Is Donald Trump Stealing Bernie Sander's Rhetoric or Are They The Same on Key Issues?
Globalists and globalization, trade, immigration, identity politics, the racism of Donald Trump's message and his supporters. On these issues, Donald Trump appears to have plagiarized key Bernie Sander's arguments and policies and amplified upon them. This is a topic that Democrats, Progressives are reluctant to confront, the fact that some "progressive" attacks on immigration, trade and globalization appealed to the same racist and xenophobic dog whistles exploited by Trump.
This reluctance hurts Democrats and Progressives, because how can you strongly call out how Trump for his appeals to racism, and his use of racism to oppress not only minorities, but working class whites, when you are making the same policy arguments as Trump?
Put another way, how can we strongly say that Trump's attacks on globalists and globalization, trade, immigration, identity politics are motivated by racism, anti-semitism, sexism, xenophobia, when progressives like Bernie Sanders have loudly pushed for similar policies. Why can't we just attack Trump and Republicans for their tax cuts, their environmental regulation roll backs, attacks on social security and health care, and their violations of the human rights of immigrants and amnesty seekers? Why do some progressives embrace Trump-like rhetoric on globalization, trade, immigration and identity politics?
For Example:
1. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both attack mostly unnamed globalists. Of course, Trump amplifies upon Bernie's attacks on globalists bankers by giving the bogeyman a name: George Soros, which makes Trump's attack even more effective, since Bernie tends to just attack institutions. Bernie and Trump both claimed that Brexit vindicated their stances. Still, consider the excerpts below, and it seems like both Bernie and Trump draw from the same policy book:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/30/trump_old_corrupt_globalist_ruling_class_have_been_rejected_the_whole_world_gets_it.html
Trump: The Old And Corrupt Globalist Ruling Class Have Been Rejected, "The Whole World Gets It"
President Trump said the "old and corrupt, globalist, ruling class" have been rejected by the American people and their "bad ideas" are going away one by one. At a Thursday night MAGA Rally in Indiana, Trump said the "whole world gets it" and understand exactly what's going on.
The president denounced the "globalist" ruling class for squandering trillions of dollars on foreign adventures. He said they don't want to build a wall here but "they'll build walls in other countries."
"They're the old and corrupt, globalist, ruling class that squandered trillions of dollars on foreign adventures," the president said. "They don't want to build the wall here, although we've started, but it's not easy. But they'll build walls in other countries. They'll create borders in other lands so far away. But over here, let everybody pour in and we don't worry about the crime. It's a disgrace."
"They've made the worst trade deals in the history of the world, and who enriched themselves while presiding over the destruction of American jobs, American companies, and American wealth? It was the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. What we did to our companies and to our jobs, we should be ashamed of our leadership, but not this leadership. Because we're bringing them back," Trump said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/opinion/campaign-stops/bernie-sanders-democrats-need-to-wake-up.html
Surprise, surprise. Workers in Britain, many of whom have seen a decline in their standard of living while the very rich in their country have become much richer, have turned their backs on the European Union and a globalized economy that is failing them and their children.
And it’s not just the British who are suffering. That increasingly globalized economy, established and maintained by the world’s economic elite, is failing people everywhere. Incredibly, the wealthiest 62 people on this planet own as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population — around 3.6 billion people. The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the whole of the bottom 99 percent. The very, very rich enjoy unimaginable luxury while billions of people endure abject poverty, unemployment, and inadequate health care, education, housing and drinking water.
Could this rejection of the current form of the global economy happen in the United States? You bet it could.
2. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have also scapegoated trade, with a focus on China and Mexico. Both have called for steel tariffs even though most steel is imported from Canada. Yet, when Trump actually imposed the steel tariffs that Bernie has demanded, Bernie opposed the inclusion of mostly white Canada! This just highlights how both Trump and Bernie are again making racist dog whistles to working class whites, which is particularly clear with Bernie's sudden concern about Canada with respect to steel tariffs.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-13/bernie-sanders-to-trump-on-nafta-for-once-keep-your-promise
Bernie Sanders Tells Trump to Keep His Promise on Nafta
President Donald Trump is finding an unlikely ally in his efforts to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement: the political left.
Civil-society groups, union leaders and left-wing politicians have opposed almost everything Trump has done. But they’re urging him to stand firm in his attempt to overhaul Nafta -- and face down opposition from business groups, who complain that U.S. companies will be hurt by the proposed changes. Mexico and Canada have called U.S. demands unworkable, including on regional-content requirements for cars and investor-state dispute systems.
Senator Bernie Sanders, an outspoken critic of trade deals in his campaign for president last year, called on Trump to deliver. “When Donald Trump campaigned for president, he promised that he was going to stop corporations from shifting American jobs to Mexico,” Sanders said Wednesday at a rally for the #ReplaceNafta movement in Washington. “For once in your life, keep your promises.”
3. Bernie Sanders has opposed immigration reform, including reform that would have addressed the plight of dreamers on the ground that immigration reform would hurt the working class. This is similar to arguments and anti-immigration dog whistles made my Republicans. Of course, with Trump, these racist, anti-immigrant dog whistles have become a bull horn. The problem with the "progressives" making similar arguments scapegoating immigration is that it legitimizes Trump's attacks on immigrants. Worse, Bernie has argued that opposing immigration reform is actually beneficial to immigrants, who are being "exploited" by corporations who want to hire them.
Dobbs is opposed to the whole idea of "amnesty," which Sanders was not, but Sanders also doesn't argue with Dobbs about it. Sanders doesn't really say anything about the costs and benefits to immigrants themselves — whether that's people who've been living illegally in the United States or potential future guest workers — one way or another. His focus is on the idea that "what happens in Congress is to a very significant degree dictated by big-money interests" and that "I don't know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are now."
4. Bernie has attacked Democrats for engaging in identity politics when it is Republicans who have double down on white nationalism and misogyny to the one of the largest most powerful identity groups in the U.S.: white males. In minimizing the impact and appeal of racism, and saying that class is far more important, Bernie ignores how racism is used to marginalize not only minorities, but also working class whites by giving them a scapegoat, rather than a solution. Finally, by attacking Democrat appeals and defenses of women, minorities and immigrants as identity politics, this gives Republicans cover for similar attacks against Democrats.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/bernie-sanders-democrats-identity-politics-231710
Sanders slams identity politics as Democrats figure out their future
Bernie Sanders said Monday that the path to success for Democrats has to be through more than just identity politics, adding that it’s simply not enough for the party to base its appeals on diversity.
“It’s not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!’” No, that’s not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry,” the Vermont independent senator and former Democratic presidential candidate said in a not-so-subtle rebuke to Hillary Clinton.
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...regardless of who is making them. I think the attacks on TPP were stupid and resulted in the U.S. getting marginalized in the Pacific Rim, and ceding the stage to China. Also, how can you be pro-peace and anti-trade when trade deals are often a significant disincentive to armed conflict.
Finally, I think many white male liberals buy into the false equivalency between standing up for the rights of women and minorities, and protecting voter rights, and equating that with that with Republican appeals to racism. Women and minorities are just trying to be treated equally with white males and have the same opportunities. In contrast, Trump portrays these efforts as attacking a traditional Ozzie and Harriet way of life. Worse, Republican appeals to white resentment allow Republicans to take away benefits that largely benefit working class whites in return for tax cuts to the rich. In the hey day of the civil rights movement, Lyndon Johnson, himself a white southerner, hit the nail on the head when he said this:
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The one point I do agree with you on is that both the left and the right sometimes engage in this xenophobic scapegoating of immigrants and foreign trade. The point of my post is that this is a bad policy if it comes from Bernie, as it does from Trump. Worse, by engaging in the same rhetoric and policies, we undercut our opposition to Trump.
