Trump’s campaign rhetoric did foretell his actions in office.

Editor’s Note: Supplement St. Louis is revisiting the rhetorical gambits, symbology and strategies of the last national election, one which impacts virtually all political warriors in its wide, turbulent wake. Dr. Brian Frederking, political science professor at McKendree University, 30 miles east of St. Louis, has routinely awed me with his grasp of worldwide issues. His research interests include the United Nations Security Council, international law and organization, and global governance. Most of the below analysis was written shortly after The Donald assumed power. Note the prescience.

By Dr. Brian Frederking

Presidential campaign slogans rarely offer insight or explain an election cycle. Many simply refer to the candidates: “I Like Ike” or “Honest Old Abe” or “Give ‘em Hell, Harry” (or my favorite: “Adlai and Estes – the Bestest”).  Others are feel-good sayings without any political substance: “Happy Days Are Here Again” (FDR) or “It’s Morning Again in America” (Reagan) or “Building a Bridge to the 21^st Century” (Clinton) or “Change We Can Believe In” (Obama). Some have actual political content: “No Cross of Gold” (Bryan) or “A Chicken in Every Pot” (Hoover). And some are straightforward political attacks: When Goldwater used “In Your Heart, You Know He’s Right,” Johnson countered with “In Your Guts, You Know He’s Nuts.”

The political slogans during this past presidential election cycle – “Make America Great Again” and “Stronger Together” – tell us quite a bit about the competing worldviews that lie beneath the unique political experience we have endured and continue to endure. On the surface, Trump’s slogan suggests an historical narrative of national decline. Why did no one ask him for a theory of history behind the slogan? When, exactly, did America stop being great? Because Trump never had to clarify, voters could answer it any way they wanted: When we elected a black guy… When we invaded Iraq… When median income stopped rising in the 1980s… When cultural norms shifted in the 1960s… When the welfare state began in the 1930s.

Trump’s slogan, though, evokes more than historical narrative. It asserts that the world is essentially hierarchical. Hierarchy implies separateness and inequality: Some of us are on top, but most are not. It implies a zero-sum competitive world of winners and losers. Presuming that everyone wants to be on top requires clear definitions of “us” and “them.” That way, we clearly know who wants to knock us off our perch. One political advantage to this approach is that it is open to a wide variety of threatening ‘others,’ and Trump provided a long litany: immigrants, Muslims, criminals, China, Mexico, refugees, etc. His more odious supporters were more than willing to expand the list to include racial minorities, Jews, feminists and homosexuals. It is lonely atop the hierarchy – everyone wants to knock you down.

Pull together or pull apart

The slogan Make America Great Again not only asserts the existence of hierarchy but celebrates it. Life is a competitive game, and we need tough leaders to win that game. One of Trump’s constant complaints was that “America never wins anymore.” “Winning” for Trump is to be on top of the hierarchy: to have the most money, power or status. Just as importantly, it requires those on the lower end of the hierarchy to recognize their status. Mexico will pay for the wall. China will agree to ‘fair trade.’ ISIS will be defeated easily. NATO allies will pay for more of their defense. And, apparently, only an assertion of dominance is necessary to “win.” This worldview would seem to apply to Russia, but this is clearly a huge (or yuuge) exception. During the campaign, Trump did not categorize Russia as a competitive and threatening ‘other.’

The hierarchy at the core of Trump’s slogan is directly countered by Clinton’s “Stronger Together.” Instead of hierarchy, this slogan evokes a network. Instead of separateness, networks imply interdependence. Instead of a zero-sum world, networks imply a win-win world. Instead of othering, networks require empathy for others, recognition that we are all in this together. To win is not to be atop a hierarchy but to be in the middle of a large network (of friends, information and resources).

The competitors’ slogans posited different answers to fundamental questions that go beyond typical political debates about tax cuts or guns: Should we add more people to our network or build walls? Should we be exclusive or inclusive? Are we threatened by our fellow citizens or are we all in this together?

These slogans can help us understand the deep divisiveness of Trump’s and Clinton’s campaigns and current election battles throughout the country. Trump’s campaign was all hierarchy, all the time. Trump voters understood and embraced the call for re-establishing hierarchies: from “America First” economic nationalism to the racism of the alt-right. Clinton’s campaign was all networks, all the time: from equal rights to more educational and economic opportunity. The increased partisanship in our country is now firmly cemented by these fundamental ontological differences. Trump voters see and prefer hierarchy; networks are threatening. Clinton voters see and prefer networks; hierarchy is threatening.

This is a socially destructive situation because there are so many tensions between hierarchies and networks. Hierarchy thwarts networks: it prevents empathy, interdependence, economic opportunity and win-win outcomes. Networks reduce hierarchy: they reduce privilege, separateness, independence and inequality. Governing ourselves will continue to be extremely contentious and difficult if we continue to disagree on our fundamental approach to solving issues.

Wide or narrow purview?

To the extent that the Trump campaign had a coherent message, it was “globalization is bad.” Globalization is an amalgam of modern networks that carry things, people and ideas across national borders: trade, migration, the internet, media, human rights and democratization norms, international organizations, scientific communities and military alliances, just to name a few. The modern world is full of networks, and Trump seemingly criticized them all. Of course, some Trump voters explicitly reject the modern world and embrace hierarchy through traditional forms of religion, gender roles and/or racial hierarchy. But most Trump voters pragmatically accepted two implicit arguments behind the slogan: that modern networks have eroded the U.S. position at the top of the global hierarchy and that modern networks help others more than they help us.

The main themes of the Trump campaign easily fit this pattern. Trade is a prototypical global network, and Trump railed against “bad” trade deals, with China and Mexico as the two main villains. In a zero sum world, the loss of manufacturing jobs, growing trade deficits and Chinese trade surpluses all show that the global trade rules do not favor the U.S. Instead, we need “fair trade,” which for Trump means trades deals in which the U.S. “wins.”

Migration is another global network, and Trump criticized it in all its forms, particularly illegal immigration and refugees. In Trump World, freedom and independence requires having meaningful borders and preventing the influx of foreigners. We need to exclude others from our domestic network – using walls, travel bans, extreme vetting – to protect ourselves from outside threats. Trump also consistently conflated migration with terrorism (a globalized network that does indeed require some degree of hierarchical response to achieve security) and the simplistic end result was an inability to make any distinctions between economic migrants, radical jihadists, drug dealers and Syrian refugees. Just build a wall. All migratory networks are bad.

Other important global networks include international organizations and treaties. Did Trump praise any in the entire campaign? Not even NATO escaped the global-networks-are-bad thesis. He turned it into a mafia-style shakedown that extorts the neighborhood for more money in return for protection. He reveled in the U.K. Brexit vote. The Paris Agreement on climate change? The global agreement keeping Iran from building nukes for over a decade? Please, these need to be ripped up on day one. If an agreement is good for others around the world, it must be bad for us. There is no such thing as a win-win situation.

It plays out at home

The hierarchy-network tension applies to domestic politics as well. The U.S. Constitution establishes a network, not a hierarchy. We are governed by interdependent institutions that require a we-are-all-in-this-together ethos of compromise to function. Given this constitutional foundation, our current zero-sum partisanship makes our politics extremely dysfunctional. This unfortunately fits the overall pattern very well: How many Trump voters concluded that since our political system (a modern network) is not helping them, why not try something else (even flirting with an authoritarian hierarchy)? When Trump offers hierarchy – ignoring judges, firing career public servants, ordering torture or intimidating the press – how have we responded? Will Congressional Republicans continue to enable the erosion of constitutional values for partisan gain or will they insist on separation of powers and checks and balances?

Another fascinating aspect of the hierarchy-network tension is Trump’s intensification of the cultural attack on “political correctness.” Language can create either hierarchy or networks: It can demean or uplift, it can exclude or include, it can demonize or empathize. It can bring more people into our network or it can create categories of exclusion and inequality. What critics call “political correctness” is a linguistic and cultural network that attempts to reduce the social inequalities among us. It is part of the modern project to reduce hierarchy, alter identities and create larger communities. It is the new public morality: We do not say certain words because they assert a hierarchy and position others lower in that system. We do not want to use language to demean others; we want to use language to recognize everyone as equal.

This modern public morality is a threatening project to those who see and prefer hierarchy. It challenges their social status at the top. Those who criticize political correctness are implicitly saying they want to be as racist and sexist as their grandparents were. (How can anyone possibly object to the slogan “Black Lives Matter” unless they support racial hierarchy?) Electing Trump ratified linguistic and cultural hierarchy. It created social space for the increased racism, misogyny, homophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism now in our public discourse and actions. Trump voters want neither our language nor our public policy to reduce cultural hierarchy.
The critique of networks shows up in surprising places. Heath insurance is a network: a group of people come together and throw money into a pot, and those who have health expenses spend it. Health insurance, like all networks, makes us interdependent (we spend other people’s money) and reduces inequality (nobody goes bankrupt if they get sick). Public options, single- payer systems or “government-run health care” are logical extensions of this process. Those who critique universal health care in the name of “freedom” or “autonomy” are advocating hierarchical policies: When health care is left to the private marketplace, some have access to it and others do not.

The ultimate network

Environmental activists will tell you that nature is an interconnected network. In this context it is literally true that we are all in this together. Humanity has one planet that we share with other species, and we are interdependent partners in this process. Our actions have endangered other species (and our own) and our interconnected planet, and we will need to work together to mitigate the future effects of climate change. An important form of climate change denial is explicitly hierarchical and religious, arguing that God gave man “dominion” over the Earth. We are not part of nature’s network with other species; man is at the top of nature’s hierarchy.

Scientists consider the process of accumulating knowledge a network. Science requires communication, peer review, replication and constant testing of new ideas. Science and the production of knowledge is a social, interdependent process. The Trump campaign’s embrace of hierarchy has also exacerbated the anti-intellectual, fact-challenged, science-denying trends on the right. Why so much fervor to cut education budgets, gut teacher unions and end university tenure? Why the glee about delegitimizing the press as “fake news”? You got it – because the modern network of knowledge production threatens the traditional project of maintaining hierarchy. What is accepted as truth can be the product of networks or hierarchies. It can come from scientific deliberations, a vibrant civil society and an independent press or it can come from religious decrees, Russian government propaganda and Trump’s twitter account.

Past presence

This pattern goes on and on: Trump’s lack of a professional campaign structure (a network); his demand for hierarchy in his personal interactions (grab ‘em by… well, you know); his re-tweets of groups and individuals who support racial and religious hierarchy, and so on. This unrelenting preference for hierarchy over networks is not just a curiosity. It acquires a larger meaning within the grand context of Western history. Most of our pre-modern history is about hierarchy: empires, slavery, religious crusades, monarchies, serfdom and colonization. We tortured and killed heretics, witches and natives. Truth emanated from church and state.

Our more recent history, however, includes the gradual construction of networks and thus the eventual reduction of hierarchy. The nation-state slowly replaced theocracy and empire. Democracy slowly replaced monarchy and authoritarianism. Capitalism slowly replaced feudalism, and then welfare states reduced the inequality-producing rough edges of capitalism. Science replaced the church as an arbiter of truth about the natural world. Human rights norms slowly diffused: We no longer do slavery, or witch hunts, or torture or colonies. We no longer restrict rights of citizenship to a particular race, gender, religion or economic status.

The significance of the 2016 election is that we had a stark choice between a candidate who was well within this modern Western project and one who was not. We had a modern candidate of networks and a traditional candidate of hierarchy – and hierarchy won. The election was in many ways a backlash against the modern world. We are now closer to theocracy, to authoritarianism, to white supremacy, to a lack of safety nets, to trade wars and to religious crusades. We are now much further away from resolving the climate change crisis. And we are now very much closer to a wide variety of human rights restrictions that affect areas such as voting, working, reproduction, sexual choices and press freedoms. We are now governed by hierarchy. When some bomb goes off somewhere and Trump asks for even more hierarchy, how will we respond?

Global implications

We now have a president who is not committed to bedrock principles of U.S. foreign policy – that is, the creation of networks. Since 1945 we have been trying to create a safer world based on trade, military alliances, science and technology; since 1989 we have added democratization and human rights to our global security toolkit. Regardless of party affiliation, U.S. presidents have advocated for these networks as a source of stability and prosperity in the world.

These networks have been astoundingly successful. Since 1945 there have been no wars between major powers; no wars between rich developed countries; no use of nuclear weapons; no wars between European states; no conquered countries that no longer exist; and, aside from one to several countries (depending on interpretation of international law), no developed state has expanded its territory through military conquest. Consider the trend in Europe: From 1400 to 1945, Europe averaged two wars per year. That is more than 1,000 wars. There have been zero wars between European states since 1945. That is simply amazing.

The success of modern global networks extends into many areas. Global rates of education, literacy, vaccination and life expectancy have skyrocketed. The vast majority of humanity now has access to food, clean water, toilets and medicine. Global poverty rates declined 67% since 1990. The number of wars, battle deaths and genocides has dramatically declined. There have been fewer terrorist incidents and fewer deaths related to terrorism in the last 20 years than during the 1970s and 1980s. Despite approximately 50 countries having the technical capability to build nuclear weapons, only two countries are actively trying to create them. In fact, almost 20 countries have dismantled their nuclear weapons program and/or destroyed their nuclear weapons.

Our system of networks – trade, military alliances, democratization and human rights – has created the most peaceful and prosperous era in human history. But it has also reduced hierarchy and U.S. dominance in world politics. So, of course, Trump has criticized all the networks that form the basis of global stability. He has altered or walked away from trade deals, alliance responsibilities and treaty commitments. He does not even pretend to give lip service to human rights and democratization policies. What is left if the U.S. walks away from the networks it has been building since 1945? The answer is, of course, hierarchy. But in this case, it would resemble a pre-modern political system of mutually recognized spheres of influence, with multiple great powers sitting at the top of their own local hierarchy.

Which brings us to Russia. Important parts of our world – including Russia, China and radical jihadists – reject the networks we have been trying to create since 1945. They do not want to enmesh themselves in our global networks and adopt our modern norms; they want hierarchical privileges in their neighborhood. Russia annexes Crimea, meddles in Ukraine, exacerbates the Syrian civil war and intimidates the Baltics. Along with China, Russia blocks progress on human rights and democratization. China slowly works to increase its influence on and control of Spratly Island and the South China Sea. ISIS goes so far as to reject the modern nation-state and start its own theocracy.

The common geostrategic goals of Russia, China and ISIS are to undermine globalized networks and modern norms and thus increase influence over their neighbors. It is to reassert pre-modern forms of hierarchy. If they had meaningful elections, their campaign slogans would be “Make Russia/China/Islam Great Again.” You will not hear these critics of U.S.-created global networks talk about being “Stronger Together.” That is why the day after the 2016 election our friends around the world were freaking out and Russia, China and ISIS (and the KKK) were celebrating. That should tell us all we need to know about the meaning and implication of the election. We elected an agent of pre-modern hierarchy, and, around the world, authoritarians embattled by the modern Western project rejoiced.

— — — — —

Postscript, Oct. 26, 2018

All political commentary risks becoming obsolete with the passage of time. This essay was about the 2016 campaign, and it is not unusual for the realities of governing to overtake campaign themes and arguments. However, the hierarchy-network tension can help us understand the chaos, scandal and domestic political resistance that has characterized Trump’s first two years in office.

The Trump domestic agenda is the straightforward pursuit of hierarchy, punishing those at the bottom. The administration established the travel ban, increased the deportation of undocumented immigrants and reduced funds for poor women in need of health care. It ended existing rules on clean water, coal mines, fair pay, safe workplace conditions, transgendered students and college loans. It has proposed a health care policy that would take insurance away from 20 million people and a budget that cuts Meals on Wheels. It has rewarded those at the top with tax cuts and by ending Wall Street and other corporate regulations. Much of this agenda has stalled because of those pesky domestic networks: Congress, the judiciary, the press and the public. (“Who knew…” governing could be so complicated?) The president seems flustered that the country has not acquiesced to his Twitter pronouncements.

Trump’s agenda to tear down global networks is proceeding apace. He has walked away from the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate agreement, the U.N. Human Rights Council and the INF arms control agreement with Russia. He has pursued tariffs against rivals and friends alike. He constantly criticizes NATO and the E.U. He gushes over autocrats while picking fights with democratic leaders. Trump’s level of corruption (profiting from public office, business conflicts of interest, nepotism and refusal to show us his tax returns) is audacious. He routinely engages in practices used by authoritarians (calling the media an “enemy,” charging his political foes with phony crimes, and of course the constant barrage of lies).

Finally, the potential scope of the Russia scandal is mind-boggling. We know that we elected an agent of pre-modern, authoritarian hierarchy. We just do not know whether we elected a Russian agent of pre-modern, authoritarian hierarchy.

— ssl — ssl — ssl —

Dr. Brian Frederking is a professor of political science at McKendree University, about 30 miles east of St. Louis. He received his graduate degrees from Syracuse University and his undergraduate degree from McKendree College. His research interests include the United Nations Security Council, international law and organization, and global governance. He lives on his family’s farm with his wife Debbie in the middle of Trump country.

Illustration by Gabriel Shapiro, the editor of Supplement St. Louis.