From American Carnage to American Glory

Xi’s address marked a pivot away from China’s long-standing embrace of a totalizing nationalism and instead made overtures toward globalization’s capacity to deliver unprecedented economic growth. In contrast, Trump’s inaugural, which Bannon called “Jacksonian,” announced a break with globalist policies.

Bannon and senior adviser Stephen Miller conjured up for Trump a speech they hoped would signal a recovery of American greatness, and one they knew would be received as a biting denunciation of the internationalist world order. They, and Trump, blamed the entire cosmopolitan caste—starting with D.C. elites but extending to the entirety of the Davos class—for American struggles: “Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs,” the new president said.

Trump’s voters placed their hopes in his economic nationalism, believing it could reverse global capitalism’s trampling march, and his inaugural address reassured them he would govern as an opponent of the Davos-friendly approach of his predecessors.

A year removed from Trump’s inaugural, our assessment has to be that Trump’s implementation of the Bannon-Miller framework, the promised reversal of American carnage, has only partially been taken up.

For example, the specter of a global trade war between the United States and some of its chief trading partners has not (yet) materialized. On trade, Trump has ditched an agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that his two major Democratic opponents also vowed to jettison, changed his tune from wanting to abolish NAFTA to merely seeking its renegotiation, and imposed narrow, targeted tariffs—so far, only on washing-machines and solar-panel fixtures—as opposed to slapping them on entire industries. These actions hinder, but don’t ultimately destroy, America’s commitment to a free-trade future.

On the other hand, the president’s deregulatory zeal, as well as the tax cuts he engineered alongside congressional Republicans, have been very warmly received by Davos elites.

The reality is that, on economic matters, Trump’s neomercantilism (which Davos hates) has been wedded to Trump’s neoliberalism (which Davos loves), and the latter has been more consequential by a long shot. In fact, according to Trump’s supporters, his two most significant accomplishments in year one—after the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, of course—have been passing tax reform and rolling back Obama-era regulations.

That’s why it was always a stretch to imagine Trump would be unable to strike a conciliatory tone with the elites at Davos. Their differences were never substantial enough to keep the president from finding points of common agreement.

Obviously, Trump’s rhetorical inelegance, vulgarity, and anti-globalist positions on trade and immigration rankle the political and financial leaders assembled at Davos. But as I’ve pointed out, that’s not the whole story.

Which is why, on Friday, the last day of this year’s Davos retreat, Trump took the stage and delivered a speech, a kind of internationalist State of the Union address, that sounded starkly different from his inaugural just one year ago: “As president of the United States, I will always put America first, just like the leaders of other countries should put their country first also,” he said. “But America first does not mean America alone. When the United States grows, so does the world.”

The view of what “America First” means is neoliberal: It sees global flourishing as a project best achieved by America, as well as all the other nations, pursuing self-interested goals compatible with the success of the global economic system.

Compare that, then, with Trump’s inaugural, in which his conception of America First was mercantilist—a view of economic strength as a zero-sum game achieved through isolationism and protectionism. Here’s Trump’s inaugural:

And now compare this old Trump with the new Trump at Davos:

The concept of America First is unmistakably present in both speeches, yet the first is a turning away from the global and economic world order and the second is a turning toward it, albeit with conditions.

Populism, as it turns out, is a better campaign strategy than it is a governing strategy. But a case can be made that, even as a campaign strategy, populism is in decline. If its vibrancy depends on a widespread feeling of economic dislocation, as well as a lack of faith in our political institutions, then it’s possible its best days are already behind it.

But the next evolution for Trump could be even more jarring. Another problem with populism is that the same revanchist frenzy that galvanized the masses, offering a vision of elites toppled and a country reclaimed, disappears into the wind as the populist comes to rely on the institutions he once despised.

In the United States, though bitter partisan wars rage on and institutional dysfunction remains, Trump and his fellow Republican leaders are looking at 2018 as an opportunity to secure major bipartisan victories. The administration’s immigration proposal, which charts a pathway to citizenship for “dreamers” in exchange for increasing border security and enacting changes to existing immigration policy, contains concessions the White House would have never accepted during its earliest days. Infrastructure will be pursued along the same lines, while more contentious issues, such as deep entitlement reform, have been shelved.

Ahead of the midterms, Trump’s focus is no longer on draining the swamp but on preserving it in place. Because he knows that if the Democrats wrest control of the House or the Senate away from the GOP, he can kiss whatever remains of his insurgent agenda goodbye.

Berny Belvedere is editor-in-chief of Arc Digital. You can follow him @bernybelvedere.