Make America Great Again

The surprise election of Donald Trump is emblematic of a sea change in Western democracies away from free trade and globalism towards protectionism and localism. The fact that the President-elect promised to his electorate that nationalism will come before globalism all the while proposing a tax holiday on re-domiciled corporate profits made abroad seems to fly in the face of that commitment.

Despite his erratic range of behaviour on social media and seemingly flawed logic, Donald Trump clearly demonstrates two underlying character traits or principles if you will.

1. He wants to win regardless of whatever the costs are.
2. He fears humiliation, craves respect and desires to crush both real and perceived enemies a-like.

There are really two radically different schools of thought both of which have contending merits on understanding the implications of a Donald Trump Presidency. The first traditional school assumes that he will follow through on his commitments to withdrawing from trade agreements, environmental protocols, a return to realpolitik transactional foreign policy and a mercenary approach to domestic politics.

The second perspective is really one linked to his ideological blank slate. He is not a free trader and clearly despises large portions of the political establishment. And indeed, if he plans on staying in power he will have to cater to the populist white working class coalition that voted for him.

Michael Moore's assessment of the Trump vote in the Brexit States of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania as the equivalent of a "fuck you vote" to the permanent political class could not have been more prescient a month before the US election. So what does this mean in terms of ramifications on his policy platform? Simple really - following through on the same expansionary programs that Linden Johnson rolled out namely expanding Medicare and Medicaid to compensate for the termination of Obamacare - targeted infrastructure spending in those same Brexit states to modernize infrastructure and provide key jobs to the working class whites all the while privatizing public infrastructure through public private partnerships that could provide sweet heart deals to Trump family linked firms and other friendly investors.

It appears that any considerations of conflict of interest has gone out of the window resulting in financial stimulus a la crony capitalist variant. And as there are no statutes governing Presidential conflicts, he will be well within his legal rights to play both sides of the coin.