Donald in Davos. A different take on the Trump era after his first year in office

The annual assembly of the global business and political elite in Davos is now in full swing. The number of senior politicians is at a record high and for the first time since Bill Clinton in his last year in office, the US President in the form of Donald Trump will be there to deliver the final keynote address on Friday. The anticipated contrast between the liberal internationalism expressed by the former President in 2000 and the ‘America First’ thesis of the current incumbent has already been the subject of much comment. That this trip comes a little over a year after his inauguration and with the US government having experienced a partial shutdown has sharpened the comparison further.
To ally and critic alike, there is the consensus that the Trump presidency is something that is entirely new and one which suggests a widening rift not merely between the United States present and past but between the US and the rest of the developed world. The implications of all of this are hence rather disturbing. Yet it is also entirely possible to assert that this conclusion is exaggerated.
Europe provided the prototype of the Trump phenomenon
It is fashionable in almost all European (and indeed some US) circles to view the political rise of Mr Trump as an example of American exceptionalism, an outcome that would not occur over here. This conveniently forgets that by far the best example of a prototype to the Trump phenomenon was witnessed not far from Davos, over the border in Italy.
The sensational political arrival of Silvio Berlusconi was in many respects the blueprint for the Trump victory in 2016. Mr Berlusconi was, and is, a populist billionaire with a strong media presence who took advantage of a void on the centre-right in his country created by the collapse of the old Christian Democrat forces once (after 1989) they no longer had communism to operate against. He exploited the combination of his personal profile and popular discontent to impose himself on the conventional political system.
Almost all of Mr Berlusconi’s themes are there in the Trump repertoire, as are the claims of unethical links between his business interests and the government that he headed, the hints of dubious links to Vladimir Putin, and shameless sexism in his private undertakings. Think of Mr Trump as Mr Berlusconi with Tweets and Nukes and you are not that far away from the reality. What is more, the European variation has much more longevity. It is 24 years since Mr Berlusconi first became (for a short seven month tenure), Prime Minister in Italy but at the election to be held there on 4 March he remains (at the age of 81) likely to emerge as the principal political kingmaker.
The form of Republican Party that Trump represents is not new but familiar from the 1920s
There are, alas, despite the huge advances in human longevity, no members of the Washington press corps or their equivalents elsewhere who were born around the year 1900. If there were, the notion that the Trump era is something new would be the subject of more intensive scrutiny. For the facts are that much of what is distinctive about the Trump message – nativism, semi-isolationism and the occasional threat to unleash massive force, and protectionism – was the absolute norm for the Republican Party throughout the 1920s.
This was the product of the aftershocks of World War I plus huge waves of immigration of a level unseen until our last 20 years. This was also a decade that through the popularity of radio, sound with screen in cinemas, electrification, automobiles and (for a few) air travel triggered a technological and communications revolution that is every part akin to our own. It also triggered a cult of celebrity and a massive stock market boom (and eventual bust) to which individual as well as collective American prosperity was linked. It saw huge anxiety over the rising number of new US citizens with an affiliation to an ‘alien’ religion (Roman Catholicism in this instance) and attempts to put the cork back in the bottle via laws such as the Immigration Act, 1924. All of this was overseen by a succession of presidents who either made their careers as ‘outsiders’ or had a ‘can do’ reputation, but who functioned by modern standards on a virtual part-time basis.
Congress is still king in domestic politics
Some of the more hysterical responses to the Trump White House have included the accusation that the Constitution itself is somehow imperiled by his presence. It should be clear after 12 months that the Founding Fathers (a phrase coined by President Harding in the early 1920s) have no reason to feel that their efforts to prevent the reinvention of absolute monarchy in democratic form have been a failure.
Congress, not the President, remains the fundamental actor in domestic politics. The Republicans have a solid majority in the House of Representatives but a slim one in the Senate. The latter matters particularly because the norms and rules of the upper chamber very often reinforce the checks and balances and separation of powers in the US Constitution by stipulating that 60 votes and not a bare majority are required to enact legislation (certain provisions around the budget are an exception).
As a consequence, when there has been sufficient agreement among Republicans and only a straight majority in both legislatures is required, then radical measures (notably the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) have been enacted. Where no such internal unity exists (such as on the outright repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act 2010 (a.k.a. ‘Obamacare’), then such efforts have failed. Where 60 votes, and hence an element of bi-partisanship, are needed in the Senate and cannot be found (as in the attempt last Friday to prevent a government shutdown), stalemate will be the outcome. All of this was true pre-Trump, is true during the Trump tenure and will still be true after Trump.
US foreign policy under Trump differs more in style than substance in many instances
It cannot be, admittedly, that easy to serve as an American diplomat abroad just at the moment. The President’s personal style, like Manhattan wine, does not really travel. Mr Trump’s relationship with his own Secretary of State, never mind the outside world, does not seem especially stable. Yet in terms of substance, the Trump twist on traditional Republican foreign policy is not that different from that of the Bush era and even less so if one seeks to imagine what it might have looked like if George W. Bush had died early after January 2001 and Dick Cheney had taken the Oval Office.
The pattern of US alliances across the world is not notably different than they were a year ago. There is no example of a country where US troops were stationed on 19 January 2017, but have since been withdrawn at the behest of the new administration. The US response to events in North Korea is no different to how it might have been under a President Rubio, if he had been elected. Indeed, he, like Mr Trump, might have made the one significant but ultimately symbolic move of note that has been seen in foreign policy in the past year, namely recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. For all the, to borrow a phrase, fire and fury that this initiative caused, it will not prevent either the United States seeking to assist Saudi Arabia in its political contest with Iran or the Saudis accepting that backing.
Even more than is normally true for US Presidents, Trump’s political fate is tied to the economy
How long the Trump era will last depends (bar a sensational twist in the Robert Mueller probe) on the economy. This is always a huge factor in re-election campaigns but to an atypical degree it is the predominant one in this case. Voters will put up with a lot if, as Herbert Hoover once put it his first presidential battle, there is “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage”.
The 1920s are once again instructive. The Republicans took office after the 1920 election, lost seats heavily in the mid-term elections of 1922 (down 77 in the House of Representatives and seven in the Senate) as the economy cooled, only to sweep back across the board after a recovery in 1924. It will be GDP that makes or breaks this unconventional, but not unprecedented, leader. They should get that in Davos.
Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA