Most progressives took Donald Trump lightly. They thought he was a joke. They didn’t believe that a man with his baggage could win the presidency.
They forgot the Ronald Reagan lesson. And Donald Trump could be the next Ronald Reagan. Do’n’t laugh, or think I have lost it. Remember, Donald Trump won the presidency. He is your president.
Before getting into the economic angle, remember one of Ronald Reagan's first stops during his campaign? It was to Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town associated with the 1964 murders of civil rights workers. Many thought his choice of location was evidence of racial bias. And what did he say?
"I still believe the answer to any problem lies with the people. I believe in states' rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level, and I believe we've distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment."
He went on to promise to "restore to states and local governments the power that properly belongs to them."[2] The use of the phrase was seen by some as a tacit appeal to Southern white voters and a continuation of Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, while others argued it merely reflected his libertarian economic beliefs.
In similar style (if not at a similar venue), Donald Trump started his campaign with racist notions. Both of these men understood that to win they needed to get to voters’ reptilian brains. Neither wanted Americans to think logically. Once they removed logical thinking, they could get a certain segment of voters to buy anything. Remember voodoo economics? Most Americans bought it. George Herbert Walker Bush acquiesced. I broke this down in my book Class Warfare: The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom, and it's sad to believe we may be reliving history.
Many believe Donald Trump will be a bad president both internationally and economically. It is likely an unfounded fear, especially given the people he is placing in his cabinet and inner circle. Donald Trump is a Republican president. For Republican politicians today, everything is fungible including facts, values, and reality.
Forget about deficits. That only matters when Democrats are in power. Forget about spending. It only matters when Democrats spend. Forget about the debt ceiling. It only applies if it is a Democratic president, borrowing to keep the country solvent. Republicans always knew that deficits do not matter using our traditional economic measures. Dick Cheney even had the gall to articulate it.
An economy is not divine—it is man-made. Forget about the omnipotence of the market. It was designed to maintain a gradation of power between the capitalists and everyone else. Our indoctrination ensures that we follow certain economic rules that always guarantee benefits for a select few. If this weren’t the case, we would have more balanced economies, based on economic concepts like Modern Monetary Theory, which I discussed with Daily Kos' Arliss Bunny.
So why could Donald Trump be the next Ronald Reagan? Since facts, reality, and values are fungible, he will do what is necessary to support most of his voting factions. And “The Donald” started it before even sitting in the White House. He is creating a false reality of keeping jobs in the United States, as he co-opted Ford and Carrier into fictionalizing a reality of “saving” jobs in the U.S., all for the news cameras to see. Low-information Americans won't soon forget that and will give him the chance to produce, even if it takes some time, going forward. After all, the news media portrayed these as Trump campaign promises fulfilled.
Trump's infrastructure plan will create a temporary reality of new jobs, but will create another wealth transfer engine from the masses to already-rich private investors. In the end, Americans get either toll roads or structures with no funding for maintenance. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP):
In sum, Mr. Trump’s infrastructure proposal is a short-term approach to a long-term problem. It would fail to fund many important infrastructure investments and would needlessly subsidize private investors for at least some projects that would have been undertaken even in the absence of this program. While expanded investments in infrastructure are clearly needed, this proposal is a deeply flawed approach to realizing that goal.
Trump's overturning of Dodd-Frank will likely cause a massive rise in the stock market. Just the possibility of it happening is visible in the stock exchange now, which has risen since Election Day. Unfortunately, the world economy will suffer the same fate of Clinton's Glass-Stegall repeal.
And then there are the massive proposed tax cuts without any real accompanying spending cuts. They cloak this in their conservative veneer, but it is Keynesian economics on steroids. Unfortunately, while it will stoke the economy temporarily for most, it is yet another transfer of wealth as the masses pay for the deficit spending occurring asa result of the tax starvation. Of course, the wealthy will lend us the money they did not pay in taxes—but at a premium. So we pay them twice: once with tax cuts, and then with interest on the loans they give us.
President Obama is giving Donald Trump a healthy economy, an economy that is underperforming because of Republican spite and intransigence. He gets a running start, unlike Ronald Reagan. But when he stokes an economy that is now on solid ground, he will look like a hero. It could last just long enough for him to get re-elected. It is the economy, stupid—unless it isn't. It is then up to progressives to smoke out the reality from the false veneer.
And it will not be an easy task, unless progressives unite with one voice. We cannot allow him to become the con man that Ronald Reagan was.