Nussbaum & Hasan on Trump & Modi

Martha Nussbaum & Zoya Hasan wrote this a couple of years ago. Since then, Trump star has risen because the US economy is booming. Modi, however, has failed to deliver and seems unlikely to get a majority. Did Nussbaum & Hasan predict this development? Let us see.

After the recent meeting between Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, we would all be well advised to pause and reflect about these two men, so similar and yet so different. Both our countries have elected controversial populist strongmen who rode a wave of public anger to great and, to many, alarming, power. As scholars who study political systems both descriptively and normatively, we have long thought that cross-country comparisons yield insight. Donald Trump and Narendra Modi exemplify different types of the populist strong-man leader, with different potential consequences for democracy’s future.

Trump is certainly a populist. I suppose one could call him a strongman rather than a team player. Modi, by contrast, is a professional politician and though able to court popularity, he is not a populist and he is not a strong man. There is very little turnover in his Cabinet.

There is no similarity whatsoever between a celibate with no significant personal wealth and a much married billionaire. The only thing these two men have in common is that Nussbaum dislikes both.

Trump and Modi both rose to power as the result of popular rage against longstanding political elites.

Modi was appointed Chief Minister of Gujarat because of an internecine conflict within the BJP. He had never fought an election before. Nobody expected him to turn out to be a very able administrator. Gujarat experienced rapid agricultural and industrial growth thanks to his sensible policies. He also stopped the bloody cycle of communal rioting which had plagued the State since 1969.He won the 2014 election because he promised to put an end to corruption and to promote good governance. He has done quite well on both counts but economic reform has proved difficult.

There was no 'popular rage' against longstanding political elites in 2014. There was disappointment that Rahul Gandhi had not stepped up to the plate, thus leaving Modi the only viable candidate for the top job.

Indians believed that Rahul would play a big role in the Commonwealth Games and then take over from Manmohan Singh. After all, his father had taken charge of the Asian Games and had become Prime Minister a short while later.

India has a young population. In U.P, voters showed they preferred Akhilesh to his father Mulayam Singh. Had Rahul made it clear that he would become P.M, then Congress would not have suffered such a reverse.

But contrast, Trump does indeed represent 'popular rage' at elites. India displays no such phenomenon. In Orissa, the son of Biju Patnaik has been ruling for 20 years even though he has not mastered his mother tongue. Punjab's Chief Minister inherited the Throne of Patiala. Nussbaum may not know this but Hasan, who teaches at JNU, does.

Corruption, insider politicking, and common people’s perceived lack of access to power were prominent themes in both campaigns. Both campaigns fed, as well, on the real distress of the have-nots in our respective societies.

The authors may be surprised to learn that no politician campaigns on a pro-corruption platform. Everybody promises a more prosperous future. Trump was believed because he said he knew how to deals with foreigners such that the American people got a bigger share of the cake. Modi was believed because he was smart and tech savvy and had a track-record of promoting people for competence not loyalty.

In India, the promise of equal empowerment through education and employment has not been fulfilled by successive governments ruling at the Centre over many decades.

In which country has the 'promise of equal empowerment through education and employment' been fulfilled? None. That's why some people flip burgers for minimum wages and others have Harvard M.B.As and pull down big bucks.

Modi promised a faster economy and more jobs, although he hasn’t delivered on either.

Everybody promised faster growth and more jobs. Modi's promise was considered more credible and there sound reasons for this.

The failure of his one big policy initiative in three years — demonetisation — damaged the economy, making it more difficult to deliver on his development promises.

GST is a big policy initiative. So is Aadhar for cash transfers. Demonetization succeeded politically. Why? Modi showed he could take risks in the national interest. It is perfectly rational for voters to reward this sort of behavior.

In the US, lower middle-class men, especially, have seen their incomes stagnate and their health status plummet.

In India, by contrast, it is female participation which has fallen.

While the US is currently at full employment, the jobs that are available require more education than this class has been able to attain, and their children probably won’t be able to afford it, given the rapidly escalating costs of university education. Despite these real problems, Trump squeaked in through the electoral college, losing the popular vote, while Modi won by a landslide.

'Despite these problems'? Trump won because of these problems. What was surprising was that Hilary didn't get more female voters.

Modi's landslide had to do with no other party putting up a Prime Ministerial candidate.

Trump is vigorously opposed by both Democrats and many members of his own party, who have prevented him from enacting any major policy initiative so far, while Modi’s opposition remains in disarray.

Trump has got what he wanted- tax cuts. The economy is booming. He has no Republican challenger. The Democrats have, as Obama says, formed a circular firing squad and are making the Republicans look sane by comparison.

The Opposition rarely confronts the government over beef lynching, cow slaughter, love jihad and anti-Romeo squads, obviously for fear of offending Hindu sentiment.

India is a Hindu majority country. Offending Hindu sentiment is a bad idea. Academics don't get this. But then, they are as stupid as shit.

Unlike the US situation, mass opposition to the Modi regime is yet to materialise even three years after the establishment of saffron dominance.

Where is the 'mass opposition' to Trump? It has evaporated. All we can see is a circular firing squad in the Democratic party.

Why would a Hindu majority nation display mass opposition to an able Hindutva politician? Being Hindu means wanting 'saffron dominance'. Professor Hasan knows very well that Hindus don't want Christian or Islamic domination. There may have been a time when the red flag of the Communists promised faster economic growth. Only in that context was saffron less cherished. But that was long ago.

Trump and Modi appear drawn to a hard line against radical Islam, which was reiterated in the joint statement after the Trump-Modi meeting in Washington on June 26.

Everyone is takes a hard line against radicals who are trying to kill them. That's why Obama had Osama killed.

Both are anti-intellectual and abhor criticism.

Bhagwati supports Modi and Sen is against him. But Bhagwati is a trade theorist- what he has to say is relevant. Sen is more of a philosopher, like Nussbaum. Rahul seemed to have embraced a Sen/Nussbaum type approach- which is why he said it didn't matter who became P.M. Even being an M.P was no bid deal. All power had already been vested with very poor women living in jhuggis. That's why Rahul refused to step up to the plate last time around. Now he has come out as a sacred thread wearing Brahman who prays in Temples. The next step is to show he is a competent administrator.

Both have indulged corporate elites in various ways.

Who hasn't? The difference is that under Modi, billionaires can't set up as politicians on their own account. Some may even be extradited and brought to justice.

In India, there is a disturbing determination to polarise opinion around hyper-nationalism for vote-catching reasons.

Indians understand that punishing terrorists and those who sponsor them is good for the country. Academics may find this disturbing. But then it is part of their job description to be unworldly and easily shocked.

Opponents are dismissed as anti-national.

Why? It is because the nationals of a country don't like anti-nationals. Politicians don't say 'my opponent is concerned only with promoting this country's interests.' They insinuate that the opponent is serving a foreign power. At at any rate, that is strategy the Democrats have used against Trump.

In fact, any criticism of the government is deemed anti-national.

This is because the government claims to be working in the best interest of the country. Those who oppose the government are serving, consciously or unconsciously, foreign powers or cosmopolitan vested interests.

Both leaders have contempt for mainstream media and both rely on social media for publicity and image management.

Modi gained prominence by his deft handling of mainstream media. Trump was a Reality TV star. They may have contempt for particular TV channels or newspapers but then so do their supporters.

Modi's tweets are very different from Trump's. But then India is very different from America. It is silly to import a sort of 'woke' politics into England because every single sizable caste or religious community includes very poor people as well as a 'creamy layer'.

However, unlike the American media, the Indian media are in nationalist overdrive, portraying themselves as watchdogs of the Opposition rather than the government.

Why? Because Indians are nationalistic. They gain if the Nation becomes stronger and the Terrorists become weaker. There may be some academics who have a perverse incentive in this respect but they are merely glorified child minders.

Trump and Modi exemplify two different types of the populist leader: What we might call the Narcissist and the Ideologue.

A Narcissist can be an Ideologue and vice versa. Indeed, the thing is more likely than not. These are not 'different types' at all.

Trump is a textbook case of narcissism.

So what? He offered Americans lower taxes, higher employment and tougher policies against migrants and China and so forth. He delivered. He may get re-elected.

Trump's achievement is quite extraordinary. He is the only President who never got a Government paycheck in his life before bagging the top job. It is foolish to dismiss a man as a narcissist if his actual accomplishments are of such a high order. It would be like saying Napoleon had a Napoleon complex.

Everything is all about him.

He has become the sole and absolute master of his own Party. It really is now all about him.

Almost every tweet and certainly every speech proclaims that what he is, or has, or does, is the Biggest, the Best, the Most Fantastic. Like most narcissists, Trump appears to have severe difficulty working with others on terms of reciprocity and respect. He turns on people, hiring and then firing.

And yet the Economy is booming. China is piping small. Hilary Clinton is telling Europe to get tough on migration.

Trump has regular tantrums; he can’t control his constant flow of often petulant and vulgar words. When he thinks he is not lauded enough, he insults anyone and everyone: Judges, politicians of parties, journalists, women, trusted leaders of allied nations. His boundless thirst for approval makes him happier on the campaign trail than actually crafting and implementing policy. He has done very little indeed, despite controlling both houses of Congress, in part because of his difficulty working with others, in part because of his short attention span where real policy matters are concerned.

The trouble here is that 'real policy matters' don't actually matter because once all the logs have been rolled and pork barrels filled you have an unworkable mess.

Obama squandered political capital on all sorts of things which did not matter in the slightest.

Most important, narcissists have no stable policies. Trump wants praise above all, so he is prepared to veer, often wildly. Elected largely by the lower middle class, he has governed in favour of wealthy elites who have his ear. His positions flip-flop unpredictably — on Israel (he simply dropped the idea of relocating the US embassy to Jerusalem, a major campaign promise),

This was written in mid 2017. In October 2018, the Embassy was in fact relocated.

on China (his campaign promise, soon forgotten, was to punish China on trade),

China has been punished on trade. More importantly, there is now substantial push-back against their attempt to monopolize strategically important high tech industries.

on climate change (he campaigned on the view that it was a hoax, but now says it is real),

Yet he did not mention it in his recent Earth Day. It is better to let the Democratic circular firing squad make the running on the sort of Green New Deal which failed under Obama.

on gay rights (formerly favouring them, he has increasingly veered to the right in order to retain the support of his base).

Because the thing got silly.

On health care, his positions shift unpredictably from day to day, so that Congress increasingly ignores him. Indeed we can go further: Trump sees the world as a child sees it — as a set of personal friends and personal enemies. His Middle East policy follows his longstanding friendship with Saudi royalty, and therefore assails Qatar without knowing much about the enormous complexities of such a stance.

There are no 'enormous complexities'. Qatar is on Iran's side and finances Hamas. Trump has chosen wisely and is turning the screws on Iran. Obama squandered political capital, Trump is getting a good return instead.

Contrast Trump with Modi — one of India’s most powerful politicians in decades. He is a consummate politician who has been chief minister of Gujarat for three terms. Modi’s career has been an embrace of RSS ideology, including its idea of a Hindu rashtra in which Muslims and Christians are, at best, second-class citizens.

Where are Christians second-class citizens? According to Sujatha Gilda- it was in Andhra Pradesh where the CM was a Christian. But the CM belonged to the dominant caste whereas Gilda was Dalit. Such Christians claim they are second class members of their own Church.

Muslims, it must be said, are in a separate category. Madhu Kishwar says in a tweet ' Long years ago, JNU Prof Zoya Hasan once said to me in unguarded moment--There is no denying that Muslims are a "difficult minority" to which I added "And a tyrannical majority". She kept quiet on that.'

Whatever his precise role was in the Gujarat communal violence, it was not a noble one, and it deserved the decision of the US State Department to deny him a visa for religious discrimination.

The US did so to please the incumbent Congress regime. Once Congress got the boot, they mended fences with the BJP.

Yet, he has convinced many Indians that he can make India great after six decades of no development (as he claims). He has persuaded the lower middle classes that he is on their side even if his policies hurt them dearly as demonetisation did. The middle classes see him as a leader who thinks and speaks like them; they see the government as serving Hindu self-interest.

This is nonsense. Modi is not a hypnotist. Indians weighed up their options and chose the best candidate.

In keeping with his long association with the RSS, Modi is disciplined and works to a plan. He has patience and a long attention span. He does appear to enjoy adulation, but not in the manner of the narcissist: He doesn’t let it turn him away from his ideological programme. Modi does not veer; he encroaches. He is working for a radical transformation of India so that it becomes a strong Hindu nation.

Indians don't want to belong to a weak nation. Since Hinduism is the only cement along the vertical axis of caste and class as well as across the horizontal axis of region and language, either India will be a strong Hindu nation or it will be weak and anarchic presided over by incompetent dynasts.

A permissive climate of hate and retributive violence has been cultivated to achieve this. The concerted strategy of turning Hindus against Muslims doesn’t stop with elections.

The concerted strategy which turned not just Hindus but Americans and Europeans and the Chinese and so on against the Muslims was and is pursued solely by Muslims.

In fact, it has escalated after each election. First cow slaughter, and now buffalo trade is the target to shore up the “Hindu vote”. Both the narcissist and the ideologue pose threats to democracy.

Nussbaum & Hasan feel democracy is threatened when a dude they don't like gets elected.

From Trump one can fear an international crisis caused by whim or stupidity.

Where is the international crisis? Under Obama there were crises. Now everything is peaceful. Why? Because, unlike Obama, Trump doesn't do 'stupid shit' just because some egg heads say so.

One can worry about assaults on freedoms of press and speech.

Also about being abducted by aliens and subjected to anal probes.

There is also the danger of getting nothing done, when the nation has large problems to solve.

As happened under Obama.

But, given Trump’s policy preferences, getting nothing done is probably good for America.

Says a tenured professor with her head up her arse.

The danger posed by the ideologue stems from the fact that total electoral dominance becomes the sole goal of the democratic project.

If ideologues pose a danger then academics who teach political philosophy pose a danger. So do professional politicians and political advisers whose expertise lies in identifying means of 'electoral dominance'.

It may be a good idea to ban academics from teaching political philosophy. It may also be a good idea to kill professional politicians and their advisers.

However, this is not enough. |We must kill every single voter so as to put an end to all danger to the democratic project.

Worryingly, Modi has also encouraged a cult of personality — which is creating a template for the growth of authoritarian tendencies.

Zoya is being silly. She knows that Modi's career began and will end with the RSS. Unlike Vajpayee or Advani he has no family to look after him. He also knows that the India's demographic dividend means that younger leaders will ruthlessly shoulder his generation aside. His choice of Yogi Adityanath neutralized the 'young lions'- Akhlilesh and Rahul. He needs to manage his political demise in a graceful manner so as to avoid the fate of an Advani.

The very idea of a democracy in which all citizens possess equal rights irrespective of caste, class or faith, is under threat from a majoritarian ideology.

There is no such idea, as opposed to ideal, of democracy. However, this ideal may require a small, highly educated, elite controlling things behind the scenes by promulgating populist 'noble lies' from time to time. Perhaps Nussbaum & Hasan- having spent their lives as glorified child-minders to the stupider progeny of the elites- believe they themselves are discharging some such role. However, what they are doing is telling us stupid, not noble, lies.