David Frum’s “How to Build an Autocracy” leaves out the first step in the recipe.
In “How to Build an Autocracy” (Atlantic, 3/17), George W. Bush speechwriter David (“Axis of Evil”) Frum begins his warning about Donald Trump’s authoritarian tendencies by imagining Trump’s second inauguration in 2021:
Fortunately for him, he did not need to campaign hard for reelection. His has been a popular presidency: Big tax cuts, big spending, and big deficits have worked their familiar expansive magic. Wages have grown strongly in the Trump years, especially for men without a college degree, even if rising inflation is beginning to bite into the gains. The president’s supporters credit his restrictive immigration policies and his TrumpWorks infrastructure program.
Personally, I’ll be surprised if there is strong wage growth over the next few years; putting economic policy in the hands of Goldman Sachs, and appointing a secretary of Labor who opposes minimum wage increases and objects to paying for overtime, do not bode well.
But Frum suggests Trump could raise wages for workers without hardly trying, implying that any halfway competent administration could do as well or better—if it wanted to. That wages have instead stagnated over a series of Republican and Democratic administrations makes Frum’s scenario an unconscious indictment of the political establishment that he belongs to.
How to build an autocracy? Frum leaves out the first step, which is to create an oligarchy that chooses to serve an economic elite rather than improving the lives of the majority—leaving the public ready to listen to a demagogue who promises to look out for them.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. You can find him on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
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One thing is clear to me – when the Clintonites prevented the system from working as intended, they cast their vote for Donald Trump. The wealthy 1% may not like Trump, but they absolutely prefer his policies to those of Sanders.
After all, all of these Trump policies – privatization of education, slashing of regulations, war making, deportations – all of these were Democratic policies over the last eight years. Only their were carried out with more sleight of hand instead of with the crude ugliness that the GOP/Trump conglomerate operate with.
It’s a shame, but this is exactly what has been brewing over the last eight years. The Democrats let so many very serious issues go in favor of authoritarianism and oligarchy: the NSA, the foreign wars, the falling rates of work force participation (billed as “lowing unemployment”). They presumably assumed all of these things were “safe” in their “responsible” hands. But they weren’t then, and they most certainly aren’t now with this insane cretin in charge of the country.
The last administration was probably the most important lost eight years this country will ever have experienced. And now the working people and middle class will again pay (as always) as the super-rich impose their preferred form of authoritarianism to any sort of social reform.
The only increase in jobs will be for low paying positions. In the recent announcement, jobs went up but wages went nowhere.
Everything Trump plans on doing is going to increase inflation. Closing the China door 15 years after it was time to fix the problem is the equivalent of shutting the barn door after the animals left. Unless US industry plans on making huge investments with questionable returns, all of the manufacturing equipment was junked or sold overseas long ago.
So is Trump economics going to hire a bunch of people at $9 per hour to compete with those at $2 an hour plus his tariff? How is that going to bring any good jobs back. One guarantee is that prices will go up, and given the state of the oligopolization of American business, not by a small amount.
Giving more failed trickle down tax cuts to the wealthy and big corporations who don’t need it does nothing for the economy except prop up an already inflated stock market with buybacks, CEO bonuses and dividends.
Add to that we now have a pathological liar with Narcissistic Personality Disorder as president, we can guarantee that what he says is usually a lie. No one knows what he is really going to do, except to project his negative actions on their supposed enemies and create constant chaos. Expect this type of childish silliness to continue his whole term. That’s what narcissists do.
Jim Naureckas point is important, but reading it, it seems like a bit of a laser focus on one aspect of the article.
Trump may not need to campaign for reelection, but it won’t be due to popularity, ti will be due to voter suppression. I am very confident that voter suppression is going to be a major area of GOP legislative activity in the next 4 years. See: http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/stolen_election.htm
I would say its too early to make such statement or predictions. We’ll just have to wait to see…
I think we’ve already SEEN…during the campaign and his brief time in office. Massively expanding military power and infrustructure projects–while slashing taxes for the rich and de-regulating Wall Street corporations is a very TOXIC cocktail. Did you enjoy the last recession? Trump’s will be much worse, so buckle up!