Drivers of success under the Trump and Musk new order.
( I ) The new political environment
Conservatism and Liberalism have been fighting each other under different approaches since the independence of the United States and the nationalist revolutions in Europe in the eighteenth century.
We believed that the conservatives were serious and circumspect people, with profound religious sentiments. They pursued the protection of their small businesses or farms, the respect for traditional families, and everything outside of this equation was a threat. They had a strong localist, or nationalist or imperialist ambitions.
Liberals were pursuing individual and human rights, progress, globalization, decolonization, the free market, rational values more than religious ones and separation between church and State. Liberals in the United States became egalitarians close to the European socialist parties.
Today the discussion has changed, but it is not new.
Since the victory of Eisenhower in 1952, the neoconservatives ruled the Republican Party in alliance with moderates like Nixon and liberals like Nelson Rockefeller until the arrival of Donald Trump to the White house in 2017. Donald Trump was a liberal that understood the transformation of the Party in the early years of this century and assumed its basis.
The most conservative movement in the Party has been the Paleocons. They were born against the Federalists in the early years of the United States. They took a main role during the leadership of Robert Taft totally opposed to the Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Paleocons defended restrictions to immigration, isolationism, opposed to multiculturalism and supporters of apartheid policy. They dreamt of a Government under the Bible and the power of God. The movement came back with the Tea Party and religious movements under Bush administration, and after the defeat of Mitt Romney, the last neocon, in 2012, took the leadership of the Party.
It is almost impossible to define the Trump´s ideology, probably because it does not exist. His life is a long contradiction. Ha has changed values and priorities to be always successful. The victory justifies whatever change. He is pragmatic. He will conduct government as a small farm owner in the Midwest and international relations like a driver of a herd of cows from Texas. He is to make a big revolution in international diplomacy, or as I would say he is going to kill the traditional way of relations among countries. As the herd is the top priority, if he needs to cross a private property, he will do it, if he needs to occupy a private pond, he will do it and if it has to sacrifice some cows for the sake of the expedition he will do it, if he does not need to make friends he will not do it. But this is just personality, there is nothing substantial behind.
Elon Musk is different. He is the richest man in the world, and he is not the son of Rockefeller or Prince Salman. There are not big contradictions in his life. He is a traditional conservative in politics, human relations, values, but a liberal in the sense of a strong future vision. The conservatives want to keep the world frozen. Musk wants to make a revolution. In certain way he wants to replicate the Chinese model, one state two systems. Where China puts Communism, Musk puts an Edmund Burke or Carl Schmitt, the traditional conservative ideology, but where China puts capitalism, Musk puts more capitalism. He is not afraid about immigration and globalization, he is concerned about safety and no fair competition, he is convinced the world must move towards clean and sustainable mobility, to a clean energy and to Space. He is not afraid like conservatism of free speech; he fears the monolithic speech that has been spread over the last few decades. He believes that people must take care of themselves. The approach to low-income people is compassion or private solidarity and provide opportunities but reducing the duties of the governments to minimize inequalities. As much money is in the private pockets more opportunities for growth with a clear Paretian approach. In this sense he is very closed to traditional European liberalism.
American liberals or socialists have a different approach following Rawls´ theories. Just the growth of poor people is the measure of the health of an economy, no matter what happens with the middle class, it is the position of low-income people that counts. Liberals assign to the government the obligation of redistribution of everything it doesn´t matter if economy collapses or grows, which it is important is to take the money from private pockets to be put in Government´s box to be spread in those people with more needs, deducting its own significant expenses.
However, this is an old discussion. The feeling today is that middle classes with low salaries are suffering the new policies. Governments are bigger and bigger to meet their new duties, and people with lower salaries feel they pay the party but are not getting the benefits. They feel discriminated themselves by the new priorities when they are the taxpayers, the workers, the professionals, the pioneering. Small private businessmen see how Chinese competition destroy their competitiveness and feel that State´s subsidies go to big corporations dominated by a privileged community engaged to the government. They see that housing is a luxurious asset and they are not qualified to receive a house from governments, they see that land and cost of industrial infrastructure is not affordable for their businesses when it is almost free in China or India, that they pay a significant cost for energy due to environment ambitions, and they assume the bill and restrictions of climate change that is just applied for western countries.
Summarizing, the new points of the new Trump-Musk policy are:
a) Prioritizing individual traditional rights like life, free speech, private property, against new social rights.
b) More accent in religious values than in so called” woke ideology.
c) More protectionism to avoid insane competitiveness.
d) Control of immigration to keep traditional values in our societies and safety.
e) Bid for new disruptive technologies with no restriction to compete against China.
f) Create a fast drive to the future in new scenarios like Space, Artic, Seabed.
g) International relations based on businesses more than values revolutionizing the way of conducting international diplomacy.
h) Prioritize economy over climate change.
But they don´t share some important topics:
Trump wants a strong Federal State, compensating less taxes with more debt, promoting public investment, restricting the power of states in key topics like family, abortion, military power, justice, environment protection etc. He does not believe in free and independent justice. Trump is a traditional conservative, peculiar but very linked with the right wing of traditional Republican party. it was not so radical in the past, but today he has found it in this ultra conservatism position, a niche that led him to the White house.
Musk is a liberal in traditional European way, promoting free competition, innovation, prioritizing economy and talent over control of immigration, less state with less duties, less public expenses, less public investment. He has a global approach; isolationism is not an option like in Trump. In the tradeoff between safety and freedom, he opts for the last one.
It is too early to define who will win in this ideological and political battle between Musk and Trump, and what will be the new order, but we can be sure that we will see in coming years things we never thought. We are at the doors of a new big revolution in the West that will affect the whole world.
Is Europe ready for this new order?
It is difficult to answer due to the big differences among European countries. The feelings and ambitions are very far from those ones in US. In Europe, everyone looks for a subsidy -companies, professionals, farmers-. Everyone defends universal and free healthcare, a public pension system financed by taxes, etc. However, this model is obsolete because it is against demography. Everyone sees the government as the solution to the problems and nobody as a problem itself. All far right movements look for more state, more government to satisfy the demands of their new supporters that feel the current system prioritize to others, they believe in Keynes and Galbraith more than in Hayek or Friedman.
Europe has a structural problem, its demography. We are older and we need to replace this old people with young ones because our birth rates are in the underground; then, the only option is immigration, and we see it as a problem. Or we put old people to work, or we have more children (that is not going to happen), or we are to die. If Europe is not consolidated as a State and we stay as small countries in a world with new giants in Africa and Asia, we will be irrelevant in a short time
The far right and neonationalist parties don´t have a solution for these problems, they are lying to people. Closing borders, fighting against woke ideology and keeping subsidies will bring more poverty and then we will be on the hands of the Russians and Americans after two thousand years of world domination. Europe needs a third way and Musk is closer to the solution than Trump.
What can the US allies expect?
The Trump administration’s allies will be those countries that share their political view, neither historical nor cultural reasons will be relevant in this new age. American interest will be the only topic in its agenda. China is the big threat and the enemy in this competition for the world leadership. The rest of countries including north Korea or Russia will be friends or enemies depending upon their contribution to the American goals. Each European country will begin from scratch in the new scenario of relations with US, a big challenge.
If Trump is lucky like in his first mandate, his program will go ahead, however I am afraid that sooner than later all his positions will be under test and then we will check if MAGA means to come back to neoconservatism or keep the isolationist and pacifist positions.
