy was the presidential election pf 2020, there was clear evidence of a backlash to him largely associated with the COVID 19 pandemic, the national economic collapse, and the massive civil rights movement against police violence and supporting an end to institutional racism.
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