Let me begin with my conclusion. There is little new in Donald Trump’s slogans such as ‘America First’ or ‘Make America Great Again (MAGA)’ barring their high decibel counts. Any reading of America’s history ever since the First World War (1914-19), when America for the first time transformed itself from a debtor nation to a creditor nation, would show that every American president ever since has sponsored these goals. Trump’s brashness is just indicative of the time we live in. Look at the changes in the pattern of our news gathering, news dissemination and news consumption. Everything has to be quick, direct and often loutish. Otherwise who could imagine only a few years ago that such oxymoronic concepts like ‘fake news’ or ‘post-truth’ would gain so much currency?
If political analysts find Donald Trump rather unexciting it is because he is brazenly transparent. He leaves little room for their interpretative genius to bloom. Both in his campaign speeches and later in his inaugural address, Trump laid bare his entire policy framework for the next four years including the ones most other presidents would preserve for the appropriate occasion to unfold. So much so that Trump has unabashedly presented his multi-billionaire chum Elon Reeve Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors, as his campaign funder and economic adviser. The message was clear for the world leaders what Trump was up to.
Americanism
However, for those who are familiar with American history, Trump represents everything that is central to America’s one-upmanship, namely, its territorial expansionism, white supremacism, and a brash assertion of power to maintain America’s sense of being the Numero Uno. Germane to all this is the capitalism of America which is rooted in America’s Westward Expansion the offshoot of which is the so-called ‘Americanism’. But Trump went a step further. With due reverence to his conservative Christian constituency he is negatively disposed against abortion, LGBTQ rights, etc. His decision to discontinue the system of citizenship by birth may be seen as a part of this package.
For the purposes of this essay it may be instructive to look at the second presidency of Stephen Grover Cleveland (1893-97) for the simple reason that he is the only other president before Trump who had the distinction of becoming president twice with a gap of four years in-between. Like Trump who won the vote in 2016, lost it in 2020, and then again won in 2024, Cleveland had also won the 1884 vote, lost it in 1888, and then won it back in 1892. Interestingly their platforms were comparable when they finally won.
Cleveland and Trump both had huge funding from big corporates. If Cleveland had the backing of top-notch bankers and ranchers Trump had that from Musk and others. Also, to boost his mass base Cleveland had identified himself with the cause of the Cuban nationalists against their colonial master Spain (it ultimately led to the Spanish-American War of 1898 which ended the Spanish colonial rule in the Americas). Trump too tried to fan American nationalism by calling for the incorporation of Canada into the United States of America as its 51st state, by demanding the control of the Panama Canal, and by declaring he would buy the self-governing Greenland from the Kingdom of Denmark.
War and communism
It is not possible in this limited space to compress the entire history of America. But by referring to some milestones in American history it is possible to show that America has shown no compunction to take any step, moral or immoral, whenever it has sensed threats to its numero uno status in the world. Therefore to protect its corporate interests America will do everything under the sun. For that even if its commitment to democracy at home or abroad has to be compromised, let it be so. The first sign of this was evidenced during the World War I about which we have mentioned earlier.
When the World War I was midway the Bolshevik Revolution took place in Russia in 1917. It rattled the American ruling class. Known as the Red Scare it was the first fear articulation at the political level to tell the Americans at large that their Americanism was in danger from an alien virus called communism. The withdrawal of Bolshevik Russia from the War did not assuage the American anxiety for after all the US fear was not territorial, it was ideological. Two contingents of the US army consisting of 12,000 men were despatched to Russia as part of an Allied Intervention in Russia. They remained there even after the war ended in 1919. The State Department told the Congress: ‘All these operations were to offset effects of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.’
Later, the establishment of a Communist regime in China in 1949 scared the Americans much more because by that time the Cold War had become hot. Soon it degenerated into what is known as McCarthyism which till today is considered to be the darkest chapter of American democracy. A veritable reign of terror prevailed in which every American who even vaguely questioned this anti-Communist madness was branded as anti-American, and hence a traitor (does it make a small bell ring in your mind in today’s India?).
Long after the dust of McCarthyism had settled, Louis J. Halle, a noted author and former member of the State Department policy planning staff, wrote in the New York Times Magazine of June 6, 1971: ‘There were those among us who knew the historical, geographical and strategic circumstances that, in the long run, made for anything but conflict between Mao and Moscow. They were intimidated into silence, or if they tried to speak out their careers and reputations were ruined by accusations of treason.’ In just 20 years after McCarthyism, president Richard Nixon was found shaking hands with Mao Zedong in Beijing in 1972.
Also read: Trump and Modi: Why a Fragile India Should Be Uneasy
America first
American policy has shuttled from one end to another ever since though its core capitalist value has remained in place whether it was the Vietnam War, the 9/11 tragedy, the wars in West Asia, etc. Viewed from the way America handled these crises, Trump would not appear so exceptional. ‘America first’ has been writ large all through at the core of which is the bi-partisan white American thought. It mattered little whether it was a Republican or Democratic rule or whether it was a non-white president like Barack Obama.
Trump made it a huge talking point that the uncontrolled influx of Latinos and Indians were not only poaching America’s blue collar job markets but they were also challenging the nation’s traditional elite supremacy epitomised by its WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) domination. Without saying so explicitly the message was sent across large sections of White Americans that they must not ignore the recent trends when a Black man had become the president while a half-Black-half-Indian woman had even dared to grab the presidency just within the span of a decade.
It is in order that we say a word on the question of Trump’s threats to discontinue the system of born-on-American-soil citizenship and to restrict the growing number of unauthorised migrants from some South American countries and India. Without sounding parochial one must note that two pre-eminent Indian leaders, prime minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah, who otherwise are most vocal against unauthorised Bangladeshis in India (no data available on their numbers), have never expressed their concern over the well organised rackets that flourish in their home state Gujarat to smuggle out Indians (mostly Gujaratis) to America through fraudulent routes. Earlier these rackets were mostly Punjab based. A country which can produce a popular Shahrukh Khan-starrer Dunki (2023) cannot feign ignorance about this thriving illegal business.
With regard to the H-1B visa controversy which is seemingly most disturbing to many Indians studying and working in America it is imaginable that the dust will settle in due course because the type of jobs these Indians do, particularly in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) fields, are not the ones who threaten the American job seekers which Trump knows well. The solution to the issue is cool bilateral diplomacy, not personalised and over publicised summit diplomacy. It holds no water which is argued at the popular levels that America is a nation of immigrants and hence it has no business to close its doors to new entrants.
In conclusion it may be confessed that while writing this essay my thoughts were often distracted by Modi. His ‘Abki baar Trump sarkar’ and ‘Howdy Modi’ apart, which should never have happened as per international norms, there are many uncanny similarities between the two leaders. Trump’s MAGA and Modi’s amrit kaal are quite identical. Also, just like the rise of Modi resulted in the social and political polarisation in India so also Trump’s rise led to similar divisions in American society which the attack on the Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021 quite clearly indicated. It is not surprising, therefore, that Trump would become a darling of the Indian right. Some Indians even did havans (a Hindu fire ritual) to pray for a Trump win.
Mercifully, to say in a lighter vein, Modi was not invited for the inaugural ceremony of Trump. Had it happened, the Indian media would have gone crazy to over-report on the Modi-Trump bonhomie. But what is really needed is a mutually beneficial India-US relationship devoid of theatrics.
Partha S. Ghosh is a retired professor of South Asian studies at JNU.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
