Trump Destroys Government

I have always supported the idea of government.

In a well-functioning democracy, voters elect their representatives to enact policies that reflect the priorities of the population. Ideally, such governments attend to the necessary functions of the state, like funding public education and maintaining the social safety net. Governments also uphold the constitutional order, ensuring that public institutions observe clearly delineated checks and balances, that the rules are fair, and that laws are updated to reflect changes in technology and belief systems.

In the best-case scenario, government helps those who can’t help themselves and, at the same time, creates public goods like free broadband Internet that benefit everyone. In the worst-case scenario, well, I’ll get to that in a moment.

I have maintained my support for the idea of government even when specific governments are doing horrible things. So, for instance, I have opposed many U.S. government actions overseas – engaging in unjust wars, embracing authoritarian leaders, supporting a global economy that favors corporations and rich individuals. But the greater such government policies stray from the ideal, the more I have worked to elect representatives who can enact different policies.

I still believe in government. But that belief is now being severely tested.

And I’m not alone.

This week, Pew Research came out with its latest survey of public opinion about the U.S. government. In 1964, about 75 percent of Americans believed in government—that is, they trusted that the government would do “what’s right” all or most of the time. In the latest numbers, which reflect the first year of Donald Trump’s second term, that number had dropped to 17 percent. Even Republicans, whose party leader is in the White House, are dismissive of government, with only 26 percent trusting that it will do what’s right.

Republicans weren’t always so skeptical. Government favorability ratings among Republicans were in the 50 percent range during George W. Bush’s tenure, numbers that were on average higher than how Democrats felt about government even during the Obama administration.

Anti-government sentiment—not against particular policies but against the government as an institution—has reached record heights under Donald Trump. That’s no accident.

Trump has run for office but against government. He has always wanted to slash government regulations, shrink government activities, and turn the government into a vehicle for his own personal and financial ambitions.

He is now almost a year into a second term. This time he has no conventional advisors who are tempering his worst impulses. This time his advisors are abetting his efforts to destroy government.

In this first year, he has all but eliminated government institutions such as the U.S. Agency for International Development. He is currently dismantling the Department of Education. Although hurricanes and floods do not distinguish between Republicans and Democrats, he has even gutted the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Trump’s view of government is largely instrumental. Like corrupt leaders around the world, Trump sees government as an opportunity to accumulate personal wealth (more than $3 billion and counting since he took office this year). It is an instrument for his own self-glorification – such as putting his name on the U.S. Institute for Peace or brazenly trying to lobby for a Nobel Peace Prize. It is a way to reward friends with pardons (like everyone involved in the January 6 insurrection) and punish enemies (everyone involved in investigating his many crimes and misdemeanors).

But there is also an ideological aspect to Trump’s approach to government. He believes in concentrating power in his own hands through the expansion of executive-level agencies such as the Pentagon and Homeland Security. His personal beefs are thus transformed into wars against individuals (Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela), groups (non-white immigrants), and institutions (the European Union).

The recently released National Security Strategy is a useful distillation of his ideological views about the uses of government. The NSS, for the first time, elevates the president at the expense of coherent policy, with lines like Trump’s “right leadership making the right choices” and the promotion of a “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine about securing U.S. borders. The document attacks European governments for their “creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition,” which is especially appalling given Trump’s support of Middle Eastern autocrats and generally servile attitude toward Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Moreover, Trump’s reading of European affairs reflects a white nationalist viewpoint about the deterioration of “civilization” at the hands of immigrants.

This, then, is the two-pronged approach of the Trump administration. It is destroying all the aspects of government that can make a positive difference in people’s lives, at home and abroad. And it is pumping up those aspects of government that concentrate wealth, promote injustice, and spread hate, at home and abroad.

It’s one thing to cut government services and regulations. Those can be restored by subsequent administrations. It’s another thing to destroy the very idea of government.

When you look at the U.S. government today and see the level of corruption, incompetence, racism, and overall abuse of power, you can’t help but be disgusted. Having criticized Washington as a swamp, Trump has turned the nation’s capital into a virtual no-go zone where he controls culture at the Kennedy Center like a modern-day Stalinist, dispatches immigration enforcement agents and National Guard to militarize the streets like a tin pot dictator, and presides over a personality cult that sows fear into even Republicans who are reluctant to criticize him.

Some people will simply be disgusted with Trump. Most, as the Pew poll suggests, will be disgusted with government more generally.

Libertarians have long tried to shrink government so small that it could be “drowned in a bathtub.” Trump is doing that with one hand. With his other, he is transforming government into a police state that kills with impunity and deports without legal justification. By the end of his term, it will be hard to find anyone who supports government, except in a nostalgic sense.

All is not lost. Thankfully, Trump’s federal government faces opposition from state and local governments where the rule of law and social services remain sacrosanct. There, at the subnational level, the ideal of government can survive, just as classical learning managed to survive in monasteries during the Dark Ages.

My faith in government—in democracy, economic justice, and rule of law—is being severely tested by the Trump administration. But recovery always follows tragedy. Let’s hope that after the forest fire of Trumpism, the trees and wildlife will recover, stronger than ever.

Originally published in Hankyoreh.

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