Trump Syllabus Reader

This week we examined our final topic, “History in Trump’s America” through Inventing the “American Way” by Wendy L. Wall . Wall’s book examines American politics around World War II, an era that inspired Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.” Although many might remember the era’s political consensus fondly, Wall finds this consensus was ultimately incapable of solving structural problems with the country’s political economy and its racial divisions. Wall examines an impressive range of sources, capturing the perspectives of business, community, and religious organizations, as well as public intellectuals and politicians.   These sources allow her to demonstrate that many important public figures saw deep divisions in American life during the 1930s, which led them to conclude that Americans had to move past serious divisions in order to achieve social stability   (for a copy of my notes, see here ).   While seeking consensus was a goal for most Americans, the

This week we examined “Trump’s GOP Takeover, Contextualized,” reading Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean . Although not on the initial version of the syllabus posted last year, MacLean’s book has been widely discussed over since its publication and I was excited for the opportunity to read it. MacLean argues that since the 1950s James Buchanan’s libertarian vision of political economy has attracted support from activist billionaires who shared Buchanan’s opposition to high taxes. Baldwin claimed that any efforts to tax Americans must be done by total consensus or else they are a form of tyranny. MacLean astutely argues that such an absolutist definition of economic liberty actually puts itself at odds with democratic principles where the will of the majority (rather than absolute consensus) shapes policy.   Since the public itself would never accept dramatic cuts to popular social welfare programs such as Social Security and Medicare, MacLean argues activist billionaires such a

After waking up to news that the Senate had passed its tax bill, I began thinking about Pat Toomey, a Senator representing me in Pennsylvania.   I took some time this morning to sort through my thoughts, and since this is one of the few venues I have I hope you will bear with me as I express them here. Pat Toomey has presented himself as a champion of small-government, fighting for such principles as a balanced budget . In his role as “policy expert,” he was largely responsible for crafting the recent tax bill , (which actually adds over $1 trillion to the federal deficit ). Although he will not say so directly, it seems likely that he supports plans to slash valuable social services to presumably make up this deficit. Although these positions are bad enough on their own, his positions got even more problematic during the final day of debate on the bill. He introduced amendments to the tax bill to benefit one private college in Michigan , a college that has defined its idea