Why did it take so long? Trump-Bannonism in a global conjunctural frame

Abstract

This is a revised and extended version of my keynote lecture to the Vega Symposium on Resurgent Nationalisms and Populist Politics in the Neoliberal Age, held at the Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, in April 2018. It is part of a Special Issue of Geografiska Annaler, Series B that also includes my Introduction, and articles by Manu Goswami, Tova Höjdestrand and Kanishka Goonewardena, based on their contributions to the Symposium. In this essay I bring South Africa, India and the United States into the same global frame to comprehend the rise of exclusionary nationalisms and rightwing populist politics in relation to neoliberal forms of capitalism and modalities of rule. Rather than pre-given bounded national units or separate 'cases', I regard them as related yet historically specific nodes in globally interconnected historical geographies, and focus as well on new forms of U.S. imperialism since the 1980s. This global frame enables new and different questions. Instead of asking what explains Trumpism (or Trump-Bannonism), the question rather is why did it take so long for a demagogic figure like Trump to ascend to power, given the long histories of racism and right-wing Christian nationalism in the United States; the ravages of neoliberal forms of capitalism; and abandonment of the working class by the Democratic Party? To engage this question, I combine my earlier work on relational comparison with Antonio Gramsci's method of conjunctural analysis.

Was it rural populism? Returning to the country, “catching up,” and trying to understand the Trump vote

“… Hart (2018a ; 2020a ; 2020b) sharpens and refines Hall's analytic of articulation to understand what she identifies as “Trump-Bannonism” through a global conjunctural frame alongside the earlier emergence of distinct but interconnected exclusionary nationalisms in India and South Africa. Hart explains Trump's coalition as a contingent articulation of “long histories of racism and right-wing Christian nationalism in the United States; the ravages of neoliberal forms of capitalism; and abandonment of the working class by the Democratic Party.” Trump enrolled the combined neglect and wounded privilege of a white Christian (and at least aspirational) Middle Class, whose political ire through decades of political maneuver could be shifted “from Wall Street to Washington.” My conversations in Henry surely reflect this as many interlocutors proclaimed their distaste for politics, politicians and, specifically, those perceived as being the “elite” or “establishment” in Chicago (Illinois' de facto seat of political power) and Washington, D.C.…”

“…In this brief conclusion, I now suggest that the same analytic is crucial to understanding how Trump's contradictory project — always already coming apart at the seams yet likely to outlast him — could be actively opposed and even unraveled. Insisting on the analytic of articulation as well as a global conjunctural frame, as Hart (2020b) says eloquently, is not just to provide a better explanation of the processes that have generated intensified racist and xenophobic forms of nationalism and populist politics, but to enable a deeper dialectical understanding both of the slippages, openings and contradictions they are generating in practice in different regions of the world – and of emerging challenges, opportunities, and possibilities for alliances and creative political action. …”

“…As I headed off to Henry, observers had diagnosed Trump and other leaders and movements globally as evidence of a spreading “new nationalism” ( Economist 2016 ) or, in more nuanced treatments, a range of interconnected authoritarian populisms ( Scoones et al, 2017 ). Yet even a cursory view of literature before and since Trump's election makes clear that many complicated right-wing political formations have been simmering in the U.S. and abroad for decades ( Davis 2004 ; Davis, 2017 Frank 2004 ; Rosenthal and Trost 2012 ; Economist 2017 ; Hart 2019 , 2020b ; Frank, 2020 ).…”

America’s new racial politics: white protectionism, racial reparations, and American identity

“…Trump, to be sure, occasionally says he disavows white supremacy and white nationalism; but he has repeatedly defended those marching under their banners, retweeted their messages, and appointed people long associated with them to public offices (Collins 2020 ). Trump does frequently describe himself as a nationalist, and he, like his former adviser Steve Bannon, frequently expresses solidarity with authoritarian nationalist leaders and movements around the world, most of whom stress not only national sovereignty, but also the desirability of maintaining the superior position of their dominant ethnocultural groups (Hart 2020 ). The recent resurgence of ethnocultural nationalisms and associated intolerance in states is a global phenomenon that reinforces the sense of Trump and many of his supporters that they are the future.…”

Counterinsurgency Reexamined: Racism, Capitalism, and US Military Doctrine

“… On the political‐economic shifts leading to massive inflow of capital in this moment of US military expansion at the same time as constraint in terms of proxy wars, see Hart (forthcoming). …”