If there was a list compiled of the world’s current most important thinkers and visionaries then surely US President Donald Trump’s name should be found at, or near, the very top. Seriously. While Trump is hardly anyone’s model of either a “philosopher-king” or an “ideas-driven man” -- for example, he doesn’t appear to do much reading, and his policies tend to be an awkward hybridization of occasionally differing worldviews, promises and threats drawn almost at random from the past two centuries of American socio-political discourse, there can be no denying his effect on the world of ideas.
Think about this: Trump’s particular political project has since 2015 (when he was an official candidate for the Republican nomination) essentially remade the intellectual landscape of the GOP and forced a radical counteractive reassessment on the Democratic side. He has expanded policy horizons on the right to include approaches to economic protectionism and immigration hitherto regarded as unfashionable sometime around the Hoover administration, while in the opposition his ascendancy has inspired not just earnest soul-searching on the part of its “establishment” wing but an almost visceral reaction bordering on mania from its leftist activist base.
Policy debate in the United States today feels substantially more expansive than it’s been at any point since the height of the Great Depression, when business-driven isolationists, rural populists and open communists all jostled for elbow room amid the breakdown of an unsustainable, crumbling Gilded Age status quo. It’s perhaps too easy, even facile, to see the parallels to now, as the Trump presidency’s never-ending shock waves disrupt those in the American establishment, whether they like it or not, to the so-called “populist” uprising now in charge. Republicans are openly debating (often amongst themselves) the validity of birthright citizenship and questioning American commitments to NATO as well as traditional allies; some Democrats now call to “Abolish ICE” or to consciously explode the national debt as part of a broader, redistributive economic agenda on the scale of new New Deal. Court-packing, litmus tests for judicial candidates at all levels, the breakup of the Big Four tech companies, the privatization of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, the elimination of Dodd-Frank, repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act (i.e. ‘Obamacare’), prison abolition, even the subdivision of states like California and the zombie-like never-quite-dead issue of the border wall -- all are now given a public hearing, whereas less than a decade ago they would have gotten one disinvited from what would have been considered polite company.
The world of intellectuals reflects the many dichotomies of the schizoid political present. Thinkers find cause for both alarm and a cautious hope. For example, to some the US is pursuing nothing less then a punitive, draconian immigration policy that runs roughshod over basic inalienable human rights, driven by what were, until an election ago (remember 2012 anyone), fringe ideology. Whereas conversely, from a hard core of Trumpian supporters -- anywhere from 36% to 42% most surveys seem to confirm -- the perspective is actually hopeful, even optimistic, that their definition of change is now the dominant philosophy.
At the very least, whether one is on either side of the debate -- and in such issues there can be no middle ground –- the rational view us that our society should be big enough to accommodate all ideas, be they previously not held by either side of the philosophical polarity – and that if from the occasionally vociferous clash a way to integrate these views (however imperfectly) and incorporate them as part of a successful political program, can be just as effective. This kind of ultimate result will redound across the globe in the selfsame manner that Trump’s election and administration has influenced everyone from the “Leave” camp leaders in the UL Brexit debate to the rise of the conservatives in Italy, Germany, Austria and Sweden.
Looking past the rhetoric and posturing (to use a horary cliché), if history were a door, we are at one of its hinge points. Global society has blundered into one of those disquieting moments when the big ideological norms of a society suddenly tectonically shift, with all the ancillary effects that implies. While Trump’s election did not (despite conservative protestations to the contrary) result in the long-awaited destruction or replacement of the FDR New Deal’s legacy policies and accompanying ideology, it did signify the passing of the mostly bipartisan post-Reagan regime of unfettered free trade and globalist internationalism, accompanied by a sweeping tsunami roiling across the political spectrum. As for the exact character of the next ideas regime, it’s still unclear. Like physics, politics’ static rules do not get suspended, but they do get tossed into the air and occasionally called into question and things once deemed impossible now seem possible, even likely.
On a macro scale that sense of possibility is particularly manifest in often inflammatory discussions (or arguments) raging over diverse issues in cultures and societies just as varied: how nations deal with refugees fleeing from persecution in Syria, Myanmar and Bangladesh; the pros and cons of restricted vs unrestricted immigration; the legality of gay sex in India and Singapore; the pervasiveness of workplace-related sexual harassment (both male and female); tolerance of what constitutes free speech ; the prevalence of “fake news” perpetrated by elites, interest groups, even governments, and the ever-present question of just how “free” a press should be to tell the truth, or lie.
Another example can be found in America this congressional election season where all across the political spectrum ideas are being proposed for solutions to issues great and small: Governor Jerry Brown seeking to secure his legacy through an executive order committing California to total, economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2045; mayoral experiments with universal basic income; attempts to update arcane American antitrust law and re-tool it for the e-commerce era; even attempts by politicians to reach beyond the confines of Washington DC (and its stultifying thinking) such as South Carolina Senator Tim Scott's collaboration with entrepeneur Sean Parker (of Napster, Facebook fame) to embed economic “opportunity zones” in distressed towns within the sweeping 2017 tax reform law, in a big-tent effort redolent of the late Congressman Jack Kemp’s inner-city efforts. If only any single party can unite its disparate voices long enough to produce the 2018 equivalent of Newt Gingrich’s ‘Contract with America’ – aka a coherent political philosophy translated into a policy for action -- then it would garner an easy majority of seats in both houses.
Yes, the stakes are high with failure always a distinct possibility. Whereas the overused term “disruption” makes a certain sense in the private sector, where the consumer may indeed benefit from shaking up established players in a particular vertical, the benefits are considerably more opaque for public service where success is often measured in prosaic, small-scale policies unlikely to roil the status quo. Nations are tapestries of interests nade up of muktiple stakeholder groups and it is crucial that society remains stable during times of change; even some supporters of Trump, political disruptor par excellence, complain about the uncertainty brought on by his constant tweeting and frequent course corrections. It’s one thing to be an agent provocateur; it’s another to keep throwing out ideas (some contradictory) every five minutes. That kind of ‘sprinkler’ approach tends to overwhelm one’s audience and can seem like nothing more than the product of a short attention span and unfettered mind.
Still, credit the president, if not for being the originator of this hot-house climate, then its most prodigious avatar. Without him, his message, and his Twitter-based bully pulpit, we would still be in the somnolent backwaters of the old and sedate thinking. Trump has challenged established thinking, long since ossified, and has galvanized, for good or ill, the environment for rethinking the old ways to challenge our intellect and set the pace where radical ideas can flourish. Vive la difference.
What follows such a chaotic "hinge" moment is also unclear, as history suggests dual possibilities: the disruptive conservatism of Ronald Reagan eventually settled into a smooth shift away from the genteel GOP noblesse oblige- style of consensus. But the frenetic, wildly veering years from the post World War One era leading up to the Great Depression saw a series of weak political measures and ineffective political-economic compromises that ultimately failed to prevent the onset of America’s most damaging economic crisis and the subsequent global conflict.
Many dismiss even the possibility of that kind of apocalyptic outcome for America and the world (though it cannot be entirely taken off the table). After all, despite all the prognostications of its supposedly inevitable decline, the United States, for all its current flag-waving, chest beating teeth gnashing and clothes-rending rancor, still remains both a wealthy, stable democracy and the (sorry China!) pre-eminent military and economic global power. History reminds us that while a moment like this can be at best uncomfortable and worrying, it can conversely also be exciting, energizing and inspiring. The Reagan era gave millions of Americans and global citizens fresh optimism and triggered long-lasting economic growth after a lengthy period of malaise that had a through-line from LBJ and Vietnam, Nixon and Watergate, Carter and Iran. Even the searing misery of the Great Depression gave way to a refirmed economic system that still manages to protect millions of Americans to this present day. Clever, principled, resilient and resourceful citizens of the US and the world, the same kind that led the way forward in past instances of uncertainty are presented with a cyclical opportunity for them to bend the arc of human progress and help shape the way ahed for future generations.
In a modern, mature society there should be no taboo left undiscussed, debated or shunned. The only way the validity and practicality of ideas (however good or bad, enlightened or wrong-headed will to some extent always remain in the eye of a beholder) can be determined is by bringing them out for examination in the harsh light of day. They can then be subjected to the prism of our individualized filters, morals, beliefs, perceptions, misperceptions, truths and falsehoods.
That moment has come, Let us seize it and have the hard conversations about what kind of society we want to have, and the kind of people we aspire to be.
And we have Donald Trump to thank for it.