The US as a banana republic
Trump has been compared to Argentina's Javier Milei. A better parallel would be with Juan Perón
I know this newsletter is supposed to be loosely related to France. Bear with me.
In a great conversation with Yasha Mounk, the Harvard economist Larry Summers homed in on the essence of Trumpism.
Summers rightly refrains from defining it as a doctrine. The very fact that Trump's every move comes as a shock points to a lack of ideological clarity. His boosters have long insisted he should be taken "seriously not literally".
They have fought attempts to associate him with any creed. He is not a protectionist, but fighting unfair trade practices. He is no racist, but intent on colour-blindness. He is no nativist, but insisting on immigration controls. Whatever a populist is, Trump is not that either, as friend and foe alike have argued.
You may not be convinced by those denials. The point is: any attempt to boil Trumpism down to a set of policies will be contentious. Ultimately, Trumpism is whatever Trump decides, and the belief that it is right. It is process, not content.
That process centres on an omniscient but not yet omnipotent presidency. The world would be a better place if Trump could just snap his finger. Unfortunately, there are countries that don't buy American, Fed chairmen who won't resign, foreign leaders who gamble with World War III and judges keen on releasing gangsters. What can you do?
Well, for a start you can use all the powers at your disposal – executive orders, import duties, Truth Social – to crush those nefarious forces, so that you are finally in a position to secure the nation's prosperity and peace in the world.
This is where Larry Summers captures the core of Trumpism: personal power. The start of his interview by Mounk is worth quoting at length:
The United States is turning itself into an emerging or a submerging market. There are set patterns that we associate with mature democracies [and] there are set patterns that we associate with developing countries - for which some people would use the term “banana republic”.
In mature democracies, it's institutions that dominate; in banana republics, it's personalities that dominate. In mature democracies, it's the rule of law that governs interactions between businesses, and between business and government; in emerging markets, it's personal connection and loyalty. In mature democracies, the central bank and finance sit with independence relative to politics; in emerging markets, that is much more in question. In mature democracies, the goal is interaction, openness, and prospering along with the world; in immature democracies, in emerging markets, it is nationalist economic policies tied to particular interests. In mature democracy open debate is venerated, division of power are respected; in emerging markets, people fear the government.
The United States in a stretch of a few short months is transforming [itself into] something much more like Juan Perón's Argentina—and that is being recognised by markets.
The merit of Summers' characterisation of Trumpism is that it is not controversial – or shouldn't be. Even the term "banana republic" doesn’t have to be disparaging: why should association with an excellent fruit be an insult?
Seen in this neutral light, the Trumpist project is a truly revolutionary one. Over the past 300 years the idea has spread across the West and beyond that the group is smarter than the most brilliant individual. That orthodoxy goes well beyond government. But in politics it has meant separating rather than concentrating power, and subjecting it to impersonal rules.
This is where France comes in: the orthodoxy has Anglo-French origins. The Brits provided the practice and the French, unsurprisingly, the theory. Not that they partnered as they would later do with Concorde. On the contrary, when the idea took root in the 18th century, the two countries were constantly at war.
The thing is, the French didn't understand why they kept losing. They were by far Europe's richest and most populous nation; crucially, their king answered to no one. Why was France kept being clobbered by a small island governed by a talking shop?
A Frenchman hit on the answer: the premise that an all-powerful ruler makes an all-powerful nation was wrong. Diffused power worked better. Montesquieu's idea was a hit on both sides of the Channel. The English liked it because it showed why they had been doing the right thing all along – or at least since 1688.
The French liked the idea mostly as a clever paradox. They never really believed in the principle of limited government. Still, they came to agree on the need to restraint this or that particular government. At the end of the 18th century they ditched royal autocracy. Absolutism returned under various guises. But for over 200 years, the French have never fully embraced authoritarianism.
Their last half-hearted effort in that direction happened in the 1950s. A retired war hero stoked fears of an army coup, frightening the assembly into giving him full powers. General de Gaulle set up an almighty executive - the kind of finger-snapping presidency Trump is dreaming of. But at the same time he strengthened a movement that placed France at the heart of an emerging continent-wide, rule-setting order.
That movement gathered pace under his successors, blunting the power tools de Gaulle had left behind. The French achieved checks and balances of sorts by outsourcing the provision of impersonal norms.
This arrangement promotes stability by reassuring those on the losing side of any ballot. I realised this as far back as 1981, when I first voted for president. That election was won by a man whose revolutionary rhetoric and hare-brained economic ideas worried many, including me.
He took a solid but not overwhelming victory as a mandate to "change life". As is the case today in the US, millenarianism was in the air. One minister said: "France is emerging from shadow into light." And the triumphant socialists were not going let anyone stand in the way of their life-changing plans. An MP told the opposition: "You are legally wrong because you are a political minority."
The government's economic policies were a predictable disaster. But I didn't share right-wing fears of a slide towards tyranny. When push comes to shove, I reckoned, François Mitterrand (the name of the leader in question) would have to choose between economic absolutism and Europe - and Frexit was a non-starter.
The country could only go so far down the road to serfdom, or bananadom. Push did come to shove and Mitterrand chose the EU.
Unlike France, the US has relied on purely internal checks to ward off personal power. If those constitutional safeguards turn out to be as fragile as Larry Summers fears, this sets up an unprecedented experiment in the democratic world.
Either Peronism brings wealth and harmony to North America, refuting core Enlightenment tenets. Or its result will be the same as in the southern hemisphere, and the liberal orthodoxy will be vindicated.