Watching President Trump

In my previous piece, I laid out what another Trump presidency might look like. In short, if he does what he said he would do during the campaign: chaos. But it could also be, if not actual fun, certainly interesting – an experiment, if you will – to watch him do, try to do or, in the end, not do all the things he said. The list is a long one:

• seeking revenge on his opponents, including by weaponizing the Justice Department;

• imposing high tariffs on China and goods not made in America;

• putting Musk in charge of making more government more efficient (apparently by stopping all $2 trillion of USG discretionary funding);

• letting RFK Jr. “go wild” on health issues such as vaccines and fluoride;

• rounding up and deporting 20 million “illegals” using police and the National Guard;

• preventing by various measures “illegal migration” and finally building that wall;

• supporting a wide open field for crypto including Bitcoin;

Now, it may be that the Trump will not take any of these actions. The Republican leadership – and JD – may focus instead on using control of all three branches of government to do the things the party has always sought to do, provide tax cuts for corporations and the rich, dismantling “troublesome” regulations on business as well as consumer protections and ending efforts to combat climate change. There are also positive elements among the many other promises Trump made during the campaign, such as ending taxation on Social Security or providing payments for IVF. This approach would make the new Trump Administration a “normal” one in which the ruling party carries out its own ideological platform (with or with out elements of Project 2025).

But what if Trump does try to take action against political opponents and “illegal migrants” using the justice system, law enforcement and the military? This could result in considerable activity in the courts. If the military is asked to undertake actions forbidden under the Constitution – such as domestic law enforcement – relations between the Commander-in-Chief and the military leadership could become very tense.

Discretionary spending ($1.7 trillion in the 2023 budget) includes the military ($806 billion, where surely there must be considerable waste) and everything else the government does including education, social services, health, transportation, science and technology, justice and local development. Leaving aside the military (?), allowing Musk to dismantle the social safety net and backbone of our economy built up over the last several decades would have a serious social and economic impact. Raising tariffs – and therefore prices – of everything we now import – also causing shortages of needed goods that we cannot yet produce in quantity – could plunge the economy further into a downward spiral. Rounding up “illegals” and stopping the flow of migration into the US – if even possible – would reduce the supply of labor in the many places in which no one else wishes to work. Allowing an unfettered field for crypto-currency speculation could add financial turmoil to economic disruptions.

Empowering Kennedy to turn the U.S. health system into a haven for anti-vaxers and anti-fluoride, flat-earthers could lead to more pandemics and a legion of new dental patients.

Trump has also said he would settle the Ukraine war even before taking office and has vowed to bring peace to the Middle East. These too will be interesting to watch, especially the process of picking the losing and wining sides. It may also be “fun” to watch our NATO allies try to back fill their ability to go on their own. And the whole world may experience economic and political tremors.

Some of the 71 million majority who voted for Trump could experience a bit of buyers remorse. But he may not have any interest in matching his election campaign performance with real life action. It may also be that his supporters really don’t expect him to do so. In any case, we will all have front row seats.

PS: A friend reminded me of this from H.L Mencken:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 28

For episode 27, see here

The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns

XXVIII. Hegel: Dialectic and Nationalism
 A. The typical conclusions of the Enlightenment:
       1. Hume showed ambiguities of "reason."
       2. Rousseau set up reasons of the heart (sentiment) against reasons
           of the head.
       3. Immanuel Kant sharpened contrast of science and morals (and between
           theoretical and practical reason) to preserve both.
       4. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel sought unifying synthesis through
           transcending analytic logic of science. 
 B. Hegel proposed dialectic to demonstrate logical relationship between
      fact and value.
 C. Revolution seen by many, including Hegel, as destructive, doctrinaire
      attempt to remake society and human nature.
       1. Therefore necessity of reconstruction of continuity of national
           institutions.
       2. But was to be reconstruction of stability by the creative forces
           of the nation.
 D. The nation, not the individual, is the significant unit of history via the 
      genius or spirit of the nation -- Volksgeist.
 E. Hegel's political philosophy built around the dialectic and the theory
      of the nation state as the embodiment of political power.  (These two
      did not necessarily entail each other.)
 F. The historical method:
       1. Method of studying history also could be applicable to other
           social studies.
       2. Mode of deriving from the order of historical events standards
           of valuation with which to access significance of particular
           stages in evolution (a philosophy of history).   
       3. Assumed single pattern or law of development that can be 
           exhibited by a proper arrangement of subject matter.
       4. Order is not imposed but immanent.
       5. Standards progressively revealed in evolution of morals, 
           law, etc., provides historically objective standard of values
           to fill vacant place of natural law.
        6. Hegel sought to show necessary stages by which reason 
           approximates the Absolute.
       7. Understanding and reason were faculties of analysis and 
           synthesis respectively and dialectic unites the two.
       8. Understand "breaks up" organic wholes, it is the philosophic 
           basis of indivualism.
           i. fosters illusion that men can remake society
           ii. misses organic creative continuous growth
       9. Only reason can see below historical detail to perceive forces
           that really control events and thus understand that the process
           should be as it is.
 G. In study of religion, following Herder and Lessing, saw succession of
      world religions as progressive revelation of religious truth.
 H. Thought Western civilization product of Greek free intelligence and
      deeper moral and religious insights of Christianity.
 I.  The process of development of the spirit of a people:
       1. Period of "natural" happy but largely unconscious spontaneity
           (thesis).
       2. Period of painful frustration and self-consciousness in which
           the spirit is "turned inward" and loses its spontaneous 
           creativeness (antithesis).
       3. Period in which spirit " returns to itself" at a higher level
           embodying insight gained from frustration (synthesis).
       4. The total process is "thought."
 J. Hegel saw freedom as existing only within bounds of a nation state.
       1. The state is the expression (de facto power) of national unity and
           a national aspiration to self-government.
       2. The state is consistent with any lack of uniformity which does not
           prevent effectively unified government (such as class differences).
       3. With Machiavelli saw no higher duty for the state than its own 
           strengthening and preservation.
       4. The state is the realm in which the Idea of Reason materializes 
           itself (The German Constitution, 1802).
 K. Realization of national spirit contributes to progressive realization of
      the world spirit and is the source of dignity and worth that attaches
      to private concerns of individuals. 
       1. Freedom is voluntary dedication to that realization.
       2. National monarchy is the highest form of constitutional government.
 L. Dialectic and historical necessity (The Philosophy of Right, 1821). 
       1. Dialectic is the new method.
       2. History of a people records the growth of a single national
           mentality that expresses itself in all phases of its culture.

"The individual is for the most part only an accidental variant of the culture
  that created him and insofar as he is different his individuality is more
  likely to be capricious than signficant."

       3. Dialectic is the opposition of forces moving in orderly equilibrium
           and emerging in a pattern of progressive, logical development.
       4. Contradiction means fruitful opposition between systems that 
           constitutes an objective criticism of each and leads continually to
           a more inclusive and coherent system. (Dialectic could manifest as 
           evolution or revolution.) 
 M. Hegel claimed dialectic as logic of reason to supersede logic of
       understanding.
       1. Dialectic both moral judgement and causal law of historical
           development.
       2. Unites relativism with the absolutism.
 N. Dialectic offered no criterion of rightness except success of outcome.
 O. Hegel: individualism and theory of the state.
       1. Individualism had no hold in Hegel's Germany and the same with
           sense of national unity.
       2. Hegel's Philosophy of Right deals with the relationships between
           individual and the social and economic institutions.
       3. Placed state as on a level of political evolution above civil
           society (the result of the end of feudal law and institutions).
       4. Revolution's ideals of liberty and equality made state a mere 
           matter of private interest, a utilitarian device for satisfying private
           needs elevating abstract individualism over society and state.
       5. The individual's best interest lies in being a member of society and 
           the state.
       6. Individualism indifferent to moral and spiritual development of 
           personality by falsifying the nature of social institutions through
           regarding them only as accidental and mere utilitarian devices to 
           satisfy irrational needs
       7. Hegel shared the "Greek notion" of citizenship not in terms of private
           rights but of social functions. 
 P. Hegel saw individual motives as capricious and sentimental, with civil
     civil society as a realm of mechanical necessity, a result of irrational 
     forces of a society.
       1. Society, apart from the state, is governed by non-moral causal laws
           and hence ethically anarchical.
       2. Only the state embodied ethical values and ought therefore to be
           absolute.
       3. Individual attains moral dignity only as he devotes himself to
           the state.
       4. Hegel's theory of freedom implied nothing definite in the way of
           civil or political liberties but he did not reject them in practice. 
       5. The state depends on civil society as the means of accomplishing
            the moral purpose it embodies.
       6. The state is absolute but not arbitrary, it must rule through law and
           law is "rational."
       7. Civil society consists of corporations and the legislature is where
           they meet the state.
       8. The legislature only advisory to the ministry of the governing class
           or "universal class."
 Q. Hegel's constitutionalism not liberal (i.e., democratic procedures)
      but based on orderly bureaucratic administration not subject to
      to public opinion but to the public spirit of an official class that
      stands above conflicts of economic and social interests.
 R. Hegel united Rousseau's general will (the manifestation of the 
      spiritual force forming the core of reality) and Burke's religious
      vision of history as a "divine tactic." 
 S. Replaced eternal system of unchangeable natural law with a
      rational unfolding of the Absolute in History.
       1. Reason manifested itself in social groups not individuals.
       2. Society seen as system of forces rather than community of 
           individuals.
       3. Highlighted importance of historical study of institutions but
           left individual actions as merely a "reflection" of social forces.
       4. Can be seen as giving rise to Marxism (a direct link), the English
           liberalism of Oxford idealists and the Italian fascists. 

Next week:  Liberalism -- Philosophical Radicalism