Trumpism is not reshaping world order. It is the result of the US botching the American Dream, leading to imperial decline, writes Alonso Gurmendi [photo credit: Getty Images]
Since starting his second term in office, US President Donald Trump and his team have not wasted any time in trying to fully refashion American politics.
This second Trumpism is characterised by a mass retreat from the world. His government has withdrawn the US from the World Health Organisation, frozen funding to USAID and signalled its desire to end the US commitment to European security.
It seems in fact, that the only foreign policy front where Trumpism is willing to allow America’s active engagement in the world is in the facilitation of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.
This withdrawal from the world is unprecedented. The North Atlantic Alliance has been one of the core geopolitical constants of the post-war world order, one that saw the United States emerge as one of two global superpowers, abandoning its former role as the regional hegemon of the Americas.
This transition was full of globalising promises and commitments. Especially after the Holocaust and Nuremberg, “Western Culture” was going to move away from the ultra-nationalist and supremacist principles of Nazi Germany and adopt a shared vision for “humanity”, led by US military, economic, and cultural might. In this vision, the UN would guarantee peace, including through a human rights declaration, and economic prosperity through the Bretton Woods system and the Marshall Plan.
Of course, these were institutions built during the collapse of Europe’s colonial empires.
Their notion of “humanity” was and is still incomplete. Colonised and racialised people were excluded from them by design. They were the result of a claim to universality based on Western racialised ideas of the Other, that hid both a rule of colonial difference and a colour line within its self-proclaimed cosmopolitanism.
Colonised and oppressed peoples had to fight this world order throughout the 20th century, often through the strategic use of its loftier – even if insincere – ideals, leading to decolonisation, feminism, the civil rights movement, human rights tribunals, human rights NGOs, and transitional justice. Thus, in a way, the rise of US Empire as the new model of Western imperialism, and resistance to it, created the world we live in today.
What was the US model really about?
It is only logical therefore to see this second Trumpism as a systematic, planned betrayal of those globalising ideals. Shocked European leaders talking about the importance of the North Atlantic Alliance, of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, of the value of democracy hint us to this conclusion.
But looking at this process from the perspective of the Global South, that never really had access to these supposed globalising ideals (and therefore could never be “betrayed” by the US), may reveal a different explanation: there is no plan, no broader architecture, no policy or goal. Trumpism is not the driving force of a new world order, but the result of the US imperial decline – another sign that the current world order is soon to end.
Subscribe Now and Listen to our Podcasts OnSuperpowers cannot be just outward-facing superpowers. At some point, they need a thriving, productive population to fund the huge expense that is being a superpower – funding civil society organisations the world-over through agencies like USAID to maintain influence abroad, keeping military bases in Europe to contain aggressive external forces like Russia, maintaining control over global bureaucracies like the WHO, etc.
This is something the US model of global hegemony has botched completely. Its 330 million people live in an inequality dystopia, without access to healthcare, addicted to opioids, unable to afford cost of living expenses, making money through unregulated gig economy apps, not being able to buy a house, without safety nets like parental leave or paid holidays, and under siege by unregulated gun violence, just to name a few examples.
Large numbers of Americans live on some form of wage slavery, existing mostly to pay bills they can’t afford. Everything is worse quality and more expensive than only a few decades ago. Fast fashion, always-rising subscription fees, and shoddy planes that fall from the sky because CEOs wanted to save a buck or two.
Waking up from the American dream
Trumpist nationalism, therefore, is a reaction to this domestic decline. It’s an electorate that wants to go back to the time when (middle-class White) Americans could own a home and sustain a family on one job. And has been duped into thinking this was the product of “cultural uniformity” and ultra-nationalism – that planes fall from the sky because of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
To the Trump electorate, imperial power abroad is just not as important. Trade links with Mexico and Canada don’t matter, whether Putin takes Ukraine does not matter, economic dominance in Latin America does not matter. What matters is that Trump will impose tariffs on foreign governments and that will make goods cheaper at home (or so Trump has lied to them). What matters is that the US looks “badass” pushing other countries around so that this dejected electorate can feel powerful, if only for a little bit. Grand strategy has lost its appeal.
Of course, they are being deceived. Defunding a “trans comic book” in Peru is not going to “Make America Great Again”. Neither is placing tariffs on foreign goods.
The ultra-wealthy’s influence over American politics continues untouched, leading to the kind of unregulated dystopia that allows life-saving medication to cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. So does the military-industrial complex that syphons America’s wealth away from its people and into the hands of multinationals with bloated military R&D budgets.
There is nothing wrong with choosing investment in people over global influence. Global withdrawal does not need to be “bad” per se. The problem is that, as I see it, Trumpism is not really about investing in people, but empowering his inner circle and advancing white supremacist ideology. “Cultural uniformity” does not make America great.
Trumpism is therefore not reshaping world order. It is the result of the US botching the American Dream, leading to imperial decline.
Where France and the UK got a Suez “moment”, rapidly discovering that they were no longer calling the shots in town, America will get a MAGA “process”, slowly transitioning back from global superpower to regional hegemon. The risk for the broader world is what happens when this process ends and Americans realise they are not only not the world’s superpower anymore, but they are also not “Great Again”.
Alonso Gurmendi is a Fellow in Human Rights & Politics at the London School of Economics & Political Science’s Department of Sociology.
Follow him on X: @Alonso_GD
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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.