Unhinged America…Dr Niaz Murtaza
IT is scary to see a mad elephant run amok, ravaging tiny villages until it is tamed. It is more terrifying to see the world’s sole superpower do so globally — with its nukes, financial volatility and carbon emissions posing far greater risks than wild tuskers. This is happening under a party — symbolised by an elephant — that had turned erratic long ago. Donald Trump’s actions now are truly manic.
Ordinary Americans come to office one morning only to find they have lost their jobs. Foreign aid that saves countless lives is cut overnight. Compassion is seen as weakness by a macho party for which profits trump all else. These acts were carried out intentionally, to make it clear that the mean business tycoon Trump and the meaner and richer Elon Musk mean business.
Tariffs were imposed on friend and foe alike to help jobless American workers, though economists warn that this may cause a global recession. The proper way to help the jobless is to tax the rich. But such sane actions irk the right wing. ‘Illegal’ and legal migrants face crackdowns, although both contribute to the US economy. First-time ‘illegal’ entry into the US was widely seen as a mere misdemeanour — like traffic violations that even dutiful citizens commit. But it is now treated as a crime, enabling the separation of families and the deportation of people who have lived in that country for decades — even as felons from the Jan 6 mutiny go free.
All this may spur inflation by increasing the cost of domestic labour and imported goods that many Americans crave. Trump won by pledging to cut inflation, which had surged under Joe Biden due to the Covid-19 crisis. It will rise again under him. States are being encouraged to invest in the US. Actions like hiking tariffs violate the Republican mantra of ‘no state intrusion in markets’. But in truth, that mantra means that the state can only aid the rich, not the poor. All Trump’s actions target vulnerable groups, while the rich get tax breaks. Poor Americans who voted for his false promise to uplift them now realise they were taken for a ride so that the elites could enjoy a free ride.
A pushback has begun, both at home and abroad. Polls show his support is declining as the pain spreads across America. Even that loyal barometer of elite opinion — the stock market — slipped into correction territory, prompting a policy shift that only came after the panic reached Trump’s core base. Courts, even those packed with Trump nominees, are striking down some of his actions. Other nations are slapping retaliatory tariffs on the US. Whether any of these steps can tame the wild elephant remains to be seen. A nervous world braces for further shocks.
Trump says he’ll ‘Make America Great Again’. In fact, the US achieved greatness in the 1940s via high productivity, reduced inequality and racism, investment in global forums and the opening of its markets to the world. The formula was creativity, some equity, globalism and a long-term view. Trump’s brew, however, is meanness, pettiness, myopia and insularity. America’s gradual embrace of such crudity is why it has lost its hegemony — and may never reclaim it. The right wing is too blind to see this. The Democrats — whose donkey symbol is fitting — are clueless, meek, and unable to come up with a counter-narrative to the irate elephant. A society gripped by dehumanisation and hyper-capitalism can’t summon the intellectual or moral greatness required to be truly great — economically or politically.
Trump falsely claims that the world exploits the US. In reality, the US exploits the world by setting the rules of global finance, enabling itself to thrive despite its fiscal and trade deficits, as seen in its billionaires’ growing wealth, and strong growth and low inflation beyond the Covid era. Even its deficits help keep the dollar as the dominant currency. Trade deficits supply dollars globally; surplus dollars return to fund its fiscal deficits. The US just wants to extract more from others, rather than tax its elites to support its jobless. Its problem is not the global economy, but domestic politics that sustain inequity. Its deficit-cutting, Nato-bashing, migrant-barring actions may accelerate its fall from a valued global power to a hated bully.
The world faces pandemics, climate change, and economic volatility. A wise global leadership must move us towards a post-material, fairer world that is no longer dominated by the elites who drive these crises. The US lacks the vision to lead and is, in fact, the main barrier to it. Yet other major powers also fall short. As a result, the world appears headed for greater misery and turmoil.
COURTESY DAWN