Rumor has it that an economist started hitting the gym after finishing two milestone research papers, in expectation of a Nobel Prize, which is only rewarded to a living person. Almost no one denies that greater expectations translate into healthier behaviors, while the converse rarely enters the health policy discussion: expectations of a less-than-desirable future may lead to unhealthy behaviors, including smoking, excessive drinking, sedentary lifestyles, and drug abuse. The health issues of the deprived may have a deeper root in economics.

Professor Zhu Xi from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and I found evidence of this in our working paper “Affordable Care Encourages Healthy Living: Theory and Evidence from China's New Cooperative Medical Scheme”. Standard economic theory predicts that providing medical insurance encourages unhealthy behavior by mitigating economic consequences. We developed a novel theoretical framework in which the opposite is possible because insurance makes longevity more affordable and thus desirable.

We test the theory utilizing a unique experiment of China introducing the New Cooperative Medical Scheme, unique in its long-term credibility necessary for their proposed channel. This scheme reduces cigarette use by around 9% and bolsters subjective perception of the importance of physical exercise and healthy diet. These effects depend significantly on the number of children and the local culture of elderly care. We can rule out alternative explanations of these robust results. The empirical evidence affirms a causal link between concerns about negative bequest and unhealthy behavior, and how to break it.

Breaking the causal link would not be an easy task, because bringing a brighter future to the deprived would not be. But this does not revoke the necessity of considering this “expectation” mechanism in designing health policies. For example, it is trendy to study how smokers may substitute other tobacco products for cigarettes and the ensuing health consequences. According to our analytical framework, the substitution could be broader, that is, a person expecting a miserable future would consciously or unconsciously resort to other means of shortening life. Case and Deaton, in their sensational paper, pinned down drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis as the causes of the rising mortality in midlife among white Americans. The war against tobacco use may be complicated by this potential substitution.

In general, recognizing the source of a problem is the first step in solving it. The association between income and life expectancy in the United States is well identified by a Brookings study by Bosworth and Burke and a paper by Chetty et al. The hypothesis that poverty may rationally trigger unhealthy behaviors and thus shorter life expectancy is under-explored.

Our research suggests that constructing a social safety net – by subsidizing health or old-age insurance, for example – brightens the future and thus promotes healthy living. Libertarians who believe in “from each as they choose, to each as they are chosen” may frown upon the idea of expanding the government for the sake of saving people from their own poor choices. As usual, an argument could be made that the positive externality outweighs the cost. In this case, a better social safety net can make a person more forward-looking and thus more beneficial to the society.

Discovering hidden incentives and mechanisms is one of the primal tasks of economists. Our research suggests, surprisingly, that both the Center of Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of the Treasury are important players in promoting healthy living. Let them be.

At a news conference in Seoul today, the United States and the Republic of Korea jointly announced the decision to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system on the Korean Peninsula, with operational deployment planned by the end of 2017. Though many details are still pending, the decision is not a surprise, and the purposes of the deployment are wholly transparent.

As elaborated in the official announcement, the THAAD deployments are intended to defend the infrastructure and citizens of South Korea, and to protect core military capabilities underpinning the U.S.-Korea alliance. It is not a panacea for South Korea’s potential vulnerabilities to North Korean missile attack, but it will appreciably buttress Seoul’s still-limited air and missile defense capabilities, and explicitly link them to the far greater assets of the United States. 

Seoul did not undertake this commitment lightly. In recent years, South Korean strategic analysts have hotly debated the missile defense issue, but the political-military leadership has proceeded very deliberately. It was only in the aftermath of North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in early January and a long-range rocket test that soon followed that President Park Geun-hye’s administration agreed to initiate consultations on the “earliest possible” deployment of a THAAD missile battery. The North’s accelerated missile testing program, evident since April, reinforced the need for a meaningful response to Pyongyang’s actions.

Neither China nor Russia seems mollified by today’s announcement. Beijing and Moscow both perceive a malign U.S. strategic design, purportedly intended to detect and intercept Chinese and Russian strategic missiles, thereby invalidating their respective deterrence capabilities. But these worst-case estimates attribute technical reach and refinement to the Raytheon radar system likely to accompany the THAAD deployment that substantially exceeds even the manufacturer’s claims. 

China and Russia also contend that the THAAD deployment will further complicate the larger goal of denuclearization and threat reduction on the Korean Peninsula. But this places the cart before the horse. Pyongyang’s determination to expand and diversify its nuclear and missile programs has triggered the THAAD decision. Without the North’s accelerated military efforts, it is very doubtful that sentiment in Seoul would favor deployment of THAAD. Beijing and Moscow assuredly know how to connect the dots, but they seem unwilling to do so. 

At a time of increased Chinese wariness about U.S. military strategy along China’s periphery, it is not a surprise that Beijing has paid little heed to American and South Korean assurances.

Beijing also calculates that warning South Korea of unspecified consequences will convince Seoul to forego the THAAD decision. But this underestimates the South’s determination to proceed with missile defense, which will tie Seoul even more integrally to longer-term cooperation with the United States. This decision is unwelcome in China, but it is wholly within Seoul’s sovereign right to defend its vital interests by all appropriate means; China routinely does the same.

In meetings with Chinese counterparts, senior Korean officials have repeatedly stated that the THAAD deployment serves one irreducible purpose: the protection of South Korean vital national security interests. Seoul is keenly aware of Chinese strategic equities, and will remain very mindful of Beijing’s concerns as it moves ahead with this program. 

At the same time, Seoul and Washington have repeatedly conveyed their willingness to impart to officials in Beijing the limited purpose of the THAAD deployment. It will be directed entirely towards the North’s threats against the South; it will be exclusively bilateral in design; and it will not be targeted against the capabilities of any other party. 

At a time of increased Chinese wariness about U.S. military strategy along China’s periphery, it is not a surprise that Beijing has paid little heed to American and South Korean assurances, at least publicly. But officials and analysts in China must quietly grasp the reasons for the THAAD decision. The North’s nuclear and missile programs worry China deeply, as well. 

The need for a quiet, private conversation about the risks to stability on the peninsula has never been greater. The United States and South Korea are surely ready for this conversation. Whether China is ready remains to be seen.

Last week, we showed how the share of the nation’s venture capital going to the Bay Area has actually increased over the last decade and posed the question: Are San Francisco and Silicon Valley good models for most cities to imitate? And with the answer being “no,” what strategies should cities employ to bolster local capital networks?

The answer depends upon regions’ technical strengths—different technologies imply different venture capital strategies. A common assumption is that most cities look like Silicon Valley with software monopolizing venture funding, but in many places a mix of different technologies are far more important. Metropolitan level venture capital data from 2005 to 2015 from Pitchbook illustrates how different cities require different strategies.

In Cleveland, for example, more than three-quarters of deals are in clinical care services and medical devices driven by Cleveland Clinic’s world-renowned success in identifying and funding companies creating novel health care technologies. However, software and medical technologies require very different venture capital strategies. Software companies need upfront funding but can scale quickly with few additional funding rounds. Medical technologies require FDA approval and clinical trials, costly and lengthy processes, implying the need to consider whether regional venture capital efforts can provide not only seed funding but multiple rounds. If not, promising health care companies may flame out or relocated elsewhere.

Pittsburgh, on the other hand, has a far more mixed portfolio than either Cleveland or the Bay Area, one of the most diverse in the country. Pittsburgh’s top 10 technologies funded over the last decade include laboratory services, energy exploration, battery storage, medical devices, software, and electronic equipment—with none making up more than one-fifth the metro area’s portfolio. Pittsburgh’s mix of educational and non-profit institutions like Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh and UPMC support research in engineering, software, medical technologies, and therapeutics. In addition private companies like Google, Alcoa, and the shale gas boom have provided the region with a blend of market opportunities that are extremely different than that of the Bay Area.

Equally important to the type of technologies funded is how venture capital deals are funded. In the Bay Area private venture capital firms represent the vast majority of funding both in terms of numbers of deals and overall value. Deals from accelerators and universities together equal less than one-tenth of what is invested by private venture capital firms. Given the many private investment firms in the Bay Area, universities and accelerators are better at creating and incubating technologies instead of funding them. Unfortunately, other markets lack such private sector assets and try to jumpstart investments through other methods.

Over the last decade, Pittsburgh made just 3 percent as many total venture deals as the Bay Area, but breaking that figure down by the funding source, universities outperformed in Pittsburgh. There they funded nearly 30 percent as many deals as universities did in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, a rate 10 times as high as would be expected based the Bay Area “norm.” One reason for this is Pittsburgh is relatively new to venture funding and may have more research assets than private venture capital firms. Therefore, university funds could fill an important capital gap.

A common worry is these non-private sector deals are poor investments that private firms, with superior market intelligence, simply refused to make. This argument is most persuasive in regions like the Bay Area where there is no shortage of private capital to fund good ideas. However in other regions these investments can prove to be smart precursors to private funding. Also, rarely do public institutions make investment decisions. Instead, public dollars are funneled through private investment firms to kick start regional activity. For example, Philadelphia’s new StartUp PHL fund is paid for by taxpayer dollars but investment decisions are made by First Capital, the city’s largest private venture capital fund. The fund requires recipients to stay in the city for at least six months after funding, with the hope to increase the number of growing technology companies in Philadelphia.

Cleveland and Pittsburgh are specific examples of a general point. Cities have unique technology competencies and pathways to venture capital. Economic strategies to attract outside, and bolster local capital, should reflect those attributes and not simply default to what seems to have worked in the Bay Area. 

Last week, we showed how the share of the nation’s venture capital going to the Bay Area has actually increased over the last decade and posed the question: Are San Francisco and Silicon Valley good models for most cities to imitate? And with the answer being “no,” what strategies should cities employ to bolster local capital networks?

The answer depends upon regions’ technical strengths—different technologies imply different venture capital strategies. A common assumption is that most cities look like Silicon Valley with software monopolizing venture funding, but in many places a mix of different technologies are far more important. Metropolitan level venture capital data from 2005 to 2015 from Pitchbook illustrates how different cities require different strategies.

In Cleveland, for example, more than three-quarters of deals are in clinical care services and medical devices driven by Cleveland Clinic’s world-renowned success in identifying and funding companies creating novel health care technologies. However, software and medical technologies require very different venture capital strategies. Software companies need upfront funding but can scale quickly with few additional funding rounds. Medical technologies require FDA approval and clinical trials, costly and lengthy processes, implying the need to consider whether regional venture capital efforts can provide not only seed funding but multiple rounds. If not, promising health care companies may flame out or relocated elsewhere.

Pittsburgh, on the other hand, has a far more mixed portfolio than either Cleveland or the Bay Area, one of the most diverse in the country. Pittsburgh’s top 10 technologies funded over the last decade include laboratory services, energy exploration, battery storage, medical devices, software, and electronic equipment—with none making up more than one-fifth the metro area’s portfolio. Pittsburgh’s mix of educational and non-profit institutions like Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh and UPMC support research in engineering, software, medical technologies, and therapeutics. In addition private companies like Google, Alcoa, and the shale gas boom have provided the region with a blend of market opportunities that are extremely different than that of the Bay Area.

Equally important to the type of technologies funded is how venture capital deals are funded. In the Bay Area private venture capital firms represent the vast majority of funding both in terms of numbers of deals and overall value. Deals from accelerators and universities together equal less than one-tenth of what is invested by private venture capital firms. Given the many private investment firms in the Bay Area, universities and accelerators are better at creating and incubating technologies instead of funding them. Unfortunately, other markets lack such private sector assets and try to jumpstart investments through other methods.

Over the last decade, Pittsburgh made just 3 percent as many total venture deals as the Bay Area, but breaking that figure down by the funding source, universities outperformed in Pittsburgh. There they funded nearly 30 percent as many deals as universities did in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, a rate 10 times as high as would be expected based the Bay Area “norm.” One reason for this is Pittsburgh is relatively new to venture funding and may have more research assets than private venture capital firms. Therefore, university funds could fill an important capital gap.

A common worry is these non-private sector deals are poor investments that private firms, with superior market intelligence, simply refused to make. This argument is most persuasive in regions like the Bay Area where there is no shortage of private capital to fund good ideas. However in other regions these investments can prove to be smart precursors to private funding. Also, rarely do public institutions make investment decisions. Instead, public dollars are funneled through private investment firms to kick start regional activity. For example, Philadelphia’s new StartUp PHL fund is paid for by taxpayer dollars but investment decisions are made by First Capital, the city’s largest private venture capital fund. The fund requires recipients to stay in the city for at least six months after funding, with the hope to increase the number of growing technology companies in Philadelphia.

Cleveland and Pittsburgh are specific examples of a general point. Cities have unique technology competencies and pathways to venture capital. Economic strategies to attract outside, and bolster local capital, should reflect those attributes and not simply default to what seems to have worked in the Bay Area. 

Last week, we showed how the share of the nation’s venture capital going to the Bay Area has actually increased over the last decade and posed the question: Are San Francisco and Silicon Valley good models for most cities to imitate? And with the answer being “no,” what strategies should cities employ to bolster local capital networks?

The answer depends upon regions’ technical strengths—different technologies imply different venture capital strategies. A common assumption is that most cities look like Silicon Valley with software monopolizing venture funding, but in many places a mix of different technologies are far more important. Metropolitan level venture capital data from 2005 to 2015 from Pitchbook illustrates how different cities require different strategies.

In Cleveland, for example, more than three-quarters of deals are in clinical care services and medical devices driven by Cleveland Clinic’s world-renowned success in identifying and funding companies creating novel health care technologies. However, software and medical technologies require very different venture capital strategies. Software companies need upfront funding but can scale quickly with few additional funding rounds. Medical technologies require FDA approval and clinical trials, costly and lengthy processes, implying the need to consider whether regional venture capital efforts can provide not only seed funding but multiple rounds. If not, promising health care companies may flame out or relocated elsewhere.

Pittsburgh, on the other hand, has a far more mixed portfolio than either Cleveland or the Bay Area, one of the most diverse in the country. Pittsburgh’s top 10 technologies funded over the last decade include laboratory services, energy exploration, battery storage, medical devices, software, and electronic equipment—with none making up more than one-fifth the metro area’s portfolio. Pittsburgh’s mix of educational and non-profit institutions like Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh and UPMC support research in engineering, software, medical technologies, and therapeutics. In addition private companies like Google, Alcoa, and the shale gas boom have provided the region with a blend of market opportunities that are extremely different than that of the Bay Area.

Equally important to the type of technologies funded is how venture capital deals are funded. In the Bay Area private venture capital firms represent the vast majority of funding both in terms of numbers of deals and overall value. Deals from accelerators and universities together equal less than one-tenth of what is invested by private venture capital firms. Given the many private investment firms in the Bay Area, universities and accelerators are better at creating and incubating technologies instead of funding them. Unfortunately, other markets lack such private sector assets and try to jumpstart investments through other methods.

Over the last decade, Pittsburgh made just 3 percent as many total venture deals as the Bay Area, but breaking that figure down by the funding source, universities outperformed in Pittsburgh. There they funded nearly 30 percent as many deals as universities did in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, a rate 10 times as high as would be expected based the Bay Area “norm.” One reason for this is Pittsburgh is relatively new to venture funding and may have more research assets than private venture capital firms. Therefore, university funds could fill an important capital gap.

A common worry is these non-private sector deals are poor investments that private firms, with superior market intelligence, simply refused to make. This argument is most persuasive in regions like the Bay Area where there is no shortage of private capital to fund good ideas. However in other regions these investments can prove to be smart precursors to private funding. Also, rarely do public institutions make investment decisions. Instead, public dollars are funneled through private investment firms to kick start regional activity. For example, Philadelphia’s new StartUp PHL fund is paid for by taxpayer dollars but investment decisions are made by First Capital, the city’s largest private venture capital fund. The fund requires recipients to stay in the city for at least six months after funding, with the hope to increase the number of growing technology companies in Philadelphia.

Cleveland and Pittsburgh are specific examples of a general point. Cities have unique technology competencies and pathways to venture capital. Economic strategies to attract outside, and bolster local capital, should reflect those attributes and not simply default to what seems to have worked in the Bay Area. 

Last week, we showed how the share of the nation’s venture capital going to the Bay Area has actually increased over the last decade and posed the question: Are San Francisco and Silicon Valley good models for most cities to imitate? And with the answer being “no,” what strategies should cities employ to bolster local capital networks?

The answer depends upon regions’ technical strengths—different technologies imply different venture capital strategies. A common assumption is that most cities look like Silicon Valley with software monopolizing venture funding, but in many places a mix of different technologies are far more important. Metropolitan level venture capital data from 2005 to 2015 from Pitchbook illustrates how different cities require different strategies.

In Cleveland, for example, more than three-quarters of deals are in clinical care services and medical devices driven by Cleveland Clinic’s world-renowned success in identifying and funding companies creating novel health care technologies. However, software and medical technologies require very different venture capital strategies. Software companies need upfront funding but can scale quickly with few additional funding rounds. Medical technologies require FDA approval and clinical trials, costly and lengthy processes, implying the need to consider whether regional venture capital efforts can provide not only seed funding but multiple rounds. If not, promising health care companies may flame out or relocated elsewhere.

Pittsburgh, on the other hand, has a far more mixed portfolio than either Cleveland or the Bay Area, one of the most diverse in the country. Pittsburgh’s top 10 technologies funded over the last decade include laboratory services, energy exploration, battery storage, medical devices, software, and electronic equipment—with none making up more than one-fifth the metro area’s portfolio. Pittsburgh’s mix of educational and non-profit institutions like Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh and UPMC support research in engineering, software, medical technologies, and therapeutics. In addition private companies like Google, Alcoa, and the shale gas boom have provided the region with a blend of market opportunities that are extremely different than that of the Bay Area.

Equally important to the type of technologies funded is how venture capital deals are funded. In the Bay Area private venture capital firms represent the vast majority of funding both in terms of numbers of deals and overall value. Deals from accelerators and universities together equal less than one-tenth of what is invested by private venture capital firms. Given the many private investment firms in the Bay Area, universities and accelerators are better at creating and incubating technologies instead of funding them. Unfortunately, other markets lack such private sector assets and try to jumpstart investments through other methods.

Over the last decade, Pittsburgh made just 3 percent as many total venture deals as the Bay Area, but breaking that figure down by the funding source, universities outperformed in Pittsburgh. There they funded nearly 30 percent as many deals as universities did in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, a rate 10 times as high as would be expected based the Bay Area “norm.” One reason for this is Pittsburgh is relatively new to venture funding and may have more research assets than private venture capital firms. Therefore, university funds could fill an important capital gap.

A common worry is these non-private sector deals are poor investments that private firms, with superior market intelligence, simply refused to make. This argument is most persuasive in regions like the Bay Area where there is no shortage of private capital to fund good ideas. However in other regions these investments can prove to be smart precursors to private funding. Also, rarely do public institutions make investment decisions. Instead, public dollars are funneled through private investment firms to kick start regional activity. For example, Philadelphia’s new StartUp PHL fund is paid for by taxpayer dollars but investment decisions are made by First Capital, the city’s largest private venture capital fund. The fund requires recipients to stay in the city for at least six months after funding, with the hope to increase the number of growing technology companies in Philadelphia.

Cleveland and Pittsburgh are specific examples of a general point. Cities have unique technology competencies and pathways to venture capital. Economic strategies to attract outside, and bolster local capital, should reflect those attributes and not simply default to what seems to have worked in the Bay Area. 

MEDIA RELEASE

Low-Income Boys in Higher Inequality Areas Drop Out of School More Often than Low-Income Boys in Lower Inequality Areas, Limiting Social Mobility, New Brookings Paper Finds
“Economic despair” may contribute if those at the bottom do not believe they have the ability to achieve middle class status

Greater income gaps between those at the bottom and middle of the income distribution lead low-income boys to drop out of high school more often than their counterparts in lower inequality areas, suggesting that there is an important link between income inequality and reduced rates of upward mobility, according to a new paper presented today at the Brookings Panel on Activity. The finding has implications for social policy, implying a need for interventions that focus on bolstering low-income adolescents' perceptions of what they could achieve in life.

In “Income Inequality, Social Mobility, and the Decision to Drop Out Of High School,” Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow and University of Maryland economics professor Melissa S. Kearney and Wellesley economics professor Phillip B. Levine propose a channel through which income inequality might lead to less upward mobility—often assumed to be the case but not yet fully proven. The conventional thinking among economists is that income inequality provides incentives for individuals to invest more in order to achieve the higher income position in society, but Kearney and Levine observe that if low-income youth view middle-class life as out of reach, they might decide to invest less in their own economic future.

See an interactive map of inequality by state, plus more findings »

The authors focus on income inequality in the lower half of the income distribution, as measured by income gaps between the 10th and 50th percentiles of the income distribution rather than income gaps between the the top and bottom of the income distribution, which has been more of a focus in popular culture. They show this "lower-tail" inequality is more relevant to the lives of poor youth because the middle is a more realistic ambition. Furthermore, their research could reconcile a puzzle: social mobility does not appear to be falling, despite the rise in income inequality. But, as Kearney and Levine point out, U.S. income inequality has been rising because the top of the distribution has been pulling away from the middle, not because the bottom is falling farther behind the middle.

The authors look specifically at high school drop-out rates through a geographic lens, noting the link between highly variable rates of high school completion and income inequality across the country. One-quarter or more of those who start high school in the higher inequality states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and the District Columbia fail to graduate in a four-year period, as compared to only around 10 percent in Vermont, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Nebraska—lower inequality states. Their econometric analysis goes on to show that low-income youth—boys in particular—are 4.1 percentage points more likely to drop out of high school by age 20 if they live in a high-inequality location relative to those who live in a low-inequality location.

Kearney and Levine examine a number of potential explanations for this link, including differences in educational inputs, poverty rates, demographic composition, and other factors. Ultimately, the evidence suggests that there is something specific about areas with greater income gaps that lead low-income boys there to drop out of school at higher rates than low-income boys elsewhere. The authors' research suggests that adolescents make educational decisions based on their perceived returns to investing in their educational development: a greater distance to climb to get to the middle of the income distribution could lead to a sense that economic success is unlikely—what they term “economic despair.”

"Income inequality can negatively affect the perceived returns to investment in education from the perspective of an economically disadvantaged adolescent,” they write. “Perceptions beget perceptions."

Digging into reasons students themselves give for dropping out, they find that low-income students from more unequal places are more likely to give up on their educational pursuits. Surprisingly, survey evidence shows that academic performance does not have as large an impact on low-income students in high inequality states: 51 percent of dropouts in the least unequal states reported that they dropped out because they were performing poorly, as compared to only 21 percent of students who dropped out in the most unequal states.

The finding suggests that economic despair could play an important role: if a student perceives a lower benefit to remaining in school, then he or she will choose to drop out at a lower threshold of academic difficulty. They also note that while the wage premium of completing high school should reduce the dropout rate, household income inequality has an offsetting negative effect.

The choice between staying in school and dropping out may reflect actual or perceived differences from the benefits of graduating. For instance, the authors note their past research showing that youth from low-income households who grow up in high lower-tail inequality states face lifetime incomes that are over 30 percent lower than similar children in lower inequality states. They also highlight other research showing that the overwhelming majority of 9th graders aspire to go to college, but by 11th grade, low-SES students are substantially less likely to expect they will enroll in college, even among those students with high test scores.

"There are important policy implications for what types of programs are needed to improve the economic trajectory of children from low-SES backgrounds," they write. "Successful interventions would focus on giving low income youth reasons to believe they have the opportunity to succeed. Such interventions could focus on expanded opportunities that would improve the actual return to staying in school, but they could also focus on improving perceptions by giving low-income students a reason to believe they can be the "college-going type." For example, interventions might take the form of mentoring programs that connect youth with successful adult mentors and school and community programs that focus on establishing high expectations and providing pathways to graduation. They could also take the form of early-childhood parenting programs that work with parents to create more nurturing home environments to build self-esteem and engender positive behaviors."

Read the full paper from Kearney and Levine here »

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• How “economic despair” affects high school graduation rates for America’s poorest students

Editors’ Note: The phenomenon Donald Trump has created has become something larger than him, and something far more dangerous, writes Bob Kagan. This phenomenon has arisen in other democratic and quasi-democratic countries over the past century, and it has generally been called “fascism.” This piece originally appeared in The Washington Post.

The Republican Party’s attempt to treat Donald Trump as a normal political candidate would be laughable were it not so perilous to the republic. If only he would mouth the party’s “conservative” principles, all would be well.

But of course the entire Trump phenomenon has nothing to do with policy or ideology. It has nothing to do with the Republican Party, either, except in its historic role as incubator of this singular threat to our democracy. Trump has transcended the party that produced him. His growing army of supporters no longer cares about the party. Because it did not immediately and fully embrace Trump, because a dwindling number of its political and intellectual leaders still resist him, the party is regarded with suspicion and even hostility by his followers. Their allegiance is to him and him alone.

And the source of allegiance? We’re supposed to believe that Trump’s support stems from economic stagnation or dislocation. Maybe some of it does. But what Trump offers his followers are not economic remedies—his proposals change daily. What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence. His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others”—Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees—whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. His program, such as it is, consists chiefly of promises to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion. He will deport them, bar them, get them to knuckle under, make them pay up or make them shut up.

That this tough-guy, get-mad-and-get-even approach has gained him an increasingly large and enthusiastic following has probably surprised Trump as much as it has everyone else. Trump himself is simply and quite literally an egomaniac. But the phenomenon he has created and now leads has become something larger than him, and something far more dangerous.

[T]he phenomenon he has created and now leads has become something larger than him, and something far more dangerous.

Republican politicians marvel at how he has “tapped into” a hitherto unknown swath of the voting public. But what he has tapped into is what the founders most feared when they established the democratic republic: the popular passions unleashed, the “mobocracy.” Conservatives have been warning for decades about government suffocating liberty. But here is the other threat to liberty that Alexis de Tocqueville and the ancient philosophers warned about: that the people in a democracy, excited, angry and unconstrained, might run roughshod over even the institutions created to preserve their freedoms. As Alexander Hamilton watched the French Revolution unfold, he feared in America what he saw play out in France—that the unleashing of popular passions would lead not to greater democracy but to the arrival of a tyrant, riding to power on the shoulders of the people.

This phenomenon has arisen in other democratic and quasi-democratic countries over the past century, and it has generally been called “fascism.” Fascist movements, too, had no coherent ideology, no clear set of prescriptions for what ailed society. “National socialism” was a bundle of contradictions, united chiefly by what, and who, it opposed; fascism in Italy was anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-Marxist, anti-capitalist and anti-clerical. Successful fascism was not about policies but about the strongman, the leader (Il Duce, Der Fuhrer), in whom could be entrusted the fate of the nation. Whatever the problem, he could fix it. Whatever the threat, internal or external, he could vanquish it, and it was unnecessary for him to explain how. Today, there is Putinism, which also has nothing to do with belief or policy but is about the tough man who singlehandedly defends his people against all threats, foreign and domestic.

Successful fascism was not about policies but about the strongman, the leader (Il Duce, Der Fuhrer), in whom could be entrusted the fate of the nation.

To understand how such movements take over a democracy, one only has to watch the Republican Party today. These movements play on all the fears, vanities, ambitions and insecurities that make up the human psyche. In democracies, at least for politicians, the only thing that matters is what the voters say they want—vox populi vox dei. A mass political movement is thus a powerful and, to those who would oppose it, frightening weapon. When controlled and directed by a single leader, it can be aimed at whomever the leader chooses. If someone criticizes or opposes the leader, it doesn’t matter how popular or admired that person has been. He might be a famous war hero, but if the leader derides and ridicules his heroism, the followers laugh and jeer. He might be the highest-ranking elected guardian of the party’s most cherished principles. But if he hesitates to support the leader, he faces political death.

In such an environment, every political figure confronts a stark choice: Get right with the leader and his mass following or get run over. The human race in such circumstances breaks down into predictable categories—and democratic politicians are the most predictable. There are those whose ambition leads them to jump on the bandwagon. They praise the leader’s incoherent speeches as the beginning of wisdom, hoping he will reward them with a plum post in the new order. There are those who merely hope to survive. Their consciences won’t let them curry favor so shamelessly, so they mumble their pledges of support, like the victims in Stalin’s show trials, perhaps not realizing that the leader and his followers will get them in the end anyway.

A great number will simply kid themselves, refusing to admit that something very different from the usual politics is afoot.

A great number will simply kid themselves, refusing to admit that something very different from the usual politics is afoot. Let the storm pass, they insist, and then we can pick up the pieces, rebuild and get back to normal. Meanwhile, don’t alienate the leader’s mass following. After all, they are voters and will need to brought back into the fold. As for Trump himself, let’s shape him, advise him, steer him in the right direction and, not incidentally, save our political skins.

What these people do not or will not see is that, once in power, Trump will owe them and their party nothing. He will have ridden to power despite the party, catapulted into the White House by a mass following devoted only to him. By then that following will have grown dramatically. Today, less than 5 percent of eligible voters have voted for Trump. But if he wins the election, his legions will comprise a majority of the nation. Imagine the power he would wield then. In addition to all that comes from being the leader of a mass following, he would also have the immense powers of the American presidency at his command: the Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence services, the military. Who would dare to oppose him then? Certainly not a Republican Party that laid down before him even when he was comparatively weak. And is a man like Trump, with infinitely greater power in his hands, likely to become more humble, more judicious, more generous, less vengeful than he is today, than he has been his whole life? Does vast power un-corrupt?

This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac “tapping into” popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party—out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear—falling into line behind him.

2015 is a pivotal year. Three major workstreams among all the world’s nations are going forward this year under the auspices of the United Nations to develop goals, financing, and frameworks for the “post-2015 sustainable development agenda.” First, after two years of wide-ranging consultation, the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September will endorse a new set of global goals for 2030 to follow on from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that culminate this year. Second, to support this effort, a financing for development (FFD) conference took place in July in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to identify innovative ways of mobilizing private and public resources for the massive investments necessary to achieve the new goals. And third, in Paris in December the final negotiating session will complete work on a global climate change framework. 

These three landmark summits will, with luck, provide the broad strategic vision, the specific goals, and the financing modalities for addressing the full range of systemic threats. Most of all, these three summit meetings will mobilize the relevant stakeholders and actors crucial for implementing the post-2015 agenda—governments, international organizations, business, finance, civil society, and parliaments—into a concerted effort to achieve transformational outcomes. Achieving systemic sustainability is a comprehensive, inclusive effort requiring all actors and all countries to be engaged.

These three processes represent a potential historic turning point from “business-as-usual” practices and trends and to making the systemic transformations that are required to avoid transgressing planetary boundaries and critical tipping points. Missing from the global discourse so far is a realistic assessment of the political decisions and institutional innovations that would be required to implement the post-2015 sustainable development agenda (P2015).

For 2015, it is necessary is to make sure that by the end of year the three workstreams have been welded together as a singular vision for global systemic transformation involving all countries, all domestic actors, and all international institutions. The worst outcome would be that the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 are seen as simply an extension of the 2015 MDGs—as only development goals exclusively involving developing countries. This outcome would abort the broader purposes of the P2015 agenda to achieve systemic sustainability and to involve all nations and reduce it to a development agenda for the developing world that by itself would be insufficient to make the transformations required.

Systemic risks of financial instability, insufficient job-creating economic growth, increasing inequality, inadequate access to education, health, water and sanitation, and electricity, “breaking points” in planetary limits, and the stubborn prevalence of poverty along with widespread loss of confidence of people in leaders and institutions now require urgent attention and together signal the need for systemic transformation.

As a result, several significant structural changes in institution arrangements and governance are needed as prerequisites for systemic transformation. These entail (i) political decisions by country leaders and parliaments to ensure societal engagement, (ii) institutional innovations in national government processes to coordinate implementation, (iii) strengthening the existing global system of international institutions to include all actors, (iv) the creation of an international monitoring mechanism to oversee systemic sustainability trajectories, and (v) realize the benefits that would accrue to the entire P2015 agenda by the engagement of the systemically important countries through fuller utilization of  G20 leaders summits and finance ministers meetings as enhanced global steering mechanisms toward sustainable development.   Each of these changes builds on and depends on each other.

I. Each nation makes a domestic commitment to a new trajectory toward 2030

For global goal-setting to be implemented, it is essential that each nation go beyond a formal agreement at the international level to then embark on a national process of deliberation, debate, and decision-making that adapts the global goals to the domestic institutional and cultural context and commits the nation to them as a long-term trajectory around which to organize its own systemic transformation efforts. Such a process would be an explicitly political process involving national leaders, parliaments or rule-making bodies, societal leaders, business executives, and experts to increase public awareness and to guide the public conversation toward an intrinsically national decision which prioritizes the global goals in ways which fit domestic concerns and circumstances. This political process would avoid the “one-size-fits-all” approach and internalize and legitimate each national sustainability trajectory.

So far, despite widespread consultation on the SDGs, very little attention has been focused on the follow-up to a formal international agreement on them at the U.N. General Assembly in September 2015. The first step in implementation of the SDGs and the P2015 agenda more broadly is to generate a national commitment to them through a process in which relevant domestic actors modify, adapt, and adopt a national trajectory the embodies the hopes, concerns and priorities of the people of each country. Without this step, it is unlikely that national systemic sustainability trajectories will diverge significantly enough from business-as-usual trends to make a difference. More attention needs to now be given to this crucial first step.  And explicit mention of the need for it should appear in the UNGA decisions in New York in September.

II. A national government institutional innovation for systemic transformation

The key feature of systemic risks is that each risk generates spillover effects that go beyond the confines of the risk itself into other domains. This means that to manage any systemic risk requires broad, inter-disciplinary, multi-sectoral approaches. Most governments have ministries or departments that manage specific sectoral programs in agriculture, industry, energy, health, education, environment, and the like when most challenges now are inter-sectoral and hence inter-ministerial. Furthermore, spillover linkages create opportunities in which integrated approaches to problems can capture intrinsic synergies that generate higher-yield outcomes if sectoral strategies are simultaneous and coordinated.

The consequence of spillovers and synergies for national governments is that “whole-of-government” coordinating committees are a necessary institutional innovation to manage effective strategies for systemic transformation. South Korea has used inter-ministerial cabinet level committees that include private business and financial executives as a means of addressing significant interconnected issues or problems requiring multi-sectoral approaches. The Korea Presidential Committee on Green Growth, which contained more than 20 ministers and agency heads with at least as many private sector leaders, proved to be an extremely effective means of implementing South Korea’s commitment to green growth.

III.  A single global system of international institutions

The need for a single mechanism for coordinating the global system of international institutions to implement the P2015 agenda of systemic transformation is clear. However, there are a number of other larger reasons why the forging of such a mechanism is crucial now.

The Brettons Woods era is over. It was over even before the initiative by China to establish the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing and the New Development Bank (NDB) in Shanghai. It was over because of the proliferation in recent years of private and official agencies and actors in development cooperation and because of the massive growth in capital flows that not only dwarf official development assistance (concessional foreign aid) but also IMF resources in the global financial system. New donors are not just governments but charities, foundations, NGOs, celebrities, and wealthy individuals. New private sources of financing have mushroomed with new forms of sourcing and new technologies. The dominance of the IMF and the World Bank has declined because of these massive changes in the context.

The emergence of China and other emerging market economies requires acknowledgement as a fact of life, not as a marginal change. China in particular deserves to be received into the world community as a constructive participant and have its institutions be part of the global system of international institutions, not apart from it. Indeed, China’s Premier, Li Keqiang, stated at the World Economic Forum in early 2015 that “the world order established after World War II must be maintained, not overturned.”

The economic, social and environmental imperatives of this moment are that the world’s people and the P2015 agenda require that all international institutions of consequence be part of a single coordinated effort over the next 15 years to implement the post-2015 agenda for sustainable development. The geopolitical imperatives of this moment also require that China and China’s new institutions be thoroughly involved as full participants and leaders in the post-2015 era. If nothing else, the scale of global investment and effort to build and rebuild infrastructure requires it.

It is also the case that the post-2015 era will require major replenishments in the World Bank and existing regional development banks, and significantly stronger coordination among them to address global infrastructure investment needs in which the AIIB and the NDB must now be fully involved. The American public and the U.S. Congress need to fully grasp the crucial importance for the United States, of the IMF quota increase and governance reform.  These have been agreed to by most governments but their implementation is stalled in the U.S. Congress. To preserve the IMF’s role in the global financial system and the role of the U.S. in the international community, the IMF quota increase and IMF governance reform must be passed and put into practice. Congressional action becomes all the more necessary as the effort is made to reshape the global system of international institutions to accommodate new powers and new institutions within a single system rather than stumble into a fragmented, fractured, and fractious global order where differences prevail over common interests.

The IMF cannot carry out its significant responsibility for global financial stability without more resources. Other countries cannot add to IMF resources proportionately without U.S. participation in the IMF quota increase.   Without the US contribution, IMF members will have to fund the IMF outside the regular IMF quota system, which means de-facto going around the United States and reducing dramatically the influence of the U.S. in the leadership of the IMF. This is a self-inflicted wound on the U.S., which will damage U.S. credibility, weaken the IMF, and increase the risk of global financial instability. By blocking the IMF governance reforms in the IMF agreed to by the G-20 in 2010, the U.S. is single-handedly blocking the implementation of the enlargement of voting shares commensurate with increased emerging market economic weights.  This failure to act is now widely acknowledged by American thought leaders to be encouraging divergence rather than convergence in the global system of institutions, damaging U.S. interests.

IV. Toward a single monitoring mechanism for the global system of international institutions

The P2015 agenda requires a big push toward institutionalizing a single mechanism for the coordination of the global system of international institutions.  The international coordination arrangement today, is the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation created at the Busan High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in 2011.  This arrangement, which recognizes the increasingly complex context and the heightened tensions between emerging donor countries and traditional western donors, created a loose network of country platforms, regional arrangements, building blocks and forums to pluralize the architecture to reflect the increasingly complex set of agents and actors. This was an artfully arranged compromise, responding to the contemporary force field four years ago.

Now is a different moment. The issues facing the world are both systemic and urgent; they are not confined to the development of developing countries, and still less to foreign aid. Geopolitical tensions are, if anything, higher now than then.  But they also create greater incentives to find areas of cooperation and consensus among major powers who have fundamentally different perspectives on other issues. Maximizing the sweet spots where agreement and common interest can prevail is now of geopolitical importance.  Gaining agreement on institutional innovations to guide the global system of international institutions in the P2015 era would be vital for effective outcomes but also importantly ease geopolitical tensions.

Measurement matters; monitoring and evaluation is a strategic necessity to implementing any agenda, and still more so, an agenda for systemic transformation.  As a result, the monitoring and evaluation system that accompanies the P2015 SDGs will be crucial to guiding the implementation of them.  The UN, the OECD, the World Bank, and the IMF all have participated in joint data gathering efforts under the IDGs  in the 1990s and the MDGs in the 2000s.   Each of these institutions has a crucial role to play, but they need to be brought together now under one umbrella to orchestrate their contributions to a comprehensive global data system and to help the G20 finance ministers coordinate their functional programs.   

The OECD has established a strong reputation in recent years for standard setting in a variety of dimensions of the global agenda.  Given the strong role of the OECD in relation to the G20 and its broad outreach to “Key Partners” among the emerging market economies, the OECD could be expected to take a strong role in global benchmarking and monitoring and evaluation of the P2015 Agenda.  The accession of China to the OECD Development Centre, which now has over fifty member countries, and the presence and public speech of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the OECD on July 1^st, bolsters the outreach of the OECD and its global profile.

But national reporting is the centerpiece and the critical dimension of monitoring and evaluation.  To guide the national reporting systems and evaluate their results, a  new institutional arrangement is needed that is based on national leaders with responsibility for implementation of the sustainable development agendas from each country and is undertaken within the parameters of the global SDGs and the P2015 benchmarks.

V.   Strengthening global governance and G20 roles

G-20 leaders could make a significant contribution to providing the impetus toward advancing systemic sustainability by creating a G-20 Global Sustainable Development Council charged with pulling together the national statistical indicators and implementing benchmarks on the SDGs in G-20 countries.  The G-20 Global Sustainable Development Council (G-20 GSDC) would consist of the heads of the presidential committees on sustainable development charged with coordinating P2015 implementation in G-20 countries.  Representing systemically important countries, they would also be charged with assessing the degree to which national policies and domestic efforts by G20 countries generate positive or negative spillover effects for the rest of the world.  This G-20 GSDC would also contribute to the setting of standards for the global monitoring effort, orchestrated perhaps by the OECD, drawing on national data bases from all countries using the capacities of the international institutions to generate understanding of global progress toward systemic sustainability. 

The UN is not in a position to coordinate the global system of international institutions in their functional roles in global sustainable development efforts.  The G-20 itself could take steps through the meetings of G-20 Finance Ministers to guide the global system of international institutions in the implementation phase of the P2015 agenda to begin in 2016. The G-20 already has a track record in coordinating international institutions in the response to the global financial crisis in 2008 and its aftermath. The G-20 created the Financial Stability Board (FSB), enlarged the resources for the IMF, agreed to reform the IMF’s governance structure, orchestrated relations between the IMF and the FSB, brought the OECD into the mainstream of G-20 responsibilities and has bridged relations with the United Nations by bringing in finance ministers to the financing for development conference in Addis under Turkey’s G-20 leadership. 

There is a clear need to coordinate the financing efforts of the IMF, with the World Bank and the other regional multilateral development banks (RMDBs), with the AIIB and the BRICS NDB, and with other public and private sector funding sources, and to assess the global institutional effort as whole in relation to the P2015 SDG trajectories.  The G-20 Finance Ministers grouping would seem to be uniquely positioned to be an effective and credible means of coordinating these otherwise disparate institutional efforts.  The ECOSOC Development Cooperation Forum and the Busuan Global Partnership provide open inclusive space for knowledge sharing and consultation but need to be supplemented by smaller bodies capable of making decisions and providing strategic direction.

Following the agreements reached in the three U.N. workstreams for 2015, the China G-20 could urge the creation of a formal institutionalized global monitoring and coordinating mechanism at the China G-20 Summit in September 2016. By having the G-20 create a G-20 Global Sustainable Development Council (G-20 GSDC), it could build on the national commitments to SDG trajectories to be made next year by U.N. members countries and on the newly formed national coordinating committees established by governments to implement the P2015 Agenda, giving the G-20 GSDC functional effectiveness, clout and credibility.   Whereas there is a clear need to compensate for the sized-biased representation of the G20 with still more intensive G-20 outreach and inclusion, including perhaps eventually considering shifting to a constituency based membership, for now the need in this pivotal year is to use the momentum to make political decisions and institutional innovations which will crystallize the P2015 strategic vision toward systemic sustainability into mechanisms and means of implementation.

By moving forward on these recommendations, the G-20 Leaders Summits would be strengthened by involving G-20 leaders in the people-centered P2015 Agenda, going beyond finance to issues closer to peoples’ homes and hearts. Systemically important countries would be seen as leading on systemically important issues.  The G-20 Finance Ministers would be seen as playing an appropriate role by serving as the mobilizing and coordinating mechanism for the global system of international institutions for the P2015 Agenda.  And the G-20 GSDC would become the effective focal point for assessing systemic sustainability not only within G20 countries but also in terms of their positive and negative spillover effects on systemic sustainability paths of other countries, contributing to standard setting and benchmarking for global monitoring and evaluation.    These global governance innovations could re-energize the G20 and provide the international community with the leadership, the coordination and the monitoring capabilities that it needs to implement the P2015 Agenda. 

As the MDGs culminate this year, as the three U.N. workstreams on SDGs, FFD, and UNFCC are completed, the world needs to think ahead to the implementation phase of the P2015 sustainable development agenda. Given the scale and scope of the P2015 agenda, these five governance innovations need to be focused on now so they can be put in place in 2016.

These will ensure (i) that national political commitments and engagement by all countries are made by designing, adopting, and implementing their own sustainable development trajectories and action plans; (ii) that national presidential committees are established, composed of key ministers and private sector leaders to coordinate each country’s comprehensive integrated sustainability strategy; (iii) that all governments and international institutions are accepted by and participate in a single global system of international institutions;   (iv) that a G-20 monitoring mechanism be created by the China G-20 in September 2016 that is comprised of the super-minister officials heading the national presidential coordinating committees implementing the P2015 agenda domestically in G-20 countries, as a first step;  and (v) that the G-20 Summit leaders in Antalya in November 2015 and in China in September 2016 make clear their own commitment to the P2015 agenda and their responsibility for its adaption, adoption and implementation internally in their countries but also for assessing G-20 spillover impacts on the rest of the world, as well as for deploying their G-20 finance ministers to mobilize and coordinate the global system of international institutions toward achieving the P2015 agenda.

Without these five structural changes, it will be more likely that most countries and actors will follow current trends rather than ratchet up to the transformational trajectories necessary to achieve systemic sustainability nationally and globally by 2030.

Ye Yu, Xue Lei and Zha Xiaogag, “The Role of Developing Countries in Global Economic Governance---With a Special Analysis on China’s Role”, UNDP, Second High-level Policy Forum on Global Governance: Scoping Papers, (Beijing: UNDP, October 2014).

Zhang Haibing, “A Critique of the G-20’s Role in UN’s post-2015 Development Agenda”, in Catrina Schlager and Chen Dongxiao (eds), China and the G-20: The Interplay between an Emerging Power and an Emerging Institution, (Shanghai: Shanghai Institutes for International Studies [SIIS] and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung [FES], 2015) 290-208.

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Colin I. Bradford, “Global Economic Governance and the Role International Institutions”, UNDP, Second High-level Policy Forum on Global Governance: Scoping Papers, (Beijing: UNDP, October 2014).

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Colin I. Bradford, “Systemic Sustainability as the Strategic Imperative for the Future”, (Washington: The Bookings Institution, Global Economy and Development paper; September 2015). 

Wonhyuk Lim and Richard Carey, “Connecting Up Platforms and Processes for Global Development to 2015 and Beyond:  What can the G-20 do to improve coordination and deliver development impact?”, (Paris: OECD  Paper, February 2013).

Xiaoyun Li and Richard Carey, “The BRICS and the International Development System: Challenge and Convergence”, (Sussex: Institute for Development Studies, Evidence Report No. 58, March 2014).

Xu Jiajun and Richard Carey, “China’s Development Finance: Ambition, Impact and Transparency,” (Sussex :  Institute for Development Studies, IDS Policy Brief, 2015).

Soogil Young, “Domestic Actions for Implementing Integrated Comprehensive Strategies:  Lessons from Korea’s Experience with Its Green Growth Strategy”, Washington: Paper for the Brookings conference on “Governance Innovations to Implement the Post-2015 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, March 30, 2015).

Editors’ Note: The phenomenon Donald Trump has created has become something larger than him, and something far more dangerous, writes Bob Kagan. This phenomenon has arisen in other democratic and quasi-democratic countries over the past century, and it has generally been called “fascism.” This piece originally appeared in The Washington Post.

The Republican Party’s attempt to treat Donald Trump as a normal political candidate would be laughable were it not so perilous to the republic. If only he would mouth the party’s “conservative” principles, all would be well.

But of course the entire Trump phenomenon has nothing to do with policy or ideology. It has nothing to do with the Republican Party, either, except in its historic role as incubator of this singular threat to our democracy. Trump has transcended the party that produced him. His growing army of supporters no longer cares about the party. Because it did not immediately and fully embrace Trump, because a dwindling number of its political and intellectual leaders still resist him, the party is regarded with suspicion and even hostility by his followers. Their allegiance is to him and him alone.

And the source of allegiance? We’re supposed to believe that Trump’s support stems from economic stagnation or dislocation. Maybe some of it does. But what Trump offers his followers are not economic remedies—his proposals change daily. What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence. His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others”—Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees—whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. His program, such as it is, consists chiefly of promises to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion. He will deport them, bar them, get them to knuckle under, make them pay up or make them shut up.

That this tough-guy, get-mad-and-get-even approach has gained him an increasingly large and enthusiastic following has probably surprised Trump as much as it has everyone else. Trump himself is simply and quite literally an egomaniac. But the phenomenon he has created and now leads has become something larger than him, and something far more dangerous.

[T]he phenomenon he has created and now leads has become something larger than him, and something far more dangerous.

Republican politicians marvel at how he has “tapped into” a hitherto unknown swath of the voting public. But what he has tapped into is what the founders most feared when they established the democratic republic: the popular passions unleashed, the “mobocracy.” Conservatives have been warning for decades about government suffocating liberty. But here is the other threat to liberty that Alexis de Tocqueville and the ancient philosophers warned about: that the people in a democracy, excited, angry and unconstrained, might run roughshod over even the institutions created to preserve their freedoms. As Alexander Hamilton watched the French Revolution unfold, he feared in America what he saw play out in France—that the unleashing of popular passions would lead not to greater democracy but to the arrival of a tyrant, riding to power on the shoulders of the people.

This phenomenon has arisen in other democratic and quasi-democratic countries over the past century, and it has generally been called “fascism.” Fascist movements, too, had no coherent ideology, no clear set of prescriptions for what ailed society. “National socialism” was a bundle of contradictions, united chiefly by what, and who, it opposed; fascism in Italy was anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-Marxist, anti-capitalist and anti-clerical. Successful fascism was not about policies but about the strongman, the leader (Il Duce, Der Fuhrer), in whom could be entrusted the fate of the nation. Whatever the problem, he could fix it. Whatever the threat, internal or external, he could vanquish it, and it was unnecessary for him to explain how. Today, there is Putinism, which also has nothing to do with belief or policy but is about the tough man who singlehandedly defends his people against all threats, foreign and domestic.

Successful fascism was not about policies but about the strongman, the leader (Il Duce, Der Fuhrer), in whom could be entrusted the fate of the nation.

To understand how such movements take over a democracy, one only has to watch the Republican Party today. These movements play on all the fears, vanities, ambitions and insecurities that make up the human psyche. In democracies, at least for politicians, the only thing that matters is what the voters say they want—vox populi vox dei. A mass political movement is thus a powerful and, to those who would oppose it, frightening weapon. When controlled and directed by a single leader, it can be aimed at whomever the leader chooses. If someone criticizes or opposes the leader, it doesn’t matter how popular or admired that person has been. He might be a famous war hero, but if the leader derides and ridicules his heroism, the followers laugh and jeer. He might be the highest-ranking elected guardian of the party’s most cherished principles. But if he hesitates to support the leader, he faces political death.

In such an environment, every political figure confronts a stark choice: Get right with the leader and his mass following or get run over. The human race in such circumstances breaks down into predictable categories—and democratic politicians are the most predictable. There are those whose ambition leads them to jump on the bandwagon. They praise the leader’s incoherent speeches as the beginning of wisdom, hoping he will reward them with a plum post in the new order. There are those who merely hope to survive. Their consciences won’t let them curry favor so shamelessly, so they mumble their pledges of support, like the victims in Stalin’s show trials, perhaps not realizing that the leader and his followers will get them in the end anyway.

A great number will simply kid themselves, refusing to admit that something very different from the usual politics is afoot.

A great number will simply kid themselves, refusing to admit that something very different from the usual politics is afoot. Let the storm pass, they insist, and then we can pick up the pieces, rebuild and get back to normal. Meanwhile, don’t alienate the leader’s mass following. After all, they are voters and will need to brought back into the fold. As for Trump himself, let’s shape him, advise him, steer him in the right direction and, not incidentally, save our political skins.

What these people do not or will not see is that, once in power, Trump will owe them and their party nothing. He will have ridden to power despite the party, catapulted into the White House by a mass following devoted only to him. By then that following will have grown dramatically. Today, less than 5 percent of eligible voters have voted for Trump. But if he wins the election, his legions will comprise a majority of the nation. Imagine the power he would wield then. In addition to all that comes from being the leader of a mass following, he would also have the immense powers of the American presidency at his command: the Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence services, the military. Who would dare to oppose him then? Certainly not a Republican Party that laid down before him even when he was comparatively weak. And is a man like Trump, with infinitely greater power in his hands, likely to become more humble, more judicious, more generous, less vengeful than he is today, than he has been his whole life? Does vast power un-corrupt?

This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac “tapping into” popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party—out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear—falling into line behind him.