Trumpism in Historical Perspective (1/2)

Background

After Trump supporters’ insurrection on 2021–01–06 to disturb presidential election certification, more are aware of the impact of Trumpism. Before that(and even now), many Americans believe who POTUS is has little to do with their lives, at least, it’s not something they need to closely watch. Since most of them are born after 1945, such is true in their lifetimes.

Sadly, they failed to realize one principle: there are events that

1) have never happened in our lives, but

2) will very likely happen in near future and

3) have happened countless times in human history with easily recognizable patterns, they will potentially

4) fundamentally change our lives

The rise of Trumpism, or in a more general term, political extremism with populist ideology is one such event. This post is the result of my study on Trumpism by comparing it with other typical populisms in history. I tried to discover patterns of such events, specifically:

• The driving power of the rise of Trumpism
• The classic archetypal populism and conspiracy theory
• The possible ways Trumpism could transpire
• How to fight Trumpism
• The strength and flaws of Donald Trump’s strategy

Chances are, if you came across this blog post, it will be in your benefit to study these topics carefully. Though you don’t have to agree with my conclusions.

Wealth gap has always been the driving power of revolution

After an extended period of peace and prosperity(usually 50 to 100 years), the wealth gap inevitably widens. Thomas Piketty in Capital in the Twenty-First Century discovered that when wealth growth(g) is significantly less than capital return(r) for an extended time, the wealth gap will grow non-stoply.

His conclusion can be understood more easily with an analogy. The economy is like a poker room. In a typical poker room, if one plays badly, he will keep on losing money until it’s unbearable and he has to quit voluntarily or involuntarily. But in real life, most losers won’t quit in the wealth gathering game. Moreover, their offspring will very likely inherit their disadvantage and continue to lose. After several generations, the rich and the poor end up with mind boggling wealth gaps.

In 2020, the top 1% US citizens altogether own 21% of total wealth, while the bottom 50% altogether own 2%! Here is the data.

Being familiar with China’s 2000 years of history where the prosperity cycles repeated dozens of times, it’s very easy for me to verify that when there’s the huge wealth gap where the majority of the population belongs to the have-nots class, brutal wars and revolutions will be used to close the gap. Every single time.

The already big and still widening wealth gap is the power source of Donald Trump and Trumpist. As it has powered extremist ideology for thousands of years in human history.

As a side note, the last time when the wealth gap was so staggering in the US was the 30s. President Roosevelt, seen by many as a relatively moderate left populist, was able to suppress the social crisis by various extreme means in today’s standard. But the US didn’t truly close the wealth gap until WWII, when the world bought huge volumes of US weapons for years. Those weapons are bought with gold that essentially increased the wealth growth in the US to be greater than capital return. Other factors also destroyed existing wealth, like the default or devaluation of bonds issued by foreign countries.

WWII not only pulled the US from the brisk of revolution, it almost cleaned the slates. That’s why baby boomers believe they have equal opportunities to live their American dreams. Sadly, after 75 years of prosperity, the wealth gap is the same level as 1930. It is feeding populism today.

GOP still loyal to Trump

While Trump was impeached in the House on 2021–01–13, only 10 Republican representatives voted yes. Since the riot, many statements have been made by two sides within the GOP. It’s clear that Trump loyalists fear or desire the votes from grass-root Trumpists. Trump loyalists, or the GOP by and large, found themselves in an awkward position.

(a) If they continue to support Trump, they will face strong backlash from the mainstream and more seriously, losing their moderate constituents.

(b) If they distance or even purge Trump from the party, they will lose a large chunk of their core constituents.

(b) is the inevitable choice in the long run, but far more painful in the short term. So it’s human nature that most GOP choose (a) instead.

Trumpism as classic populism

In his presidential term, Donald Trump did many things never done by any precedent presidents. However, he is a classic(almost textbook) populism leader. Rising at a time of huge wealth gap, archetypal populism leaders usually share the following traits.

Other extremists or populists in history have their own version of the above traits.

Most notably, they all promote a theory where some minority group is blamed for the sufferings of the majority have-not class and everything wrong in the society. Such theory will make the extremist leader very popular thus win him strong support among the poor majority because the have-nots class badly need an explanation of their suffering which:

• is very easy to understand
• don’t imply their own faults
• appeal some strong hatred emotion against injustice, treason, cheating, etc
• has clearly defined confrontational fix(sanctions, deportation, wars etc)

Such need can’t be met by any truth or scientific theory because the real cause of their suffering is very complex, can’t be fixed easily and can’t be attributed to a single group of people. So all such theories used by populist leaders are by and large conspiracy theories. It takes decent education and strong critical thinking skill to realize that believing in conspiracy theory is effectively granting unconditional trust and power to a single party and inviting manipulation. As a principle, I dismiss any theory that’s unfalsifiable, reject any investment that’s un-hedgeable and avoid any solution that’s not fault-tolerant, as much as possible.

The most famous populism policy was the demonization of Jewish people by Nazi Germany. In the 14th century, the Hongwu Emperor during his rebellion against the Yuan Dynasty, blamed the governing Mongolia elite as the cause of all sufferings of Chinese and depicted his war as Chinese V.S. foreign evaders. Nearly 200 years later, Hong Xiuquan reused this theory to lead the Heavenly Kingdom revolution, he later changed his scapegoat class to educated elites.

As an exercise, I invite the readers to recite other extremists and how they build their conspiracy theories, what minority they choose to be their scapegoats. You can easily find such examples are countless.

In next post, I will discuss how Trumpism will transpire, how to fight against it and most interestingly in my mind, the strength and flaw in Donald Trump’s game strategy.