Shouldn't Anti-Globalization Activists [Heart] Trump?

G-20 Hamburg protests: why the hate for anti-globalization champion Trump?

For years, anti-globalization protesters have gone out to all sorts of notable economically-related gatherings worldwide, be they G-7, G-8 or G-20 summits; World Economic Forum gatherings; World Bank and IMF meetings; WTO ministerial conferences, and so on and so forth. The boilerplate accusation is that world leaders betray the interests of the common people in favor of a faceless global capitalist class. To this, the common people must stand up for what they believe in. So far, nothing is new here.

What's interesting with the emergence of Donald Trump in world politics is that he espouses much of the same rhetoric: the [American] working class has been hurt by globalization, and therefore globalization should be rolled back to protect the common people from the ravages of world trade. As such, it's always struck me how vehemently opposed anti-globalization campaigners are to Trump when he's actually done much more to stop further economic integration than all of them combined. From single-handedly dooming the Trans-Pacific Partnership to oblivion to refusing to agree that trade protectionism is to be avoided during economic summits, he should be the man of anti-globalization writer Naomi Klein's dreams. But alas, he is not. This Canadian who likes meddling in Yanks' affairs just cannot stop blathering about how awful Trump is. (It's a form of globalization I don't appreciate when some foreigner thinks she's "active" in US domestic politics.)

There are, of course, all sorts of wrinkles here. Coming from the left, the anti-globalization vision of eliminating world trade is complemented by replacing it with folks being self-sufficient in small, sustainable communities. Meanwhile, the Trumpian vision is instead a triumph of American industry making everything that those in the United States wish for and more--to the exclusion of considering everyone else's welfare. Another line of argument is that Trump is only masquerading as a champion of the working class and is actually globalizer in disguise.

Then you also have a panoply of leftist causes that are the exact opposite of what Trump champions. These include climate change, racial tolerance, and so on. But, if you really think about it, Trump may be the one who is *really* anti-globalization in outlook here if the criteria is sheer isolationism. Consider:

• You don't want international cooperation on climate change since, well, it involves representatives of different nations discussing things. A global elite should not be dictating what the free peoples of the world do to their piece of the planet;
• You don't want tolerance of other people with different creeds, colors, or races. If the opposite of "globalist" is "nationalist," then you cannot have a nation-state which when it is largely indistinguishable from all others.

Abhorrent as those ideas may be, they're arguably more consistent with extricating ourselves from the rest of the world. In this sense Trump is the true anti-globalist, whereas those championing all sorts of progressive causes are not, really.

If anti-globalization means going it alone no matter what everyone else thinks, Trump is its best representative.

Anti-globalization activists should therefore celebrate Trump's arrival, full stop, wherever in the world he shows up. The attention he brings to the cause is unrivaled--especially compared to a ragtag group of anarchists and flunky writers like Klein.