Is Globalism Starting To Run Aground in the United States?

Political analyst Georgiy Filimonov on whether the presidential campaign will create a deep rift in the political elite of the United States.

The first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the main contenders for the Oval Office, did not reveal a winner. The suspense has been preserved. America is torn between two political trends – globalism, the national ideology of the past few decades, and isolationism. The Republican candidate, Trump, decided to set things straight right away: “Hillary Clinton is running to become the president of the world. I am running to become the president of the United States. And protect the interests of specifically U.S. citizens.”*

At first glance, it would be difficult to imagine that the American billionaire, who has earned his fortune in the construction business and has developed close business ties with a globalist Wall Street, is sincerely speaking in favor of isolationism. But the fact is that average Americans have virtually no interest in foreign policy, they prefer to vote for the candidate who can articulate a plausible economic program that includes social reform and most importantly, health insurance and acceptable prices for gasoline at the nearest gas station.

In any event, in the first round of debates, Trump could not resist referring to a foreign policy issue. “I will release my tax records when she [Clinton] releases her 33,000 emails that have been deleted,” he declared, hinting at the Libyan scandal surrounding Clinton, who is being accused of an information leak that led to the demise of U.S. diplomatic personnel and the U.S. ambassador in Libya, who perished in Benghazi at the hands of terrorists.

However, in general, Trump still prefers to hold forth on economic subjects such as restoring national industries, creating new jobs and reviewing trade agreements with China, the European Union, Canada and Mexico, and on restricting migration legislation and strengthening the dollar, which would allow the United States to turn a blind eye to economic volatility in the rest of the world. In order to gather additional charges against the Democrats’ globalism, Trump also raked the Federal Reserve System over the coals, accusing its leadership of inflating a terrible bubble that turned the country into a significant debtor.

In the next round of debates, Trump is expected to attack Clinton on the Democratic election campaign’s sources of funding, and specifically those of the Clinton Family Foundation, whose donors include Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. According to The New York Times, he has invested no less than $13 million in the fund since 2006.

As for Clinton, she is striving to attract part of a continually vacillating traditional electorate in the Democratic Party – ethnic minorities and young people, offering an economy that would “work for everyone. The former secretary of state has promised to raise the minimum working wage and provide free or very cheap higher education to children from low income families, stating her intention to fund a higher quality of life for the middle class and raise taxes for Americans with the highest earnings. Clinton is convinced that the wealthiest must contribute to everyone’s welfare. Endowed with considerable self-presentation skills, she is trying to use absolutely everything to her benefit, including her recent health problems, which was the reason she was obliged to turn down a few meetings with voters.

Everyone understands that it isn’t only America’s fate that depends on who will head the White House. Russian-American relations have also remained at a crossroads, damaged by Barack Obama’s sanctions policy. Clinton is trying to justify her boss’s aggressive policies by accusing Moscow of hacking the Democratic Party’s servers. Trump is countering with the fact that Russia’s culpability has not been proven and anyone could have hacked the American websites.

As expected, the differentiating factor in the entire presidential race has become the candidates’ attitude toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Clinton is accusing the Russian leader of “aggressiveness,” while Trump is showing him due respect, expressing his readiness to find common ground with Moscow. “We must demonstrate more unity so as to prevent Russia from taking a more aggressive position in Europe and the Middle East,” Clinton noted earlier, adding that “we must be smarter in how we act with regard to Vladimir Putin and his ambitions.”*

Meanwhile, the Democratic candidate is not shirking reality, leaving herself room for maneuvering: “It’s not easy with Putin. But I think we have an alternative to consistently cooperating with Russia.”*

In evaluating the debate, Western mass media have forgotten about their declaration to be objective and have split into two camps. Radio Freedom, which is managed by the Department of State, is publishing exclusively negative responses to the Republican candidate, while Forbes magazine believes that Trump is right about China’s monetary policy and is calling him a “lesser evil” for America than Clinton. “Donald Trump’s foreign policy is confused and unpredictable, but Hillary Clinton backs endless war,” declared Forbes commentator Doug Bandow, recalling Syria, Libya, Yemen and other destroyed middle eastern governments.

CNN, which is close to transnational business circles, is handing Clinton the election victory. But Trump doesn’t despair, simply declaring that he “doesn’t watch CNN.” In response, he draws attention to the surveys of those publications which have given him the victory: Time – 59 percent to 41 percent; CNBC – 61 percent to 39 percent; Variety – 55 percent to 45 percent; and The Hill – 59 percent to 36 percent.

Some observers see the start of a rift in the American political elite in this picture, which, for all these years, has mostly remained consolidated. For now, this isn’t a rift – just the preliminary results of an information war, whose winner will be determined on Nov. 8. But the globalists won’t have it easy, whatever the outcome.

The author is the Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia.

*Editor’s note: This quoted remark, although accurately translated, could not be independently verified.