Here is a prediction: President Trump will be remembered for bans. America elected a president who is proud of his propensity for pushing people out. In a short six months, the man who made the phrase “You’re fired!” a marketable catchphrase has made or proposed efforts to ban Syrian refugees fleeing the horrors of war, immigrants from several nations with large Muslim populations, and transgender Americans in the armed forces. Some of these bans have been successfully implemented, and others (fortunately) have not.
One of President Trump’s first campaign promises was to build a wall. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” he continued. This wall would ban these people from crossing the border, Trump implied. Under his watch, the Department of Justice—on the same day President Trump announced that he would ban transgender Americans from serving in the armed forces—filed a brief arguing that gay workers should be banned from claiming workplace discrimination on account of sexual orientation.
Firing, banning, blaming, dismantling: Trump has championed a deconstructive, demolition politics. One of Trump’s earliest executive orders was to point out two regulations that could be cut for every new government regulation added under his tenure. This is perhaps what Steve Bannon meant when he talked about the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” When the economy seems stable and most Americans feel safe, disassembling and dividing may be an effective way for Trump to appear as if he is making changes that matter. But a deconstructive politics requires something to deconstruct and demolish. When the bottom is falling out (such as when the economy is faltering), a deconstructive politics can turn into a dangerous blame game: a focus on what is wrong rather than a creative approach to constructing something that may be right.
When the political norm is to deconstruct, we ought to recognize that nothing is sacred. President Trump’s brash decision to announce that the military would no longer welcome transgender service members seemed to be, for instance, a violation of his promise to protect the LGBT community. But Trump took aim at the community anyway.
A deconstructive politics such as Trump’s has enormous ramifications for Americans’ ability to trust the political system: no one wants to take the blame, and so the blame is passed around. When Republicans failed to deliver on their promise to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and cut back on Medicaid, for example, President Trump said, “I’m not going to own it.” Despite pushing Republicans to pass legislation that would repeal and replace the ACA, the president refused to take ownership over the Republicans’ failure. A deconstructive politics is about risk aversion.
Here is what I find most concerning about a demolition approach to governing: it requires anger. People only want to demolish what they do not like. When they are angry with the status quo, they elect someone to upset it. That person, in turn, must sustain the voters’ anger in order to continue the demolition. History has shown that anger politics hit marginalized communities the hardest: people of color, immigrants, and the poor, for example.
But there is hope. The Republicans’ ignominious failure to repeal the ACA was due in no small part to the protests and activism of activists—in particular disabled activists—who did not let a day go by without reminding elected leaders that the GOP’s plan would endanger the lives of Americans. Americans continue to organize and mobilize, and their efforts are making a difference. Millennials, in particular, are trying to shake things up: groups like Run for Something are providing opportunities for people to channel their frustration into political campaigns.
A deconstructive politics of anger leaves an opening for its opposite: a politics of optimism. This, of course, does not mean unbridled, naïve optimism. The anger on which Trump and others have capitalized is real and too easily dismissed. Rather, Trump’s bluster leaves an opening for politicians who want to cast their own plans in terms of a critical love or empathy that provides an opportunity for Americans to channel their rage and frustrations into something constructive. Senator Warren’s speech outside of the Capitol early Friday morning following the defeat of the Republicans’ “skinny repeal” plan was a great example of how this might look. “The nightmare is over,” she said. “And for every person in this country who just cares about their fellow human beings, you can sleep a little better tonight.”