Enlighten Radio:Enlighten Radio -- Paris on the Potomac, Resistance Radio

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Post: Enlighten Radio -- Paris on the Potomac, Resistance Radio
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Pikerty: Reagan to the power of 10

Reagan to the power of 10

Thomas Piketty

Is Trump a UFO in American history or can he be seen as the continuation of long-term trends? While we have no desire to deny "Donald's" obvious specificities, including his inimitable art of the tweet, we do have to admit that elements of continuity prevail.

The tax agenda which he has just tabled in Congress is eloquent. It can be summed up in two central measures: reduction of federal income tax on corporate profits from 35% to 15% (a rate which Trump would also like to see applied to individual entrepreneurs like himself); a total end to inheritance tax. This is clearly a direct prolongation of the programme for 'scrapping' the progressive tax launched by Reagan in the 1980s.

Let's go back a bit. In order to counter the rise in inequality and the excessive concentration of wealth (at the time, considered as contrary to the democratic spirit in America) and also to avoid any resemblance with Old Europe one day (considered across the Atlantic in the 19th century and at the Belle Epoque as aristocratic and oligarchic, and rightly so), between 1910 and 1920, the United States set up a level of progressive taxation, hitherto unknown in history. This major movement of compression of inequalities implied both taxing income (the rate applied to the highest incomes was on average 82% between 1930 and 1980) and estates, (with rates rising to 70% on the transmission of the largest estates).

All this changed with the election of Reagan in 1980: in 1986, the reform reduced the top rate of income tax and ignored the Social Policies set up by the New Deal under Roosevelt. These were accused of having 'softened' America and to having helped those who lost out during the war to 'catch up'. But Reagan left a high corporate tax in place and high progressive rates of taxation on estates. Thirty years after Reagan and ten years after the first attempt by Bush junior to abolish so-called « death duties », in 2017 Trump has launched a new wave of presents to the biggest and wealthiest fortunes, and all this after abolishing Obamacare.

There is a fair chance that he will be followed by Congress. The Republicans will, of course, attempt to add a "border adjustment mechanism" consisting in authorizing the deduction from exports of the taxable profit and, conversely, in forbidding the deduction from imports (the well-known Ryan plan). This unprecedented blend of corporate tax and of European style V.A.T. has already aroused the anger of the WTO (something which pleases Trump) but also of importers (for example the Walmart supermarkets) which is more problematic. Theoretically the measure could be neutralised by a rise in the dollar, but in practice the exchange rates are determined by many other factors and nobody wants to take the risk.

It is likely that those concerned will settle for targeting specific imports and exports (with the intention of getting the message out that the Republicans defend American industry better than the Democrats, who are described as covert free traders and always ready to give everything to the Mexicans and all those other jealous people who surround America) and that a compromise will be found both for estate duties and for a massive reduction in the rate of corporate company profits, doubtless in the range of 15% to 20%, which may relaunch fiscal dumping in Europe and in the world.

The main question remains: how does a programme which is so clearly pro-rich and anti-social succeed in appealing to a majority of Americans as it did in 1980 and again in 2016? The classical answer is that globalisation and cut-throat competition between countries leads to the reign of each man for himself. But that is not sufficient: we have to add the skill of the Republicans in using nationalist rhetoric, in cultivating a degree of anti-intellectualism and, above all, in dividing the working classes by exacerbating ethnic, cultural and religious divisions.

As early as the 1960s, the Republicans began to benefit from the gradual transfer of part of the vote of the white and southern working classes, unhappy with the civil rights movement and the social policies, accused of benefitting primarily the Black population. This long and in-depth movement continued with the crucial victory of Nixon in 1972 (faced with the Democrat, McGovern, who suggested implementing a universal basic income at federal level, financed by a new increase in estate duties: this was the summit of the Roosevelt Programme), Reagan in 1980, and finally Trump in 2016 (who had no hesitation in racially stigmatising Obamacare, as Nixon and Reagan had done previously).

In the meantime, the Democrat electorate focussed increasingly on the most highly educated and the minorities, and in the end, in some ways resembled the Republican electorate at the end of the 19th century (upscale Whites and Blacks emancipated), as if the wheel had turned full circle and the Roosevelt coalition uniting the working classes over and above racial differences had ultimately only been a parenthesis.

Let's hope that Europe, which in some ways is threatened by a similar development with the working classes having greater faith for their defence in the anti-immigrant forces, than in those who describe themselves as progressive – will be capable of learning the lessons of history. And that the inevitable social failure of Trumpism will not lead our "Donald" into a headlong nationalist and military rush, as it has done others before him.

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John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV

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Links for 06-12-17 [feedly]

Links for 06-12-17
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2017/06/links-for-06-12-17.html

• The resource curse in action - American Economic Association
• Hayek and Temporary Equilibrium - Uneasy Money
• Don't be fooled, Trump's budget proposal is very much 'undead' - Brookings
• The Importance of Exploring the Black/White Wealth Gap - FRB St. Louis
• Tightening by stealth - VoxEU
• Egyptian and Mesopotamian approaches in economics - Tim Johnson
• Imports and the composition of expenditure - Bank Underground
• Fintech, Central Banking and Digital Currency - Cecchetti & Schoenholtz
• Who loses disability insurance when it's harder to apply? - Equitable Growth
• They Don't Need No Information - Paul Krugman
• Health reform in the Age of Trump - VoxEU
• The Value of Free in GDP - Digitopoly
• The changing class divide - Stumbling and Mumbling
• Treasury debt held by the public - Econbrowser
• Child-related transfers, labour supply, and welfare - VoxEU
• The lifecycle of research citations - VoxEU

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Enlighten Radio:Winners and Losers: the Nora's, News and Blues, Rockpile, Best of the Left

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Dan Little: Social change and leadership [feedly]

   

Moderator:

This is a very provocative post from Dan Little. Only one quibble. Even a very enlightened sociologist like Dan Little -- and student of Marx too -- can engage in a confusion  of things Karl Marx said and meant vs things later "Marxists" said and meant. Marx was not a Utopian. Many later "Marxists" were. Indeed. Marx was not a "Marxist."



Social change and leadership

Dan Little Understanding Society
 

http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2017/06/social-change-and-leadership.html

Historians pay a lot of attention to important periods of social change -- the emergence of new political movements, the development of a great city, the end of Jim Crow segregation. There is an inclination to give a lot of weight to the importance of leaders, visionaries, and change-makers in driving these processes to successful outcomes. And, indeed, history correctly records the impact of charismatic and visionary leaders. But consider the larger question: are large social changes amenable to design by a small number of actors?

My inclination is to think that the capacity of calculated design for large, complex social changes is very much more limited than we often imagine. Instead, change more often emerges from the independent strategies and actions of numerous actors, only loosely coordinated with others, and proceeding from their own interests and framing assumptions. The large outcome -- the emergence of Chicago as the major metropolis of the Midwest, the forging of the EU and the monetary union, the coalescence of nationalist movements in France and Germany -- are the resultant of multiple actors and causes. Big outcomes are contingent outcomes of multiple streams of action, mobilization, business decisions, political parties, etc.

There are exceptions, of course. Italy's political history would have been radically different without Mussolini, and the American Civil War would probably have had a different course if Douglas had won the 1860 presidential election. 

But these are exceptions, I believe. More common is the history of Chicago, the surge of right-wing nationalism, or the collapse of the USSR. These are all multi-causal and multi-actor outcomes, and there is no single, unified process of development. And there is no author, no architect, of the outcome. 

So what does this imply about individual leaders and organizations who want to change the social and political environment facing them? Are their aspirations for creating change simply illusions? I don't think so. To deny that single visionaries cannot write the future does not imply they cannot nudge it in a desirable direction. And these effects can indeed alter the future, sometimes in the desired direction. An anti-racist politician can influence voters and institutions in ways that inflect the arc of his or her society in a less racist way. This doesn't permanently solve the problem, but it helps. And with good fortune, other actors will have made similar efforts, and gradually the situation of racism changes. 

This framework for thinking about large social change raises large questions about how we should think about improving the world around us. It seems to imply the importance of local and decentralized social change. We should perhaps adjust our aspirations for social progress around the idea of slow, incremental change through many actors, organizations, and coalitions. As Marx once wrote, "men make their own history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing." And we can add a qualification Marx would not have appreciated: change makers are best advised to construct their plans around long, slow, and incremental change instead of blueprints for unified, utopian change. 

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Absent a More Progressive Economics, the Democrats Will Lose [feedly]

Absent a More Progressive Economics, the Democrats Will Lose
http://prospect.org/article/absent-more-progressive-economics-democrats-will-lose

The challenge Democrats face today—uniting a broad coalition of working class Americans that spans racial, regional, gender, and generational lines—is far from new, but it has not always been this daunting. 

The staggering results of last November's election should be a reminder to Democrats that the racially diverse, young, educated, unmarried (women), and urban voters who comprised a significant portion of the Obama coalition do not constitute an inexorable path to Electoral College victory for Democrats. In 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama consolidated the Rising American Electorate (RAE), but also captured critical majorities in places like Sawyer County, Wisconsin; Luzerne County, Pennsylvania; and Macomb County, Michigan—all home to significant numbers of white working class voters. These were just three of the 219 counties that flipped from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016.

White working class voters in these parts of the country, once hubs of manufacturing and production, feel economically abandoned by both parties in the nation's capital. Many are still reeling from the effects of an increasingly globalized economy that has traded American jobs for corporate profits made on the backs of cheap overseas labor, and they are disillusioned with a political establishment in Washington that they see as more interested in rewarding wealthy campaign benefactors, and the industries and interests they represent, than they are in helping ordinary Americans.

Where working people of all races once helped deliver Democratic victories under Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, winning a majority of white working class voters has proven elusive to Democrats in the modern era of political campaigns.

Since 1980, Democrats have failed to carry this key constituency in presidential contests—with two exceptions. In the 1992 presidential race and again in 1996, Bill Clinton bested his Republican rivals among white non-college educated voters, in each instance with a plurality and by one point. Since Clinton's re-election, however, non-college educated white voters have consistently evaded the Democrats' grasp.

While Donald Trump's sweeping victory this past November revealed a widening gulf between the voting patterns of college educated and non-college educated whites (Trump won the former group by 4 points, and the latter by 39), the Democratic Party's problems with the white working class, therefore, are decidedly not new. Neither are efforts—like this commendable undertaking—to analyze the challenge and devise a solution.

The White House

The Obama administration's embrace of the financial industry early in his first term led to a new low point in the Democratic Party's credibility as a check on Wall Street. Here, President Obama talks with Chief of Staff Jack Lew and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as they walk on the Colonnade of the White House in 2013. 

Individual proposals for reform may test well with voters, but these ideas alone are not enough. To meaningfully re-engage the white working class with the Democratic Party's agenda, a compelling narrative about how our platform provides genuine solutions to the growth of an American plutocracy is of critical importance.

Indeed, a CNN/ORC poll conducted in February of 2016 showed that the vast majority of Americans believe that the U.S. economic system generally favors the wealthy (71 percent) instead of being fair to most people (27 percent). The idea that income and wealth should be more evenly distributed among Americans has won the support of 60 percent or greater since 2012, but Americans are skeptical that government officials will act to protect their best interests. According to a 2015 Gallup report, 75 percent of Americans perceive corruption as widespread in the country's government.

Not only have Democrats presided in Washington for significant stretches while these trends have developed; they have, in visible ways, exacerbated those trends, through, for instance, global trade deals enacted in the 1990s and the repeal of Glass-Steagall. This is certainly not to blame the Democratic Party for all the ills that have been inflicted on the country over the past 40 years, far from it. But too many times, our party has been guilty not just of sins of omission—failing to stand up to the Republicans on critical issues, or even providing the GOP cover in some cases (as when some congressional Democrats supported the Bush tax cuts and the war in Iraq)—but of commission, too. The Obama administration's embrace of the financial industry early in his first term, combined with its decision not to prosecute any of the individuals and institutions responsible for the economic collapse of 2008, led to a new low point in the Democratic Party's credibility as a check on Wall Street. In the 2010 midterm elections, voters who blamed Wall Street for the country's economic problems preferred Republican candidates by a margin of 16 points, despite the Democratic Party's efforts to deliver a message against Wall Street special interests.

Given this reality, it is not particularly surprising that the party has yet to articulate a clearer, more credible, and more commanding vision for the economic revitalization of the country, the middle class, and, more specifically, the hollowed-out communities in which many white working class voters struggle. The white working class's sense of its economic isolation is compounded by a gap in cultural sensibilities: White working class voters, particularly baby boomers and older, tend to be less liberal on social issues than their more educated (and more urban) counterparts, whose support has been nurtured by the Democratic Party for the past several election cycles.

In a political environment where Republicans have shifted the terms of debate to stoke racist biases (nearly half of Trump's supporters describe African Americans as more "violent" than whites) and sexist inclinations (67 percent of Trump supporters deny the role of sexism in America), the need for a forceful, serious, policy, and values-driven Democratic platform has never been greater. To be sure, Democrats have increased their support among college-educated whites: Hillary Clinton trailed Trump by only 4 points among these voters in 2016, whereas Obama lost this group by 14 points to Mitt Romney in 2012. But that gain was overwhelmed by Clinton's abysmal performance within the white working class.

Playing to Populist Strengths

Far from being a call for Democrats to moderate their stance on such issues as a woman's right to choose, gun safety reforms, and equal protection of civil rights for all Americans, our point is that when Democrats fail to offer a compelling economic vision and agenda, the opposition not only benefits from that failure, but is allowed the opportunity to shift the debate to areas where it enjoys greater advantages over Democrats.

Recent face-to-face conversations with working class voters in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania conducted by Working America in the weeks following the election underscore the intense economic anxiety that pervades their communities and their lives. Working-class Trump and Clinton voters alike reported that they wanted the president-elect to address jobs and the economy first, with Trump voters expressing more urgency (37 percent said that the economy and jobs are the most important issue, compared to 21 percent of Clinton voters).

For some white working class Trump voters, their perception of the candidate's focus on bringing jobs back to their communities took priority over their serious misgivings about him. As one white working class Trump voter from the Pittsburgh area told Working America: "Trump's an asshole. But sometimes you need an asshole to make things better and shake things up." Both Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016 tapped into an intense desire for change and spoke to pervasive economic anxieties; this thematic commonality helps to explain the crossover appeal of two otherwise completely different politicians for some white working class voters.

For the last several election cycles, we have urged Democrats to develop a vision for the American economy that addresses the deep-rooted concerns of the working class and provides solutions to the scope of the challenges we face. Trump's ascent to power on the strength of a white working class supermajority, though he was the most disliked presidential candidate in history, reminds us that this economic message and policy agenda is more important now than ever.

Given the Democratic Party's historic deficits with this demographic group, it is unlikely—and unrealistic—that Democrats will be able to make up all the ground that has been lost with white working class voters by 2018 or even 2020. As such, the Democratic Party's efforts should be structured specifically to engage the white working class voters that Obama won in 2008 and 2012 that Clinton then lost in 2016—the voters living in swing counties like Sawyer, Luzerne, and Macomb. Such efforts must not come at the expense of (re)engaging the sometime voters among minorities and the young—significant swaths of the country who do not regularly turn out to vote, whose patterns of voting are irregular, or who no longer feel a sense of loyalty to the Democrats; we look forward to that discussion as well.

Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons

For some white working class Trump voters, their perception of the candidate's focus on bringing jobs back to their communities took priority over their serious misgivings about him. Here, Trump supporters hold signs at a campaign rally in Las Vegas.

According to estimates by The New York Times and The New Republic, the election was lost for Clinton by between 77,000 and 110,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Making up this difference will be key if the Democrats are to build back from what is a historic nadir of political power at all levels of government.

The Democratic Party will require a robust economic vision that appeals to the appetite for populist reform; a forceful push-back against Trump policies that hurt working Americans; and a commitment to campaign-finance reform and removing the influence of big money in elections, which voters believe is the first step to implementing economic—and other types of needed—change.

Economic proposals will not be enough. The Democratic Party's historic strength, dating back to the New Deal, has been to offer a vision of government that actively works to protect working people and makes their lives better. A central appeal of the current economic populist agenda focuses on the importance of limiting the power of big money in politics.

Especially in the aftermath of the Citizens United ruling, Americans of both parties wish to restrict the political influence of the hyper wealthy. A February 2016 poll conducted by Rasmussen Research found that 76 percent of Americans believe that the wealthiest individuals and companies have too much power and influence over elections—a majority that holds across gender, age, race, and party lines.

Our own research in 2011 found that, above all other regulations, voters are interested in government oversight of the relationship between special interests and politicians (77 percent). A populist economic message is especially powerful when it hinges on a greater push for reform; by utilizing this frame, the Democratic Party should be able to draw contrasts that blunt the appeal of populism on the right.

Now that Trump is president, with policies favoring the plutocrats, the Democrats should be able to turn his populist message against him. Part of that pushback should be grounded in clear, broadly disseminated articulations of how his administration's actions are hurting all working-class Americans. It will be especially important for the party to gain an edge from his administration's inability to deliver on promises for a better economy with good-paying jobs.

Additionally, the Democrats face the real challenge of embodying the values of working Americans through their candidates, their professed values, the scope of their policy agenda, and their commitment to action. A crucial step in this process must be purposefully cultivating and supporting candidates who resonate with working class Americans, even if they lack the financial heft that has characterized the prototypical Democratic candidate in recent years. 

A Party Building Economic Vision

In our post-election work, we've found that even Clinton voters have struggled to identify the Democratic Party's vision for the country's future. Formulating such a vision shouldn't be all that difficult. A national survey conducted in 2015 for the Progressive Change Institute explored the public's appetite for a number of far-reaching economic reforms and bold policy ideas, and found strong enthusiasm from the majority of voters. A proposal to institute fair trade that protects workers, the environment, and jobs enjoyed the support of 75 percent of voters. Similarly, more than seven-in-ten voters (71 percent) supported a Medicare buy-in for all Americans; a Full Employment Act (70 percent support); a Green New Deal and major infrastructure jobs programs (70 percent support each); taxing the rich at the same higher rate that President Reagan did (59 percent support); and breaking up the big banks (59 percent support). Our own research has shown that support for strengthening—and expanding—Social Security and Medicare will also be particularly important, especially giving the relatively advanced age of the 2018 midterm electorate.

The support for such economic reforms (the aforementioned are but a handful of examples) is buttressed by similarly widespread public backing for policies aimed at giving ordinary Americans a voice in their government again: a proposal to end gerrymandering receives support from 73 percent of voters; public matching for small dollar donations receives support from 57 percent of voters, and full disclosure of corporate spending on politics and lobbying receives support from 71 percent of voters. A laundry list of popular policy prescriptions do not a winning economic message make, yet these results suggest that the time has come to structure the Democratic Party's agenda around robust reforms—on dimensions of significant economic and political change. 

 

Nick Solari/Creative Commons

In many ways, the path forward for rebuilding the Democratic Party's relationship with the white working class was articulated best by Senator Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign. Here, Sanders speaks at a campaign rally in New Orleans. 

 

BUILDING POLITICAL SUPPORT is partly the work of effective messaging. Our polling has shown that when we describe economic conditions through the lens of lived experience—"can't make ends meet" or "can't pull ahead no matter how hard they try"—instead of through abstractions, voters listen and often move to our side. Being explicit about causes of economic harm by referring to CEOs and other leaders provides clarity and generates support for our message, as well. 

In many ways, the path forward for rebuilding the Democratic Party's relationship with the white working class was articulated best by Senator Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign. Sanders's message centered on unabashed economic populism and a commitment to remove the influence of corporate money from our politics—and hence, our government. This message has also been championed by Elizabeth Warren, Elijah Cummings, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus as well. Indeed, the latest GWU Battleground Poll suggests that Senator Sanders remains well positioned to serve as a source of strength and leadership. A solid majority (56 percent) of voters hold a positive opinion of him—a higher favorability rating than those of the other national leaders tested in the poll. Sanders and Hillary Clinton are virtually tied in terms of favorability among Democratic women, and African American and Latino voters are warmer to Sanders than they are to Clinton. While non-college educated white voters are split in their view of Sanders (40 percent favorable, 39 percent unfavorable), he far outperforms the Democrats' 2016 presidential nominee as well as the image of the party as a whole among those voters. Again, we must remind ourselves that the (near-term) objective is not to win over majorities of these voters; it is to improve—and measurably so—on their declining support for Democrats in recent elections.

Sanders's primary election successes in the states and counties that flipped from Obama victories in 2012 to Trump victories in 2016 further underscore the appeal of his progressive message, especially as we look toward targeting these swing votes in upcoming elections. In Wisconsin, for example, 21 counties that Barack Obama won in 2012 voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Every single one of those 21 counties were won by Bernie Sanders in the April 2016 Wisconsin Democratic Primary, which Sanders won handily.

In the Michigan Primary, which Sanders won narrowly, nine of the 12 counties that flipped from Obama to Trump were won by Sanders as well. Obviously, there are numerous problems in comparing white working class Democratic primary voters to white working class general election voters. Yet, this is far from the only evidence pointing to Sanders' appeal among white working class independents, many of whom he successfully encouraged to join the ranks of the Democratic Party by participating in the 2016 primaries. In a head-to-head matchup between Sanders and Trump in our own April 2016 Battleground survey, Sanders bested Trump 51 percent to 40 percent. Among white non-college graduates, Trump beat Sanders 49 percent to 41 percent, but that margin is far smaller than the 39-point margin that Trump racked up over Clinton in November.

While Sanders's personal popularity and influence is an important takeaway from these data, the more salient point is that the Democratic Party stands to gain politically when it returns its focus to issues of class, including the substantial and ongoing challenges of income inequality and the negative influence of corporate special interests on the lives of working-class Americans of all kinds.

Effectively engaging the white working class is an essential task for the Democratic Party, but we must also acknowledge that this work will go to waste if we ignore our base. The approaches outlined here can serve to energize the base as well as engage the white working class. By moving forward with an agenda that explicitly continues our commitment to racial and gender justice and opportunities for all, including immigrants, we will work to ensure that our base ratifies our message in future elections. 

The path forward will not be easy, but neither is it as mystifying as some may imagine. A sweeping platform of economic and political change resonates powerfully with white working class voters and the young, diverse, educated, and urban voters whom Democrats must nurture and energize if it hopes to be successful in the 2018 midterms. Embracing this change will require not just political smarts, however, but political will. Democratic activists will need either to convince the party's establishment of the necessity of this approach—or failing that, actively work to replace it. For the Democratic Party, the stakes have never been higher and the challenges have never been clearer.

Click here to read the rest of our series on the White Working Class and the Democrats.

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The Trump Doctrine Emerges, and It's as Bad as We Thought [feedly]

The Trump Doctrine Emerges, and It's as Bad as We Thought
http://prospect.org/article/trump-doctrine-emerges-and-its-bad-we-thought

Environmental activists protest Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, outside Trump Tower in Chicago on June 2, 2017.

Donald Trump possesses a remarkable ability to appall us by doing exactly what he said he would when he ran for president. True, he has abandoned some promises and flip-flopped here and there, but mostly on the stuff that everyone knew was bogus from the start, unless you were possessed of an epic naïveté. (Oh dear, he's not really going to "drain the swamp" and stick it to Wall Street? I'm shocked.) Nevertheless, with each new decision, initiative, and reaction, the Trump presidency turns out to be as bad as we thought—or worse. The most alarming thing is that he is exactly who he seemed to be.

This week's reality-TV-style announcement that he will pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement showed Trump at his most Trumpian, commandeering the media's attention for a lurid and self-congratulatory display of ignorance, dishonesty, and primitive tribalism. It also showed that the Trump Doctrine in foreign affairs is taking shape. A man who knows nothing about the world has a firm and unshakeable principle on which he will construct his foreign policy. It says that there is only one question that needs to be asked: What's in it for me?

That Trump would bring his transactional mindset to foreign affairs is no surprise. He has made it plain that he thinks about every interaction with friend or foe as a "deal," something to be negotiated to get the best possible terms. Alliances from which everyone benefits or actions that have a short-term cost but long-term, widely shared gains just make no sense to him.

Which is why he was bound to walk away from the Paris Agreement. After all, it involved the entire world joining together to make progress on a common problem, while Trump has been quite explicit that his goal is to gain advantage on other countries. When he says "America First," he doesn't just mean that he cares more about our own welfare than that of other countries and people, but that he wants to win, which means others have to lose. As his national security adviser H.R. McMaster and his chief economic adviser Gary Cohn wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week (clearly channeling their boss, though in more articulate terms), "the world is not a 'global community' but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors, and businesses engage and compete for advantage." If that's what you believe, then of course you have no patience for an international agreement to reduce greenhouse emissions.

The idea of gaining advantage ran through the speech Trump gave on Thursday announcing the pullout from the agreement. Consider his assertion that this was only one phase in a negotiation to come:

Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers. So we're getting out. But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that's fair. And if we can, that's great. And if we can't, that's fine.

This is ridiculous on multiple levels. First, there will be no renegotiation. The Paris Agreement was worked out with every country on earth except for Nicaragua and Syria. They aren't going to redo that entire process in the hopes that Trump might find some other hypothetical agreement more satisfying. Second, there will be no "new transaction," because it isn't a transaction at all. It's a pledge by all those countries to reduce their emissions. Third, the emission targets are voluntary. It can't be terribly unfair to the United States if there is zero consequence for the United States not meeting its targets. And those targets weren't forced on us by some cruel foreign government; each country came up with its own.

As Daniel Larison of The American Conservative pointed out, this has been a regular part of Trump's deal-making strategy throughout his career: renege on the deal, and assume that the other party will come crawling back with terms that are more favorable to you. That's the point of not paying his bills, something for which Trump was so often sued. He figured that at best he could get something for nothing, and at worst he could get it for a fraction of what he agreed to pay, because the stiffed vendor would rather accept pennies on the dollar than get nothing at all. Sometimes it even worked.

For Trump, every bit of foreign relations is a transaction and every transaction is a hostile one, so the very idea of countries coming together to achieve a common goal simply makes no sense. A "deal" is where you negotiate terms that you hope enable you to take advantage of the person across the table. A "bad deal" is one where they screwed you over, and a "good deal" is one where you screwed them over. That's all Trump understands. So if we didn't screw everyone else over, we must have been the victims. "This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States," he said.

This is the heart of the Trump Doctrine, a belief that the only way to approach the world is by trying to do it to them before they do it to us. If there's some short-term benefit to be gained for us, we can do a deal. If not, forget it.

So what happens to American leadership when that is the guiding philosophy of the American administration? What happens is that people and governments begin to realize that they can't rely on the United States as an ally or a partner unless the angry toddler in the White House is convinced that he's getting one over on them. International agreements become somewhere between difficult and impossible to negotiate. Allies assume they'll be left on their own. It becomes harder to persuade other countries to join with us when we need them. And eventually, the very idea of "American leadership" begins to disappear. 

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