Trump: A Systems Analysis: Part 1

A systemic approach takes us into new realms of understanding - and perhaps offers signposts to action

Forgive me for the tardiness of this post. I visited America a couple of weeks ago, just before the election, and have since been paralysed into a kind of awful torpor, appalled by the news yet constantly reading it. Although we usually stay in New York City, where I lived for seventeen years, this time we stayed in an air B&B in a suburb of Stamford, Connecticut, itself a kind of suburb of New York, an hour or so north of the city. A suburb of a suburb, then. And I think this had something to do with my lassitude and horror, and perhaps in a contorted way provides some insight into what to do.

Like so many people, I have been wondering how to respond to the election of a fascist in the most powerful country in the world. I have read many analyses. I have not found many convincing. I am sure Biden should have stepped down earlier. I am sure Kamala Harris could have run a better campaign. I am sure too that America was ‘not ready’ for a Black woman as President (in other words, there are too many racists and misogynists unwilling to vote for her).

But none of this adequately explains why an absolute majority of American voters chose a rapist, fraudster, convicted criminal and self-declared dictatorial authoritarian as the man to wield such power over them and the world. Something extraordinary and irreversible has happened. The world will never be the same again. We need better to understand why. Once we understand that then only then can we begin to think about what on earth to do.

I am sure too that there is no single explanation. We live in a complex world of myriad and billions of connections where change is not linear - input A leads to output B - but fundamentally unknowable, sometimes even after the event, and certainly unpredictable (witness the polls, woefully inaccurate yet again). We do not know which individual factors may be most significant. I am struck by how many analyses of ‘what went wrong’ rely on such linear explanations and singular causes. Such an analytical method is always mistaken; it usually says more about the analyst and their biases than the situation under analysis.

So, I fall back on systemic analysis (perhaps my own bias, admittedly) - what is the system that produced the outcome? Here, I deploy a model or schematic of a hierarchy of factors, thus:

Overall ontology: what is given terms, what is described, what matters, what constitutes ‘reality’?

Culture: the ecosystem of language, behaviours and signifiers (eg artistic or commercial) that form the background to ideas and social (and legal) rules

Mental model: the dominant framework of ideas which dictate permissible behaviours; also ideology, philosophy

Machine: what is the machinery dictated by the mental model

Output: the individual and final output or event

Think of a series of concentric circles where the output sits in the middle in the smallest circle; the ontology forms the largest circle inside of which the others exist (and actual reality lies outside of the circle of ontology…). If I can work out how to do graphics on substack, I will insert one here. An inverted pyramid is another perhaps helpful image, with the output as the smallest triangle at the base; the ontology, the largest at the top. In a sense, we are looking at the mental tools and behaviours with which humans interpret and behave within reality, laddered down from how we understand and interpret the world in general right down to a particular action.

Perhaps it’s easier to apply the model so you can see what I mean. Here for instance is the system that produces carbon emissions:

Overall ontology: rationalist, empiricist, materialist (not immaterial, ineffable, spiritual etc)

Culture: quasi-scientific (eg neo-classical economics), technocratic, non-holistic (i.e. ignores many factors), acquisitive/consumerist, exploit ‘resources’ rather than co-exist

Mental model: capitalism or neo-classical economic model, prioritising minimising cost and maximising profit, adapted technologically to facilitate ‘green growth’; externalities only superficially addressed

Machine: material production and consumption, based on fossil fuels (perhaps one day renewables); machines, cars, aircraft etc.

Output: carbon emission

Obviously, there is a lot of overlap between the different layers, but hopefully you can see the overall system of a series of complexes each of which in turn provides the environment in which the next complex arises, from the general to the particular. Any event or output does not spontaneously arise out of nothing (the view for instance that Trump is but a temporary, freakish aberration) but is a product of a broader system which we can attempt to break down and understand and then perhaps alter. It’s not perfect, but even if there is a sequence between the layers, the schematic moves us beyond linearity into a more realistic understanding of how phenomena occur. (There will be another post on this method as part of a forthcoming series about analytical tools.)

So let’s apply the model to Trump’s election:

Overall ontology: rationalist, empiricist, materialist (not immaterial, ineffable, spiritual etc)

Culture: acquisitive/consumerist, individualist (‘American dream’), competitive, commercially-dominated, supposedly democratic/participatory; imperialist (‘America First’, MAGA); racist undertones (settler colonialism, history of slavery/apartheid), sometimes overtones (Confederate flags for instance) and dog whistles;

Mental model: capitalism and ‘social Darwinism’; winners and losers (indeed ‘Losers!’ as Trump might put it); materialism over immaterial/spiritual; wealth as primary social marker; in theory, modulated by ‘representative democracy’ refreshed by elections, and held accountable by free press, independent judiciary;

Machine: production/consumption; wealth creation; entrepreneurialism; competition reified over solidarity; in practice, imperfect democratic participation;

Output: alienation, nationalism, Trumpism

I don’t claim that this is the complete system. Where does race for instance fit into this? Some would claim that this is THE explanatory and systemic factor. This may well be true. I am tackling one aspect of the system and any analysis must inescapably reduce the thing it is trying to understand.

So, looked at systemically, we can see Trump’s election victory as a function of a highly imperfect machine of capitalism + alleged democracy, where both the economic and political systems have failed large segments of the population whose incomes have flatlined over the last twenty years, whose accumulated wealth (and thus economic security) is minimal, who therefore feel that they have lost in the dominant competitive economic (and indeed cultural) model and who feel deeply alienated from a political system controlled by the out-of-touch ‘elites’ who have enabled such an economic system and are thus responsible for these outcomes. Most immediately, these economic and political concerns were amplified by the sudden and high inflation which preceded the election which undoubtedly made voters poorer day-to-day. This is the layer of conventional analysis, of course.

Take it to the next layer. The failures of the machine can in turn be explained by the failures of the mental model. ‘Neo-liberalism’ as it’s sometimes known is the mental framework in which the economy and ‘politics’ ie government/policy/debate operate. Interestingly, Trump is not questioning that mental model in toto, though he does claim that the part about representative democracy is not working. That element of the system is, according to him and his acolytes, producing unrepresentative and corrupt elites who do not care about ‘ordinary Americans’ and who are obsessed with things - such as ‘wokery’ - which are not the primary - i.e. economic - concerns of voters, they are moreover deeply inimical. For this reason, sometimes openly, Trump proposes and praises autocracy and the suppression of democratic freedoms which are supposed to keep democracy healthy, such as a free press and independent courts (two elements of Popper’s ‘open society’, the third being regular, fair elections).

Trump’s critique of democracy is to some extent correct. The Senate is composed of multi-millionaires whose campaigns are paid for largely by self-interested corporate donors who then gain a disproportionate influence over policy (in some cases, they even write the laws¹). Thanks to the infamous ‘Citizens United’ Supreme Court ruling, political parties (mostly the Republican) enjoy enormous donations whose sources are kept secret, obviously favouring the wealthy. The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, meanwhile brazenly paid people to vote Trump in swing state Pennsylvania, albeit in the lightly disguised form of a lottery. The political system is undoubtedly corrupted and thus biased towards donor interests, those of the wealthy and corporate, rather than ‘ordinary people’. Trump’s solutions however are deeply sinister, dishonest and dangerous. His cabinet appointments and the company he keeps of the ultra-wealthy and oil and tech barons indicate his own prejudices. But acknowledgement of the critique does start to point us to potential solutions.

It’s way past time to acknowledge, like Trump, that America’s democratic machinery is unrepresentative. The utterly paltry involvement of the ordinary voter in the decisions that govern his or her life is absurd. A single vote on a single President, Senator or Congressional representative, all representing parties for whom complicated and life-and-death decisions (healthcare, wars) are reduced to moronic and coded slogans and catchwords. And given the inherent corruption of any system where the (very) few govern the many, even this feeble line of representation is broken. It is not democracy and I don’t understand why so many still hew to this myth (well I do but that’s a further article). It is a kind of elected but self-perpetuating more-or-less oligarchy, composed of a self-interested political class and the economic interests that benefit from the existing structural status quo. Though this system is as much a product of Republican administrations as Democrat, Trumpian Republicans call it a Deep State or the ubiquitous ‘elites’, but they mean ‘liberals’, not the system itself and their argument is undermined by the fact that all they seek is to replace those elites with their own people, not dismantle the corrupted machinery itself.

Other features of the mental model are also significant. America and Trump celebrate ‘winners’ over ‘losers’, a hierarchy that leaves many feeling that they are ‘losers’ despite their best efforts. They are entirely correct. Thomas Piketty has shown that wage-earners are in a losing game with capital-owners whose wealth accumulates ever faster and to such an extent that mere wage-earners can never catch up. The vestiges of Social Darwinism and ‘survival of the fittest’, the ugly sister of actual Darwinism², then hold the ‘losers’ responsible for their failure because they are in some way incompetent, lazy etc., when in fact the system is inescapably rigged against them. The bulk of the American population is tarred with this brush and feel understandably angry about it (though probably without necessarily appreciating the fundamental structural causes). Rightly, they hold successive governments, both Republican and Democrat, responsible for the system that makes them the losers. Trump not only claims to speak for those people, he seeks to demonstrate that he shares their anger (one salient criticism of the Harris campaign is that she may have said she understood these concerns, she never said she shared the anger). In fact, in his abhorrent, obnoxious behaviour and insults, he showed that anger (‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’). This is surely one of the reasons for his success.

Then, we turn to a feature of the mental model, the culture and indeed the ontology. In the mental model of capitalism, only material things (money, goods, services, houses) are valued. This both reflects and is reflected by a culture which celebrates wealth and consumption. In turn, this fetishism occurs in an ontology which privileges the material - things we can name and measure - over the immaterial, including the spiritual.

Meanwhile, American culture and education barely mention the colonial origins of the American project. Indeed, in its opposition to ‘wokery’, Trumpism and the MAGA movement actively oppose such acknowledgement. The current iteration of the tired and increasingly (and arguably always) inaccurate trope of the ‘American Dream’ is a cultural descendant of the homesteading myth of white European colonialism, of brave settlers, forced to leave their inhospitable and sometimes downright repressive homelands, discovering and occupying uninhabited land, there to make their fortunes (in passing, this ideology is of course echoed in twentieth century Zionism). Instead, American history is presented and celebrated, most confusingly, as above all anti-colonialist in the form of the Revolutionary War, while ignoring the violent acquisition of territory and moreover the slave-holding of the those who authored the Declaration of Independence and constitution. It is striking that as this story is at last challenged in the contemporary debate, the cultural-political counter-reaction is vehement and immediate. This is in fact a more pernicious form of identity politics, a discourse often blamed on progressives when in fact it is very much the preserve of the neo-fascist Right. Here, the MAGA movement shows very clear echoes of Nazi-ism (Make Germany Great Again).

I am not going to analyse here every aspect of the culture within which the mental model of capitalism and alleged democracy exists. It is also mostly familiar and I do not want to drone on about the abundant ills of consumerism, the Kardashians etc.. I am more interested in the experience of this culture, what it’s like to live in it. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my time living in America and love many Americans (one is my wife, two are my children!). There are many marvellous things about that country, above all perhaps it’s fundamental celebration of self-determination - that you can be what you want, and anyone is free to have a shot at it, regardless of their origins (an inspiring if not entirely accurate myth).

But returning to the America of suburban Connecticut reminded me of the deep horror of aspects, perhaps the most salient, of that culture. Slow-moving lines of oversized cars pumping out carbon on every highway, piloted by grim-faced mostly solo drivers, an image of destructive atomisation. Pathetic beggars importuning those indifferent drivers at traffic stops. Shopping malls of chain stores which look the same - ugly - in any town of America. Dispirited minimum wage shop workers. I could go on.

This is the model of society that America is offering the world and which is indeed culturally dominant in TV shows like ‘Real Housewives’, shows about sharp-elbowed but glamorous realtors or social media ‘influencers’. Even by the seventies, when the brilliantly acerbic film ‘The Ice Storm’ is set, the hollowness and despair amid the wealth were all too obvious (set in suburban Connecticut, by the way, a few miles from where we stayed). Nothing has changed since then other than the cars and houses have only got bigger. New York City, once so vibrant and bohemian, has over the decades that I have known it (and loved it) become more and more segregated between rich and poor, the wealthier areas like the West Village and, increasingly, all of downtown reduced to arid monocultures of incredibly expensive restaurants and boutique stores, all diversity and creativity eradicated, but for the different ‘cuisines’ on offer. Deranged men dressed in rags roll around on the sidewalks as massive limousines disgorge diners for the latest sushi restaurant. On Union Square, where I once happily lived (paid for by the British taxpayer), a homeless man followed my children and I across the plaza threatening to kill us.

The alienation and ennui is self-evident. The promise of escape - holidays, drugs, wealth - the only balm. Experiencing it afresh made me feel quite crazy and destabilized (it didn’t help that it was Halloween). This is the output of the capitalist machine, sanctified and enabled by the political system. Surely this is going to have some deep psychic and ultimately political expression? Multiple will be the reactions to this culture, but rage and violence are surely some of them.

This plays into analysis of the ontology, the outer circle of the schematic, the environment in which the beast lives and roams. Rationalism and empiricism, the supposed bases of the ideology, offer no room for this psychic realm. Happiness is supposed to result from greater wealth and ease yet America is a deeply unhappy place (this can in fact be measured). The stuff of the spirit is relegated to religion which is itself becoming more extreme and virulent: witness the support among evangelicals for Trump, a less godly man hard to imagine. Rationalism and materialism destroy our humanity, Jung believed. And yet here and across Western and increasingly global culture they reign supreme. We are in deep trouble.

I don’t claim that this analysis captures all the relevant factors behind Trump’s victory. Some, particularly these unconscious drivers, may remain forever mysterious if nonetheless important (perhaps the most important). But I hope to have shown that things can also go a little deeper than the simple (but also not necessarily inaccurate) image of the American voting with his/her ‘pocketbook’. There are structural, cultural and ontological reasons that complement and may enrich the more familiar ‘political’ analyses concentrating on, say, the preferences of Black men or the dissaffection of Arab-Americans over Gaza. Not ‘instead of’ but ‘as well as’.

The systemic analysis takes us into new realms and, I hope, points the way to solutions which may in fact work, elevating us from the pathetic hope that the Democrats may at last offer a plausible narrative to ‘working Americans’ or, laughably (a bitter laugh), that the constitution might protect the things we care about. It also may point us to something we can do rather than feebly waiting for something awful to be done to us. This will be the subject of my next post (part 2). Meanwhile, I would, as ever, welcome comments, including the critical.

1. See this extraordinary story about the Congressional banking committee, where banks literally draft the legislation

2. Note that Darwin never used the term ‘survival of the fittest’. It was invented by the ‘Social Darwinist’ Herbert Spencer who perverted Darwin’s work in the public discourse to justify the rapacious capitalism emerging during Britain’s Industrial Revolution.