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Donald Trump, Globalization, and Modernity

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Abstract

The election of Donald Trump can be partially understood in the context of the rise of authoritarian populist, nationalist, and anti-globalist movements throughout the world. Unlike previous American presidents in the modern era, however, Donald Trump had no previous political experience and emerged from media culture and the business world, rather than the world of party politics. In this paper, I will focus on the assault on globalization in the Trump campaign, look at his administration and actions as president, and raise questions concerning whether or not he has betrayed his anti-globalist followers and is pursing business-as-usual for global, corporate capitalism—or something else. This investigation also leads us into engaging the Trump campaign/administration connections with Russia and the role of Russia and global computer networks in Election 2016, making Election 2016 the first US election deeply shaped by global political forces and the Internet, new media, and social networking.

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Notes

  1. My perspective on Trump and the 2016 election are found in Douglas Kellner, American Nightmare: Donald Trump, Media Spectacle, and Authoritarian Populism (Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers, 2016), published before the election and a follow-up book published after the election that covers the election and first 100 days of the Trump administration, The American Horror Show: Election 2016 and the Ascendency of Donald J. Trump (Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers, 2017). This study draws on my previous research but focuses on the theme of Trump, globalization, and modernity and goes through the first 12 months of the Trump administration.

  2. See D’Antonio (2015), Blair (2000) and Kranish and Fisher (2016). Blair’s chapter on “Born to Compete,” op. cit., pp. 223ff., documents Trump’s competitiveness and drive for success at an early age.

  3. For my take on celebrity politics and the implosion of entertainment and politics in US society, see Kellner (2015, pp. 114–134). See also Wheeler (2013). On Trump, the media, and his long cultivation and exploitation of celebrity, see O'Brien (2016 [2005]).

  4. Trump’s book The Art of the Deal, co-written with Tony Schwartz (2005 [1987]), helped introduce him to a national audience and is a key source of the Trump mythology; see Blair (2000, pp. 380ff).

  5. For the story of Trump’s financial down-fall and near collapse in the 1980 s and 1990 s, see the detailed and well-documented narratives in Barrett (2016), O'Donnell and Rutherford (1991), D’Antonio (2015) and Kranish and Fisher (2016).

  6. On the debates over globalization, see Rossi (2007) and Cvetkovich and Kellner (1997). For my own takes on globalization see the Introduction to the latter book and Douglas Kellner.

  7. On Trump’s business investments and history, only partly documented, see D’Antonio (2015), Blair (2000) and Kranish and Fisher (2016).

  8. See the sources on globalization in Note 3 and the vast and ever-expanding library on globalization of texts that combines critique of negative and destructive features of globalization with analysis of democratizing and progressive features, such as Routledge Companion to Global Popular Culture, edited by Toby Miller, London and New York: Routledge, 2015: Postmodernism in a Global Perspective, edited by Samir Dasgupta and Peter Kivisto. London and Delhi: Sage Books, 2014; and The Blackwell Companion to Globalization, edited by George Ritzer. Malden, MA. and Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2007, among a small library of other books on globalization.

  9. On the Tillerston/Russian connections, see Coll (2013).

  10. Coll, whose book Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, op. cit., is considered a major book on ExxonMobil, claimed: “reporting on Exxon was not only harder than reporting on the Bin Ladens, it was harder than reporting on the CIA by an order of magnitude,” adding: “They have a culture of intimidation that they bring to bear in their external relations, and it is plenty understood inside the corporation too. They make people nervous, they make people afraid.” Cited in Mimi Schwartz, “An Extended Interview with Steve Coll,” Texas Monthly. May 2012 at http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/an-extended-interview-with-steve-coll/ (accessed December 9, 2016).

  11. On Russia’s intervention into the Ukraine and Crimea and ensuing global controversy, see Stephen Lee Myers, The New Tsar. The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin. New York: Vintage Books, 2016.

  12. For a book that documents Russia’s hacking of Election 2016, within the context of Russia’s foreign policy and use of hacking and “comprising material,” written by a former US intelligence agent, see Nance (2016). Others have claimed that the alleged Russian hack was an invention of US intelligence services and fake news mass media, a position taken as well by Putin and the Russians and initially by Trump; see Kovalik (2017). Presumably, the multiple investigations by Congress, the US government, the global media, and other entities will help document the complex events of the Trump-Russia connections.

  13. On the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, the Contra war, and the Reagan administration, see Philip W. Travis, Reagan's War on Terrorism in Nicaragua: The Outlaw State. Lexington, Ky.: Lexington Books, 2016.

  14. Katherine Skiba, David Heinzmann and Todd Lighty, “Peter W. Smith, GOP operative who sought Clinton’s emails from Russian hackers, committed suicide, records show,” Chicago Tribune, July 13, 2017 at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ (accessed July 15, 2017). See also Katherine Skiba, David Heinzmann, and Todd Lighty, “Details of GOP donor’s death emerge,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 2017: A12.

  15. Ryan Lucas, “Researcher Behind Unverified Trump Dossier Meets Senate Investigators,” NPR, August 23, 2017 at http://www.npr.org/2017/08/23/545289362/researcher-behind-unverified-trump-dossier-meets-senate-investigators (accessed July 17, 2017). For a detailed account of the compiling of the Trump-Russia dossier, see Howard Blum, “Ex-Spy Christopher Steele Compiled His Explosive Trump-Russia Dossier. The man behind the infamous dossier that raises the possibility that Donald Trump may be vulnerable to Kremlin blackmail is Russia expert Christopher Steele, formerly of M.I.6. Here’s the story of his investigation.” Vanity Fair, March 30, at https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/how-the-explosive-russian-dossier-was-compiled-christopher-steele (accessed August 17, 2017).

  16. Ishaan Tharoor, “Mueller to Trump: Be afraid. Be very afraid.” Washington Post, October 31, 2017 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/10/31/mueller-to-trump-be-afraid-be-very-afraid/?utm_term=.3e7ed1c45954.

  17. The Donald Trump Jr revelations were accompanied by a release of emails documenting Trump’s connections with Russian associates who claimed to have compromising materials on Clinton, a bombshell that dominated cable news on July 11, 2017 and that was documented in the New York Times and Washington Post with copious articles and opinion pieces on July 11 and 12, 2017. The following days there were revelations that further individuals, who might have connections to Russian intelligence were also present; these events are being further investigated as I write, raising serious political and legal issues for the Trump inner circle, already under attack for their Russian connections.

  18. The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) aired a two-part documentary that also advanced this point of view called “Putin’s Revenge” (October 25 and November 1, 2017). Putin has long believed that Hillary Clinton was the spearhead of US interference in Russian affairs during her role as Secretary of State under Obama; see David M. Herszenhorn and Ellen Barry, “Putin Contends Clinton Incited Unrest Over Vote,” The New York Times, December 8, 2011, at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/world/europe/putin-accuses-clinton-of-instigating-russian-protests.html (accessed July 17, 2017).

  19. The hacking is documented in Nance, op. cit., and many mainstream media sources, although it is denied in Kovalik, op. cit., and pro-Trump sources from the swamps and whacko-worlds of “alternative facts” which may be the enduring legacy of the Trump presidency. For a comprehensive analysis of how the Russian hacking interfered in the 2016 election and dangers for the future of US democracy, see Calabresi (2017, pp. 30–35).

  20. Editorial, “Russia’s Fake Americans,” The New York Times, September 9, 2017: A22 and Scott Shane, “The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election,” The New York Times, September 2, 2017 at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/us/politics/russia-facebook-twitter-election.html (accessed October 15, 2017).

  21. The New York Times has documented the lies of the Trump administration; see David Leonhardt and Stuart A. Thompson, “Trump’s Lies,” The New York Times, June 23, 2017, at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html (accessed July 13, 2017).

  22. Editorial, “One Finger on the Button Is Too Few,” New York Times, October 12, 2017: A22. A letter to the editor in the Guardian pointed out that American social critic HL Mencken predicted in the Baltimore Sun on July 26, 1920, that: “As democracy is perfected, the office [of president] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” See Bruce Vivash Jones, “HL Mencken predicted a moron in the White House,” The Guardian, October 13, 2017, at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/13/hl-mencken-predicted-a-moron-in-the-white-house (accessed October 13, 2017).

  23. On July 11, The Rachel Maddow Show spent long segments how Trump administration policies constitute “Russia’s Wish List,” and how Trump has consistently carried out policies in Russia’s interests, as I have also been arguing since publishing The American Horror Show.

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  1. UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Douglas Kellner

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Kellner, D. Donald Trump, Globalization, and Modernity. Fudan J. Hum. Soc. Sci. 11, 265–284 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-017-0208-5

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