JD Vance and the Globalisation Set
Trump's alliance between blue collar voters and the billionaires.
By choosing JD Vance as his vice-presidential pick, Trump has made crystal clear his anti-globalisation, anti-establishment, anti-strong dollar, anti-democracy, anti-abortion and pro-Wall St. credentials.
What does not make sense to many is why Trump’s vice-Presidential choice of the ‘blue collar’ senator, JD Vance, is backed so enthusiastically by libertarian billionaires Peter Thiel and Elon Musk - both massive beneficiaries of financial globalisation.
On the apparently contradictory nature of that relationship, Edward Luce of the Financial Times writes:
It would be a negligent Democratic campaign that did not exploit the tension between Vance’s blue-collar roots, which are genuine, and his plutocratic sponsors.
The problem with Luce’s typically establishment analysis is this: there is no tension twixt Vance’s blue-collar roots and the billionaires.
Like wealthy elites that have always backed totalitarianism, the reasoning behind the oligarchy’s support for Trump is entirely rational.
Plutocrats prefer to do business in the globalised sphere, beyond the reach of regulatory democracy, and want elected governments to get out of their way - permanently.
If it takes a fascist to achieve that goal, so be it.
The Trump-backing working class want protection from globalised markets that have cut their wages and lowered their living standards.
If Trump is the president to do that, so be it.
Both groups are disappointed in the the Biden administration.
Billionaires resented Biden’s responsiveness to democratic pressure and the appointment of a lawyer, Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission where she launched a high profile lawsuit against Amazon, and challenged the uncompetitive behaviour of healthcare companies.
As to blue collar workers and the middle classes: President Biden continued the process of undermining their living standards by not re-regulating globalised commodity markets responsible for inflating food, energy and property prices from 2020 - 2024. (President Clinton, aided by Larry Summers, had de-regulated these markets in 2000.)
This perspective on the Trump phenomenon is beyond the grasp of pro-globalisation commentators in the Financial Times and other establishment outlets.
The far-right takes the lead, worldwide
I have long argued that in the absence of progressive left wing resistance to financial globalisation, the direct rebuttal of, and reaction to globalisation would be led by the far-right.
That resistance in most countries is now led by authoritarian, anti-democratic parties - and not the negligent, self-absorbed, often sectarian left. (France’s new, inclusive left-wing parties may prove to be the exception.)
Nor is there resistance from establishment ‘centrists’ like President Macron, Tony Blair and their hangers on. They actively collude in the weakening of democracy by backing the immense power of globalised finance (Wall St. and other financial entrepots) over democratic nation states.
The centrists want elected, democratic governments to get well out of the way of the economy (markets). They subvert organised resistance to globalisation and climate breakdown. They care not a damn for the ecosystem. In Britain they offer no opposition to the locking-up and jailing of young and old activists fighting the immense power of the globalised fossil fuel lobby.
For these elites the world is merely their ashtray. So careless are they of the dangers of rising GHG emissions, and so regardless of political opinion at home, many took private jets to attend the grotesque wedding of a billionaire Indian heir, Anant Ambani, last weekend. His wedding celebrated the link between globalised wealth and authoritarianism, blessed as it was by the nationalist and Hindu extremist, PM Narendra Modi.
Even given this carelessness, London and Washington elites would prefer to relegate the task of subverting democracy to anonymous and unaccountable ‘markets’.
They find the misogynistic, brutal and vulgar authoritarianism of the Trump campaign a little distasteful, but they will not stand in his way. To do so, they would have to end what is effectively government by markets - and fight to defend democracy.
From now on that role is down to the people - the demos - and especially to organised labour.
No pasarán!
Vance is a henchman of Peter Thiel, one of the most malignant anti democracy and pro monopoly forces in the Valley and a distinct plutocratic faction from the Koch network. The Koch network itself has operated for a half century, pouring hundreds millions each year to seize control of society to reduce the population to a permanent underclass.The subversion has been the culminating of 50 years of very deliberate effort. The network has largely succeeded in it. The GOP rules, it does not represent.
Resistance to tyranny has long been cowed by neoliberal arguments which boil down to an ask that a people surrender their sovereignty to totalitarian rule by wealth. This is the essence of privatization and deregulation. It does not grant freedom or prosperity. It simply hands power to wealth and their interests.
While I have plenty of issues with Biden, and he has come late realizing that his precious institutions are only as good as the purpose of the people filling them, he has done two things to thwart the far right’s claim on workers. He’s restored a pro union stance and invigorated anti-trust.
Gabriel Rockhill makes a very, very compelling argument that fascism was the bad cop and "liberalism" was the good cop of capitalism.
It is so strange that neither Adam Tooze in his latest post about UK election, neither here, mentions the elephant in the room, the desire of the oligarchy to spread its wings uncontrolled everywhere, and thus the war against Russia via proxy and the slow (attempt) strangling of China. Can't have oligarchy restrained by political power, can we?!