Donald Trump’s policy contradictions are legion and have been well-publicised in advance of his inauguration. In understanding and responding to him it helps to analyse how these conflicting goals and interests might play out between his strategic priorities and his own political will.
The policy contradictions are firstly economic. Trump wants to eliminate inflation but also intends to impose 60 per cent tariffs on China and 25 per cent ones on Canada and Mexico, which will raise import prices. Economists say these goals are irreconcilable.
Trump wants to maintain the dollar as the world’s primary reserve currency, but weaken it to promote US competition, despite much evidence that tariff increases raise the dollar’s exchange rate. The US trade deficit would be reduced by tariffs, according to Trump’s team; but he also wants to maintain capital inflows and outflows, which is very hard to do. This is the contradiction between reduced and continuing globalisation.
Such economic and international tensions feed into the social basis of Trump’s electoral coalition. He wants higher tariffs, harder borders and lower taxes to protect poorer and less educated white Americans; but he attracted more support from black and Hispanic minorities, who also felt their lives had not been improved by Bidenomics (even though their number was dwarfed by the 7.1 per cent of Biden supporters in 2020 who failed to turn out for Harris). This is more a case of dealignment than realignment of working-class votes, which remain evenly split between the two main parties.
Tax cuts will hit the public programmes Trump’s rural and poorer base relies on, as will the public expenditure efficiency cuts to be led by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. That conflict between popular votes and billionaire deregulatory interests is manifesting in the argument within Trump’s team between Steve Bannon, JD Vance and Musk over who should have priority. How can you make these Americans great again without reducing the US’s huge wealth inequalities, which have doubled since 1980?
Most evidence points to Trump opting for deregulatory policies favouring the super-rich. That will disrupt his electoral coalition
This echoes the contradiction between Musk’s interests in relatively open trading and investment relationships with China and the hawks determined to close them. Similarly, falling domestic birth rates require immigrant labour; skill shortages and cheaper labour costs encourage immigration against workers who insist their interests are best served by expanding trade union rights and stronger social protections – conflicts of interests playing out over the H-1B visas.
Contradictions reveal conflicting goals and interests and can be interpreted in several different ways. This may mean the goals and interests cannot be realised simultaneously, or are logically inconsistent. Contradictions can forge historical change; they are not static but dynamic and express conflicting, yet interdependent, forces at play in a society. They show up social dysfunctions and a lack of – or a yearning for – social stability and normality. The precise balance between such interpretative considerations and actual social practice informs critical social theory. But it passes over into political and social action too. Contradictions are not simply objective but need to be articulated into subjective public awareness and consciousness. They can then be asserted or actualised in alternative political programmes on goals and interests in social struggles and political conflicts. They may produce moments of crisis demanding far-seeing political leadership and power to resolve by systemic change. If this does not happen, prolonged impasse can result, when in Antonio Gramsci’s celebrated formulation, “the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear”.
In light of such reflections on the varying role of contradictions, what can we say about how they might play out in Trump’s second term? A few elements in the forthcoming US political process will be worth watching closely.
Trump says, firstly, that the US is in a crisis, one that he intends to resolve with strong leadership and regime change to take power away from its coastal liberal elites. His cabinet appointments value loyalty above competence, so much revolves around his own role. He will have to prioritise and phase goals and interests rapidly; most evidence points to him opting for deregulatory policies favouring the super-rich in this calculus. That will disrupt his electoral coalition and challenge his liberal and left-wing opponents to exploit such divisions. It will be a testing time in the creation of a new US left-liberal bloc beyond identity politics in social protests and conflicts.
Trump’s authoritarianism will respond harshly and viciously to any such resistance, using State security and surveillance to enforce immigrant expulsions and target opponents. How the economic and international contradictions play out will determine whether he can claim transactional success in the medium term.
Many such impasses are therefore likely to appear over these four years.
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