With Meet John Doe, Frank Capra crossed the thin line between populist sentimentality and populist demagoguery.
--Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema,(University of Chicago Press 1968)
Commentary has taken the trouble, in their current issue, to take Donald Trump's policies seriously and analyze them in detail. The conclusions:
On Trade. After a detailed analysis of Trump's plans to impose high tariffs and to withdraw from all U.S. trade agreements (and the difficulties with implementation) Scott Lincicome writes: "We have many existing examples of how Trump-style tariffs have resulted in lower growth, higher prices, foreign retaliation and few, if any, new jobs."
On Taxes. James Pethokoukis looks at Trump's tax plans and concludes, "It features cuts so large that any growth they generate might get swallowed by unprecedented debt increases. It supposedly tries to sock it to the undeserving wealthy but will actually reduce their tax burden."
On "The Wall." Linda Chavez looks at the building of a wall across the border with Mexico and concludes it would cost 17 billion dollars, even if all the difficulties with eminent domain and environmental impact problems can be overcome, slowing down the building of the wall for decades. Trump's plan to remove all illegal immigrants in two years would cost $300 billion and, even then, "there is no evidence that Americans would rush to pick fruits and vegetables, de-bone chickens, scrub office floors and toilets, the jobs illegal immigrants currently dominate"
On Health Care. Tevi Troy points out that Trump is offering little that Cruz and others have not offered and (my own comment here) offers nothing for those currently without healthcare insurance or those who will lose it when Obamacare is repealed, as Trump wants to do.
On Infrastructure. Phillip Klein points out that Trump is big on building but has been vague on how he plans to pay for it (see On Taxes, above).
On Nato, On Asia, On Israel. Tod Linberg, Michael Auslin, Jordon Chandler Hirsch point out the risks and dangers of Trump's isolationist ideas. As Hirsch concludes: "A world in which the United States betrays bedrock alliances, cozies up with enemies, and raises the drawbridge is a world in which the Jewish state will struggle to endure."
For historical perspective I also recommend, in the same issue of Commentary, Terry Teachout's The Harbinger of Trumpism, about Sir Oswald Mosley (1896-1980), who in 1932 founded the British Union of Fascists. As Teachout says, "Anyone who seeks to understand how authoritarianism might become a force in America would thus do well to consider his spectacular rise -- and ignominious fall."
For novels that have, in various ways, written about the rise of populist fascism in America I suggest Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here (1935), Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men (1945), and Philip Roth's The Plot Against America (2004). For a fascinating look into the evil heart of anti-Islamic fascism in Norway I recommend One of Us by Asne Seierstad (translated by Sarah Death).
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