Trump Appeal

Over at Slate, Reiham Salam explains why Trump isn’t going away: He’s not merely the focal point for GOP anger. He represents the American version of a global phenomenon, the rise of populist-nationalist movements.

Salam compares Trump’s appeal to that of the Danish People’s Party, which has become “Denmark’s second-largest party by combining anti-immigration sentiment with a commitment to protecting social programs that serve native Danes. In neighboring Sweden, the Sweden Democrats are trying to pull off a similar feat, which is challenging in light of the party’s neofascist roots.”

Trump can get away with defending his erstwhile defense of a single-payer health care system: “It could be that he recognizes that there are many GOP voters who are just as passionate about defending Medicare as they are about protecting America’s borders, and that the prospect of Medicare-for-all might not faze them. Or it could be that he realizes that the forces that have pushed him to the top of the GOP primary fight are far bigger than just the Republican Party, and he need not toe the line to keep his candidacy alive.”

Immigration is only one leg of the stool. Economic nationalism is another. Whether Trump or anyone else can actually make good on the promise to increase jobs, restore the working and middle class, and American corporations back home, depends on what they think the problem is and how they propose to fix it. As the Economist explained this week, American taxes drive American firms overseas:

“For more than 30 years companies, especially American ones, have been merging with foreign firms or acquiring them outright in order to shift their tax bases abroad. It started in 1982, when McDermott, a construction company, outsmarted America’s Internal Revenue Service (the IRS) by moving its base from New Orleans to Panama, where it had a subsidiary. Ever since, this kind of move, called a ‘corporate inversion,’ has been an attractive way for American companies with overseas earnings to reduce their tax bills. Because the American taxman has unusually long arms, companies based in the United States who earn profits abroad can end up with piles of cash “stuck” overseas: earnings that face hefty corporate taxation the instant they are brought to America (for example to pay staff or to invest). An inversion might not affect a company’s day-to-day operations, but by changing the country of domicile officially, it can offer a way out.” 

Tax reform that changed the incentives for corporations would make some difference. Sending millions of undocumented residents back home won’t make a dent. Neither will harangues.

Whether tax reform is part of Trump’s plan remains to be seen. In any case, Salam’s analysis makes sense of Trump appeal. And it also highlights the challenge Trump poses to American Christians. Insofar as Trump is attracting support from Evangelicals, it’s because he’s tapping into their nationalist patriotism, and at a time when the church should be trending in precisely the opposite direction – that is, becoming more Christian than American. For many Evangelicals, resisting Trump appeal will mean resisting some of their own deepest political instincts.