The End Of Liberalism, Or The Return To The Nineties?

What Trump’s win actually signifies

The famed political scientist Francis Fukuyama sees a dramatic end to liberalism in Donald Trump’s election victory. “Trump is inaugurating a new era in US politics and perhaps for the world as a whole,” the End of History author wrote in a Financial Times column. He claims Trump heralds liberalism’s demise due to his support for tariffs, immigration restriction, “isolationism,” and authoritarian governance.

The liberalism in Fukuyama’s piece isn’t merely the ideology of the Democratic Party, which it usually refers to in the American context. The political scientist means it to describe the entire political system of the West. “Classical liberalism is a doctrine built around respect for the equal dignity of individuals through a rule of law that protects their rights, and through constitutional checks on the state’s ability to interfere with those rights,” Fukuyama describes it.

Trump’s effect on American society is already significant, according to Fukuyama:

He has deepened an already substantial polarisation within society, and turned the US from a high-trust to a low-trust society; he has demonised the government and weakened belief that it represents the collective interests of Americans; he has coarsened political rhetoric and given permission for overt expressions of bigotry and misogyny; and he has convinced a majority of Republicans that his predecessor was an illegitimate president who stole the 2020 election.

There is a lot of hysteric rhetoric right now over Trump’s win. Many liberals are melting down that Trump is the new Hitler and we’re witnessing the destruction of “our democracy.” Fukuyama is a serious person and thinker, so his pronouncements deserve more attention than the ravings of a Jen Rubin.

Trump being the executioner of liberalism would be welcome news to right-wingers, but that’s a little overblown. Trump will do a lot of things better than what the system does now. However, he is not going to destroy it and replace it with something outside the liberal tradition. Fukuyama indicates this when he struggles to define what exactly Trump is. Unlike hysteric MSNBC liberals, he does not claim the president-elect is a fascist. The theorist says Trump is some kind of authoritarian not in keeping with the prevailing American consensus. Thus, he poses a mortal threat to liberalism.

In reality, Trump is not some aberration in the American political tradition. As a few right-wingers point out, much of his politics bears some similarities to Bill Clinton’s centrism. Clinton, at one time, advocated for immigration restriction, tough-on-crime policies, and moderation on social liberalism. There are key differences between Trump and 90s Clinton on trade and foreign policy, but trade protectionism and non-interventionism are well-represented in the American political tradition.

The right-wingers who claim Trump is a Clintonite often mean it as a lamentation. They wish Trump were the anti-liberal of Fukuyama’s imagination. 

But Trump isn’t a mere rehash of Clintonian liberalism. He represents a new political consensus that could pave the way for future right-wing advancement. On many issues, Trump now stands with the mainstream rather than against it. This is a good thing.

When Trump first won the presidency, his views came up against the wall of the prevailing consensus. There was a frontlash to his views as America reached peak wokeness during the Trump admin. It’s a completely different story today.

Trump’s victory signifies the public’s rejection of wokeness. People have had enough of DEI trainings and mandatory pronouns. They associate these annoyances with the Democrats. They see Trump as the guy who will end these PC irritations and let them get back to normal. The decreasing volume of social media censorship and greater tolerance for public Trump support shows the public’s declining appetite for woke tyranny. Even the Democrats realized they had gotten too woke and tried to dial it down in the election. It was too little, too late. But even the most left-wing Democrats are apparently moving beyond peak woke. AOC recently deleted her pronouns from her X bio, indicating woke’s declining popularity.

Trump’s hardline immigration views now line up with the public’s stance. When he was president, more Americans said we need to increase immigration and adopt softer policies towards illegal immigrants in opposition to Trump’s views. Now it’s reversed. The majority of Americans want mass deportations, a border wall, and immigration reduced overall. Trump’s immigration agenda is a mandate from the people and a sign of a new consensus emerging on the issue. Kamala Harris went from wanting to abolish ICE in the 2020 campaign to pretending to be a border hawk as a sop to public opinion.

Trade protectionism is more mainstream than ever as well. President Biden kept Trump’s tariffs on China. He also advocated for returning manufacturing to the U.S. and promoted an economic nationalism that sounded awfully Trumpian. 

Trump’s non-interventionism also aligns with public opinion. When asked about various conflicts around the world, over 60 percent of Americans say they oppose involving our troops in these hot zones. Many Americans are skeptical of our international commitments. Trump is not some outlier on this subject.

The mainstream has finally caught up to Trump. Many on the Right may bemoan this as a sign that Trump is no longer a radical force and will be easily co-opted. That’s the wrong way to look at this. 

Trump is pushing the public to embrace ideas and actions they would’ve once thought beyond the pale. More Americans being open to right-wing ideas is a good thing.

It might not be the end of liberalism, and it may bear a passing resemblance to the Nineties consensus. But the Trump era is still an exciting time that augurs a dramatic shakeup in American politics. The people want nationalism more than ever, and Trump has more political capital to deliver it to them. There will still be a lot of conflict and change wrought by these actions, which will likely push the country in an even more right-wing direction. 

It will just happen within the confines of the system, in contrast to the wishes and fears of those who see the whole order collapsing under the onslaught of Trumpism.