Con-Artists, Neoliberal Ideology, and an Explanation for Support for Donald Trump
By Stephen Gasteyer
Initially Published on Word Press: July 25, 2016
Donald Trump’s success in becoming the nominee of one of the two major US political parties is one of the most intriguing events of recent US political history. Mr. Trump has no experience in public office, has never seriously commented on public policy, and doesn’t have experience leading a major arm of government, like, for instance, the military (as had previous presidents). At most, he is a flamboyant real estate mogul and reality television star, who has had political ambitions dating back a decade or so. All of this would be intriguing enough if Trump were able to stand before us and dazzle us with a knowledge of how policy works. But he doesn’t. He declares he will do things, usually without many, if any, of the details of how and on what basis.
But here’s the real kicker — when he does try to make an evidence based case, there are almost always factual inaccuracies in his evidence! Look, for example, at the week of the 2016 Republican Convention: Trump gave a foreign policy speech filled with factual inaccuracies about the cornerstone of his criticism of Clinton, the Bengazi, Libya debacle; he gave an interview in which he claimed credit for picking Cleveland as the site for the GOP convention, even though the site was chosen long before he could have had a say; and gave an acceptance speech that was littered with at best half-truths. (See, http://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/factchecking-trumps-big-speech/, for more information). And this isn’t new. It has been a pattern throughout his candidacy. He simply seems to have no interest in the getting the facts right. The point is assertive bombast that sounds straightforward and forthright. Not surprisingly, most of Europe and the rest of the world thinks we are nuts to even consider this character.
What is puzzling is how right now more than 40% of likely voters in the US (according http://www.RealClearPolitics.com) say they will vote for a man who not only has no governing experience, but who can’t be trusted when he says something? Even if they dislike Clinton, what leads a lot of people to consider someone who has the attributes of Trump as a viable alternative? A recent book by French psychologist Roland Gori might provide some clues — and ties the mystery of Trump’s success to the systems that are bedeviling many of our public institutions.
Gori’s book (La Fabrique des imposteurs, ), roughly translated as “The making of con-artists” is a reflection on how the neoliberal politics at the level of our key intellectual institutions has dumbed down creativity and implemented systems of bureaucratic accountability that have created an environment ripe for those who would game the system. Like Moliere’s Tartuffe, who mimics the religious rituals of the day to give him cover as he swindles the hapless Orgon out of house and home, Gori argues that con-artists in the modern era are enabled by a taken for granted belief in market principles for producing societal results more efficiently and effectively.
In other words, neoliberalism, which has been the driving force behind “moderate” and “conservative” thinking in the United States and Europe at least since the mid-1970s, has created a time that is perfectly suited for the rise of swindlers to positions of power. The basic premise in neoliberalism is that market forces and competition provide the best results across society. The point is that our public institutions should be “run like a business” and government expenditures should facilitate the accumulation of capital by private business actors — that naturally try to achieve the greatest benefit for the lowest cost.
We have seen the effects of this in government bureaucracies, public service providers, educational and research institutions. When not privatized, these institutions have been pushed to develop metrics to demonstrate their worth on the basis of competition and efficiency. This often leads to the creation of incentives for performance that shoehorn non-market actions into market like evaluation systems. We increasingly see disastrous consequences in the form corruption and mismanagement within public institutions. For instance, in recent history, we have had: an urban water system in Flint, Michigan that covered up water contamination in an effort to meet financial metrics; school systems where mass-cheating on standardized tests was facilitated by teachers and administrators worried about budgetary impacts of low scores; and academic research scandals (most recently a problem with replicability of experimental designs in psychology) as academic researchers who are evaluated on grantsmanship and publication scrambled to not only consistently publish, but in high ranking journals. In effect, the system encourages mismanagement through the very systems that were intended to create better management and accountability. (I refer you here to a forthcoming book Real Myths = False Truths, and web site by Lawrence Busch, http://www.lawrencebusch.net/.)
In politics, neoliberalism is manifested in a belief among a cross-section of the American public (from center-right to right wing conservatives) that the worth of a candidate may measured by his or her business success. And this is where Trump is able to draw credibility. When supporters are asked what qualifies him to be president of the United States, they refer to his success as a businessman. We’ve seen this in past elections — Ross Perot, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, (who actually had governing experience, but part of his appeal was as a businessman). And both Democratic and Republican politicians frequently rise to power having made their fortunes outside politics. The American citizen respect for successful business people has a long history. 19th century sociologist Max Weber noted how a particular Protestant Christian religiosity as the basis for respect for successful business people that was at the core of US entrepreneurial culture.
But Trump does remarkably well at channeling the underlying cultural values that Gori and others associate with neoliberal ideology: he is quintessentially about success of individuals rather than the well being of society as a whole — poor people are losers, Trump has said; he talks about simple answers to practical fears, rather that depicting idealized, utopian futures; he focuses on performance rather than logic and facts; he proudly proclaims that he is opportunistic, not virtuous (though some speakers at the convention mentioned his “big heart”).
Trump, his critics have pointed out, even has a spotty business record–having weathered a number of bankruptcies and having been more than a little cagey about his actual worth. But, if we are measuring worth like we would a business, he passes the ultimate test — he’s made (or at least seems to have) a lot of money. And that is the ultimate metric for success. The problem is that this one metric may be limited enough for someone who has a lot of the attributes of the ultimate con-artist to become the President of the United States.
