From Biden to Trump: Out of the Frying Pan and Into?

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From Biden to Trump: Out of the Frying Pan and Into?
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20 January 2025
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This is not the first time we’ve written that in our naive thinking we saw with some hope that the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, would not follow the warmongering policy that the dominant establishment imposed on the outgoing president, Joe Biden, which has put the world on the dangerous path of a Third World War.

As for the rest, nothing good has come from the red character, if anything even worse than what he marked at the end of his previous term, followed by Biden, despite three promises to remedy the harm done by Trump to subdue Cuba, because he says that he only respects nations that have nuclear bombs.

His anti-immigration remarks are part of his way of being, and he is so redundant in his airs about the United States controlling the Panama Canal and buying Greenland, as well as getting Canada to join the Union as the 51st state and the Gulf of Mexico to be called the Gulf of America.

But, knowing his style and that with a total war everything would be lost, because nobody wins, he is predominantly a businessman, fueling his ideology in the most practical way, which, according to the writer and researcher Branko Milanovic (pronounced Milanovich), has three elements: mercantilism, profit-making and anti-immigrant nationalism.

NEITHER FASCIST NOR POPULIST, DEMAGOGUE

Everyone has an ideology, Spanish historians emphasize, and tagging Trump is not easy, because sometimes he is called a fascist, which is only admitted as an insult, even if he is not. He is not populist either, because even though it has swept clean through the most recent actions, it has nothing to do with the people.

The reason most people are unable to make a coherent argument about Trump's ideology is because they are blinded by hatred or worship, or because they cannot bring what they see in him into an ideological framework, with a name attached to it, and to which they are accustomed.

Fascism as an ideology involves (i) exclusivist nationalism, (ii) glorification of the leader, (iii) emphasis on the power of the State over individuals and the private sector, (iv) rejection of the multiparty system, (v) corporatist government, (vi) replacement of the class structure of society by unitary nationalism, and (vii) quasi-religious adulation of the Party, the State and the leader.

In other words, it has nothing to do with Trump or what he wants to impose.

Similarly, the term “populist” has become an insult lately, and despite some unsuccessful attempts to define it better, it actually represents leaders who win elections, but do so with a platform that is not welcomed.

This is not the case with Trump, who turns populism into demagogy. It’s about telling people what they supposedly want to hear. It’s about making gestures of friendliness, of closeness. With what purpose? So that the people see the politician as an accessible and plebeian leader, as a close leader.

BUSINESSMAN¨

Taking into account the four years of his first term, Trump follows the principles of mercantilism, an ancient doctrine that considers economic activity, and especially the trade of goods and services between states, as an even game, in which the most powerful wins in the end.

Moreover, if one believes that trade is nothing more than war by other means and that America’s main rival or antagonist is China, mercantilist policy towards Beijing becomes a very natural response.

Like all Republicans, Trump believes in the private sector which he believes is excessively hindered by regulations, rules, and taxes. He was a capitalist who NEVER paid taxes, which he believes simply shows that he was a good businessman. Trump may only be more explicit and open about low taxes on capital, but he would do the same thing as Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr. And the same thing that liberal icon Greenspan deeply believed in.

ANTI-MIGRANT NATIONALIST

The term “nationalist” only applies uncomfortably to American politicians, because people are used to “exclusive” (not inclusive) European and Asian nationalisms.

Unlike the nationalisms of Japan and some European nations that want the expulsion of different ethnicities, American nationalism, by its very nature, cannot be ethnic or blood-related, due to the huge heterogeneity of the people that make up the United States. Therefore, commentators have invented a new term, “white nationalism.”

From his comments, regardless of whether he advocates the removal of undocumented immigrants, Trump’s nationalism is a strange term because it conflates skin color with ethnic (blood) relations. In reality, I think the defining feature of Trump’s “nationalism” is neither ethnic nor racial, but rather the hatred to new immigrants.
In essence, it’s no different from the anti-immigrant policies pursued today in the heart of the social democratic world, in the Nordic countries and in north-western Europe, where the right-wing parties in Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Denmark believe that their countries are “full” and cannot accept more immigrants.

Trump’s opinion is unusual, because the United States is not a full country: the number of people per square kilometer is 38, while, for example, it’s 520 in the Netherlands.

When you combine mercantilism with an hatred to migrants, you get close to what US foreign policy will be under Trump.

In this foreign policy, the "chancellor" or Secretary of State must have a certain role - even if it’s nominal - for which Marco Rubio is proposed, as cunning as he is a liar, when he said that he was born in Cuba and that his parents fled from Castro-communism, when in reality he saw the light (or darkness) in Miami and his entire family moved to the United States during the Batista dictatorship.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff

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