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Qin Hui: 90% of people have misunderstood Trump!

Professor Qin Hui is known as an "encyclopedic" scholar with a wide range of interests. His research has always focused closely on the core issues of national transformation.
This is his reflection as a modern historical eyewitness, as well as a historian's responsibility and commitment to "understanding the changes of past and present."

This article is an excerpt from Professor Qin Hui's academic speech titled "The Globalization Crisis of the 21st Century," delivered at the Shanghai Art Museum on April 2, 2018.

"Trump's thoughts are indeed very incoherent, and many of his propositions are quite astonishing. Many of his policies and ideas may not be to our liking. However, if we describe him as a populist, I think it is actually quite off the mark.

Using populism to describe Trump's election reflects the inadequacy of the Western intellectual community in explaining his election. They cannot articulate a more precise rationale.

In fact, there has been populism in American history, including both right-wing and left-wing populism. The most classic example of right-wing populism in American history is McCarthyism. As we all know, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the United States launched a movement in the name of the people to root out Soviet agents.

There has also been left-wing populism in American history. The most prominent example was the civil rights movement in the 1960s, represented by Martin Luther King, which emphasized the rights of Black people and women. There was also a radical faction, represented by Huey P. Newton, a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, characterized by a preference for street politics that disrupts democratic procedures, rejecting electoral outcomes, and advocating for the overthrow of the existing order.

However, we do not see either of these phenomena, whether left-wing or right-wing populism, in the context of Trump's election.

Before and after Trump's election, we did not see much evidence of street movements, nor did we observe any significant repression of personal freedom or freedom of speech.

Trump certainly dislikes certain traditional media; for instance, his relationship with The New York Times is quite poor. However, this "poor" relationship merely reflects his dislike; he does not have the capacity to shut down those newspapers. Moreover, in the subsequent reactions triggered by his election, one cannot observe that he is particularly adept at inciting street protests.

If we say that after Trump's election some traditional populist behavior occurred, such as street movements or campus violence, these actions were actually more characteristic of those opposing Trump. For example, after Trump's election, a relatively right-leaning individual was scheduled to speak at the University of California, Berkeley, but the event was forced to cancel due to violence instigated by unidentified individuals. Such violent incidents are indeed indicative of populism, but Trump did not engage in such activities during his campaign.

Ultimately, people's dissatisfaction with Trump's election and many of his policies post-election is, in fact, a reflection of dissatisfaction with the current state of America or an expression of inexplicable anger or confusion.

Trump's election, like the shocking event of Brexit, is a result of the globalization era leading to unexpected outcomes, where people feel at a loss in this "chaotic world."