BREAKING DOWN THE COSTCO PROJECT

 

When Washington County’s Commissioners announced in June that they were allocating $5.9 million from the county’s blight mitigation fund for the demolition of the Washington Mall, the first reaction of many was disbelief. Why would such a large amount of public funds be used to benefit a private developer, Chapman Properties, and the Costco corporation, one of the most successful retail operations in the country?

For the similar demolition of Century III Mall in Allegheny County no county funds were used. Instead, a more modest million-dollar award for demolition came from the state’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) fund. One difference was that when work began at the Century III location, no developer or large retailer had expressed an interest in rebuilding at the site.

The more common route for county blight mitigation is the Pennsylvania Act 152 Blight Removal Program. Under this 2021 initiative, the focus is on demolishing hazardous structures, site development for developing projects, and multiphase planning efforts. The Act permits each county to create dedicated demolition funds by adding a small fee onto recorded deeds/mortgages. Typically, a county grant under the program cannot exceed $250,000.  Since its inception, 181 structures have been demolished across Pennsylvania at a cost of $5.2 million.

The road leading to the funding for the Washington Mall demolition is complicated and explains why all three commissioners enthusiastically supported the project. The bottom line is that no county general fund revenue, collected from local taxpayers, was used for the demolition to make way for Costco.  In addition, when the Costco store opens its doors, a proven generator of economic growth and future tax revenue will benefit the community.

The funding stream making the demolition possible begins with the pandemic. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) was a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus Bill passed by Congress, and signed by then President Biden, without a single Republican vote. The funding included $7.9 billion for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Of this amount, $4.95 billion was allocated for the largest cities and the 67 counties. The remainder was divided among Pennsylvania’s smaller municipalities.

Washington County was awarded the significant sum of $98.9 million in ARPA funding. The funds were used for a variety of projects. As I have discussed in a previous commentary, many were initiated without the approval of the minority commissioner, Larry Maggi, and with little transparency or community input.

Ironically, despite ongoing opposition to the ARPA for inflating the deficit, Republican elected officials have not returned any of their allotted assets. Instead, like Washington County, Republican efforts have focused on extending deadlines and reallocating funds to ensure that all the ARPA money was spent.

With the deadline for using the funds looming, all three commissioners agreed to launch the Washington County Blight Mitigation and Demolition Fund program utilizing the remaining $12 million of the County’s ARPA allotment. In March of 2025, they approved an agreement between the County, the Redevelopment Authority, and the Washington County Land Bank to create and administer the program.

The first project was a modest effort to demolish and remove the remnants of the collapsed structure on 15 North Main Street in the City of Washington. The County only allocated $85,000.

Within months, Washington County’s blight mitigation program was supersized into a project never contemplated by any local blight removal plan.  Half of the allotted $12 million in funds from the local blight mitigation and demolition fund were earmarked to benefit one developer seeking to bring a Costco store to Washington County.

On its face the use of federal ARPA funds, which morphed into blight mitigation funds, and were then used to snare a Costco for Washington County was an astute move. The economic benefits of supporting a Costco are many and long lasting. It is difficult to image a better use for the funds.

However, there are unresolved issues. Because of the unprecedented amount of public dollars used in a private project, the public deserves transparency and full disclosure of all written agreements and activities related to the project.

First, all correspondence, memorandums of understanding, and contracts between the County, developer, and Costco should be disclosed. Is Costco receiving tax-increment financing or other perks to further lower its project costs? Second, regular updates on the Costco build-out should be publicly posted.

 

THE VALUE OF LAND

 

During weekly chats with a friend, we discuss the usual topics including the Steelers, political developments, and the economy. My friend is sure an economic collapse is around the corner that will be worse than the Great Depression. Now that my wife and I have purchased a new home, he advises us to rent our current abode, get out of the stock market altogether, and to accumulate as much land as possible.

This position is easy for my friend to take. He lives on 130 acres of property with plentiful mineral rights. My wife and I are not going to trade in our retirement portfolios and become landlords to deal with tenants and broken appliances. However, my friend’s point is well taken. The value of land is underestimated and often misunderstood.

According to Zillow, the total value of the U.S. housing market is a record $55.1 trillion as of mid-2025, a nearly $20 trillion jump since early 2020. Nine major metro areas hold one-third of the total market value. While rural farmland is valued at $4,000-$5,500 an acre, with cropland higher than pastureland, prime urban real-estate can exceed $500,000.

Not all land is in private hands. Most people are unaware that the federal government remains a significant landowner, especially in the West. The government owns around 640 to 650 million acres, which is roughly one-quarter to one-third (28-29%) of the total U.S. land base.

The value of land has always been an important issue in the development of the United States. The Native American activist and scholar, Russell Means, once said, “Early American democracy was about land." This widely held view, known as the frontier theory, believes that westward expansion and available land were instrumental in bringing disagreements with the British to a head.

Prior to the Revolution, the British sought to limit colonial development west of the Alleghenies to keep peace with native Americans. This motivated Scots-Irish and German settlers seeking cheap, fertile soil away from the East Coast to become patriots.

Following the Revolution, this push west helped develop America’s brand of democracy by fostering citizenship and self-reliance. Unlike Europe, where the wealthy held most of the land, any settler and, later, poor immigrant could become a landowner.

Two recent books present very different viewpoints in addressing the value of land. The first, Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How that determines the Fate of Societies, was written by Michael Albertus, political scientist at the University of Chicago. Albertus does not buy into the belief that the financial industry and technology will replace land as the world’s engine of social change. He makes the case that land has always been humanity’s greatest asset and will remain so.

Fundamentally, Albertus tells us, “Land confers identity and a sense of belonging. A connection to land provides people a sense of who they are in the world and the communities they belong to.”

However, Albertus has a more significant point to make on the importance of land. He wants to show how power has always been fused with land. He adopts the concept of “reshuffling” to show how political elites have seized land from some people and then granted it to others. Albertus’s sweeping study of land ownership covers centuries of case studies to illustrate his thesis of reshuffling land to gain power.

A few of his examples will illustrate the point. The French Revolution sanctioned the mass appropriation of land from the nobility to smaller farmers and to the urban middle-class. European colonization seized large swaths of foreign land, dispossessing those that already inhabited them. In the United States, Albertus documents the case of the Cahuilla Indians of California’s Coachella Valley. These native Americans were first confined to reservations and then evicted from those lands in the 1950s.

Albertus provides well-researched examples of collectivization land reforms that failed, causing famine, and less radical programs that increased equality. In the Stalinist Soviet Union and in Maoist China, the state sought to eliminate private landholding and to industrialize agricultural production, leading to economic disasters. In South America (Bolivia, Columbia, Mexico, Peru), more grassroots cooperative land reform brought substantive social change for impoverished rural citizens.

The second book, The Land Trap: A New History of the World’s Oldest Asset, by Mike Bird, Wall Street editor of the Economist, addresses the value of land from the financial angle. Tracing three centuries of history, Bird explores how land became the anchor of the global banking system, driving everything from soaring housing prices to increased international tensions. Bird explains the economics of our most basic asset.

Historically, land ownership created hereditary wealth that benefited the rich while deepening economic divisions in society. However, it is what Bird has to say about the connection between present-day global financial stability and land that is most interesting. Land drives the modern financial system, but also is responsible for its crashes. Mass home ownership made mortgages and home equity loans dominant sources of lending. Economies do well when land values rise and stall when they fall.

Following Japan’s 1980s land bubble burst, the economy tanked for decades. China’s recent real estate boom deflated into thousands of empty residential buildings and millions of unoccupied apartments. The U.S. subprime mortgage bubble caused the economic crash of 2008.

Bird concludes that modern finance remains rooted “in the dirt beneath our feet” – in land.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON COUNTY’S FORGOTTEN BUSINESS PIONEER

 

Late last summer, former commissioner Bracken Burns knocked on our door in East Washington.  Burns was seeking information on the individual who had built the large ornate older homes in our neighborhood. Like most East Washington residents, we knew the age of our home but could not name the builder.

Despite my lack of knowledge on local architecture, Burns settled into a comfortable chair and began to tell us an incredible tale. A gentleman by the name of Major A.G. Happer returned to Washington County after the Civil War and proceeded to transform the area into a modern community. Among his projects, one of Happer’s businesses built many of East Washington’s finest homes.

Apart from a state historical marker in front of the Washington & Jefferson College Admissions building (the beautiful structure Happer built and lived in after the war), he has received little attention. To begin to correct this oversight, what follows is a summary of the local Civil War hero and business leader’s achievements.

Most of the information Burns related to me came from a book by Jim Douglas, a Pennsylvania Civil War historian and author. To research this commentary, I borrowed Burns’ copy of “Born to Serve: The Major A. G. Happer Story” (2015). I am only able to provide a short discussion on Happer’s family history and Civil War exploits. For those seeking more background, this book is an excellent source.

Andrew Gardner Happer was born on August 15, 1839 on the Washington County family farm in Union Township. In 1859, he enrolled in what was then Washington College. After Fort Sumter was attacked, Happer left school and enlisted in the First Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry.

Happer entered military service as a private soldier of low rank and left the Union army as a Major, a stunning accomplishment. He participated in the battles of First Bull Run, Dranesville, Thoroughfare Gap, Second Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam (where he was first wounded, but remained in charge as senior officer), Fredericksburg, Burnside’s Advance, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Mine Run, and the first-and second-day battles of the Wilderness.

During his final encounter, Happer was severely wounded and left for dead on the battlefield. A kindhearted confederate soldier kept him alive and cleaned his wound until he was sent to an enemy field hospital. Soon after, he was transported to the notorious Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. Six months later, Happer was part of a prisoner exchange and began a slow, painful recuperation. The confederate mini-ball in his pelvis was never removed.

Following Lincoln’s assassination, the Governor of Pennsylvania chose now Major Happer as part of his delegation to accompany the coffin back to Illinois for burial, on the somber train called the “Lincoln Special”. Happer considered this duty the greatest honor of his life.

Happer’s initial employment after returning to Washington County was as Assessor of Internal Revenue. His time as a bureaucrat only lasted from 1866 until 1871. He then turned his attention to the business world for opportunities to modernize Washington and to help others.

Happer’s first venture was to open an insurance office at 55 South Main Street in Washington. The 1871 great Chicago fire convinced many customers that fire insurance was a necessary expense.  Happer’s business did exceptionally well. He soon married one of the most eligible young ladies in town, Matilda Morgan Watson, the daughter of a prominent attorney. Together they built the magnificent structure made of Cleveland stone on East Wheeling Street, now the W&J Admissions House.

Happer was interested in helping orphans and displaced children who were living in the floundering Western Pennsylvania House of Refuge. He convinced the Governor, John Hartranft, to support the building of a new facility, “Morganza,” on 503 acres of land owned by his wife’s family. The facility opened in 1876 with Happer serving as President of the Board of Managers until 1911.

Happer realized that a growing Washington required many modern upgrades to keep pace. Among the first was a stable source of capital to finance the new ventures. In 1885, he assembled some partners to form the Citizens Bank of Washington. The bank was successful, and by 1908, deposits exceeded $3 million. Happer was also a founding member and sat on the Board of the Union Trust Company.

Happer was instrumental in forming the Wheeling Oil Company and the first telephone exchange in 1884, the Citizen’s Water Company in 1885, and in developing the West End of Washington. In 1888, East Washington was subdivided by Happer’s real estate business. He then constructed many of the stately Victorian homes that grace our community.

Following the Civil War, Washington County had no hospital. Happer, along with three local physicians, petitioned the Commonwealth to obtain a charter. Happer joined with several other men and advanced their personal funds to purchase the Acheson homestead on what is now Acheson Avenue. This first hospital opened in May of 1898, and Happer was Board President for many years.

The Washington centennial celebration of 1910 was a grand affair. Happer at age 71 was still involved in many of the entities he had helped to create. Happer died in April, 1915, a modest man with no buildings or streets named in his honor. However, there is no doubt that Major Happer made significant contributions to Washington County, both as war hero and business leader.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A DIVIDED AMERICA CELEBRATES A BIRTHDAY

 

July 4, 2026, will mark a major event in the nation’s history. It is the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and our landmark semi-quincentennial birthday.

In less divisive times, the focus of the event would be on the meaning of the American Revolution, how we have grown as a nation, and where we go from here. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has attempted some positive spin by proclaiming, “2026 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to foster unity, celebrate our nation’s progress, and to identify our goals for the next 250 years.”

However, next year, there will be little unity, sparse agreement on the nation’s progress, and major arguments on future goals. Finding any common ground cannot happen in an environment where there are constant deployments of National Guard to American cities, masked ICE agents hauling immigrants off the streets, and American fighter jets blowing fishing boats out of the water. To add to the tension, there will be critical and contentious mid-term election campaigns occurring across the country.

Community civic organizations will make attempts to provide exhibits, parades, lectures, and picnics. Fireworks, hotdogs, and patriotic costumes will be on full display. But museums and educators across the country who receive federal funding, are confused and often terrified about what to present in explaining the Revolution and its 250-year aftermath.

This is because the Trump Administration holds the purse strings and wants to present its own MAGA version of our history, without debate. In the months before the event, the national institutions that would normally take the lead on planning for the nation’s birthday celebration have either come under attack or been dissolved. Trump has fired the Archivist of the United States and the Librarian of Congress. He has demanded that the Smithsonian Institute bow to his curatorial bidding.  The National Endowment for the Arts has been gutted. National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have been defunded.

To replace these respected historians and institutions, Trump has signed an executive order establishing himself as chair of a White House “Taskforce 250.” The taskforce’s website touts a series of videos produced by Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian institution in Michigan. One of the videos seeks to compare Trump with Lincoln.

A few ventures have survived the Trump purge and successfully presented an unvarnished story of our improbable beginning and history. At the privately owned Philadelphia nonprofit, the Museum of the American Revolution, the exhibit “Declaration’s Journey” opened on October 18^th. To set the tone it features two borrowed artifacts. First is the Windsor chair in which Jefferson is believed to have written the Declaration of Independence. Second, a rusted metal prison bench, from which Martin Luther King wrote his “Letter from a Brimingham Jail.”

The six-part, twelve-hour Ken Burns PBS documentary, “The American Revolution” somehow escaped Trump’s authoritarian censors. In the opinion of Harvard historian Jill Lepore, “It restores truth and sanity to American history.” The Trump Administration has made it clear that it wants a clean and neat national origin story that praises its version of the good guys. “The American Revolution” documentary is not that story.

Lapore praises Burns for his ability to present “a political carrousel, a teeming moving, terrifying story, relating a chain of events forged in bravery and betrayal, of ferocity and torment, of ambition and terror, and yet a chain held together by a single organizing idea, of possibility.” In many respects, the Burns documentary is an act of defiance by PBS that pushes back against Trump’s white-washed version of history.

Amid our ongoing cultural divide, what important messages should come from the story fostered by the American Revolution? First, our nation is based on a written creed, not on a single ethnicity or religion. Citizens with ancestors who go back many generations are no more American than recent ones. Unlike European nations there is no “fatherland” to explain the formation of the state.

Second, now is the time to reflect and study the Founding Fathers and their legacy. Each of them has been the focus of outstanding biographies from reputable historians in recent years.

Overall, the Trump presidency would stun and anger the Founders who were reacting to the abuses of a monarch and his “accumulation of all powers in the same hands” (Federalist Paper No.47) They conceived of a decentralized and restrained executive, not an authoritarian Trump, supported by a weak Congress and ideologically driven Supreme Court.

Third, for those who believe in the central position of race in the national story, there is the New York Times “1619 Project.” This Pulitzer winning historical study argues that for 250 years, slavery has profoundly shaped every aspect of American society, from its founding principles and economy to its culture.

Lastly, if our semi-quincentennial birthday gives new meaning and momentum to the “No-Kings” movement against the president, much has been accomplished. What better way to breathe new life into our Declaration and its principles?

I only wish I could fit the following words, written by Thomas Paine, on a tee-shirt or protest sign. “Let them call me a rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it. But I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by searing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE HOLIDAY SEASON IS A RESET FOR OUR EMOTIONS

 

The holiday season represents many different things. For Christianity, it celebrates the birth of the centerpiece of the faith. For Judaism, it recognizes an important historical event. Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday that celebrates African American and Pan-African culture. For retailers, it constitutes 20 percent of annual sales.

For those of us seeking a respite from the negativity in the world, it offers a welcome reset for our emotions. It takes a holiday season that recognizes the joy of children, surrounded by comfort food, friends, and family to have this wonderful effect.

My holiday commentary offers three short stories that may help to reset emotions. These examples take place in three very different and unusual settings. They occur in Central Africa, within a Fortune 500 corporation, and in a courtroom that was virtually made-up for Veterans Day. May these offerings engender a sense of hope and joy.

The Albino African. My first selection comes from the travels and pen of New York Times journalist, Nicholas Kristof. He reminds us that “People in the poorest countries are often, of necessity, masters of strength, adaptability, and resilience.”

Twenty-three-year-old Chantale Zuzi was born with albinism in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Her body lacks melanin). Chantale’s maternal grandmother labeled her cursed and wanted to kill her. Her parents intervened and Chantale survived. In the village school other students refused to touch her.

At age 13, Chantale’s parents were murdered by another ethnic group. She became a refugee in Uganda, helping to care for her nine siblings. Chantale’s albinism again placed her in danger, and she fled to Nairobi, Kenya. Fate intervened, and she was resettled in the United States because of the continued threats against her.

In 2017, at age 17, Chantale was adopted by a Massachusetts couple. After three years of learning English, she took advanced courses and entered Wellesley College. Following graduation, she has expanded her nonprofit, “Refugee Can Be,” to lift up young girls in the Uganda refugee camps. Kristof concludes his piece by saying, “Talent is universal, even if opportunity is not. Sprinkle some education on village girls, and the world can be transformed.”

The Corporation with a Heart.  I recently became aware of a corporation, Tyson Foods, that goes above and beyond the business world of seeking profit to demonstrate a profound concern for the well-being of its employees. Tyson Foods has a heart.

Animal rights activists and ethical vegans might initially disagree with my assessment. After all, Tyson Foods is a massive company, considered the world's second-largest animal protein producer and the largest in North America, with 133,000 employees. It produces roughly one of every five pounds of chicken, pork, and beef consumed in the U.S. and has sales of over $53 billion. 

A nonprofit organization called Jobs for the Future has estimated that 60% of front-line workers in Tyson processing plants are immigrants and refugees.  Within one plant, more than 25 different languages are spoken. While the company requires all employees to be legally authorized to work in the United States, Trump’s immigration policies have presented challenges.

Tyson created a program of dedicated chaplains to provide employees and their families with compassionate care for their physical and psychological needs, regardless of the employee’s ethnicity or religious beliefs. The chaplains are “faith friendly,” but do not preach. Tyson provides nearly 100 chaplains in more than 150 facilities across 22 states. These resolute individuals, trained in clinical pastoral education, suicide prevention, domestic violence, and other psychological assessments, offer support to all employees.

In a statement describing the program, the past Director Karen Diefendorf, explains, “Some days, they visit a team member’s family who is sick, or maybe help a team member in need of community resources like housing or transportation. The chaplaincy is an important benefit that provides a sense of comfort during high-anxiety situations, while also helping team members celebrate their greatest wins—either at work or at home.”

The Made-up Virtual Courtroom. My last story is more of a fairy tale. Around Veterans Day this past November, a story appeared on social media that fact checkers could not document as true. An 88-year-old Vietnam veteran was seated in a wheelchair before a stern judge known for his strict rulings. The city attorney presented a long list of housing violations and unpaid fines and requested an eviction of the veteran from his home.

As the man sat trembling the Judge took a recess and left the bench. When the judge returned, he announced to the defendant that he had contacted the local VFW and the county’s veteran’s fund. All fines were dismissed. In addition, the judge had contacted a local construction union that agreed to make repairs to the veteran’s home. As the man was overcome with joy, the judge came down from the bench and hugged him, thanking him for his service.

This apparently fictional story attracted me because of its application of a moral precept made famous by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe in their 2011 book, Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to do the Right Thing. The authors urge each of us to learn to do the right thing, in the right way, at the right time rather than to blindly follow unbending laws and established procedures. The message is, “Wise people know when and how to make the exception to every rule.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE REPUBLICAN COMMISSIONER’S ILL-ADVISED CONTRACT TERMINATION

 

Before diving into this inaugural “point-counterpoint” commentary I want to thank Dave Ball for proposing the idea. I also want to thank the Observer Reporter editorial staff for agreeing to provide topics and a monthly forum.

Dave and I have contrasting political views but we both agree on the importance of presenting topics important to the Washington County community. We seek to do so using proven facts and with civility. We hope that readers will respond to this “point-counterpoint” approach with support and comments.

The recently terminated economic development contract between Washington County and the Chamber has been prominently featured in this newspaper over the past two years. Before Diana Irey Vaughan retired as commissioner, she joined with Larry Maggi in September 2023 to finalize the contract in the amount of $1.6 million over 10 years. The contract called for an initial 5-year term followed by a 5-year option period.  

The agreement required the Chamber to provide staffing, plans and updates on economic development for Washington County.  Nick Sherman voted against the initial contract. When he and Electra Janis became majority commissioners, they began a crusade to undermine the deal.

In my view, a careful reading of the contract makes it clear that the Commissioners’ ill-advised decision to terminate the agreement eliminated a successful and important resource, with the region’s second largest Chamber. The decision to cancel, without one year’s notice or evidence of a breach on the Chamber’s part, also obligated the County to pay substantial liquidated damages of 50%. The Chamber has announced it will seek the contract’s designated penalty payment of $460,000 from County taxpayers, unless Sherman and Janis reconsider.

The agreement’s intent was to establish a “cooperative arrangement” where the Chamber and County work together to foster economic development and growth. The contract commits the County to “provide assistance and support as may be requested, including coordination of activities among public and private parties and in seeking grants for economic development.”

Instead, the two Republican commissioners have fought the intent of the contract at every opportunity. Despite having seats on the Chamber’s board, they have failed to regularly attend meetings, ignored Chamber reports, and offered little constructive input on advancing this highly successful project to promote economic development.

Notwithstanding the Commissioners’ intransigence, there is no evidence that the Chamber has not met its obligations under the contract. These include the promotion and marketing Washington County to prospective employers, providing assistance, the maintenance of a database of sites for new businesses, and the hiring of qualified staff.

The County’s payment responsibilities are clearly defined. These include liquidated damages in the event the county unilaterally terminates the arrangement without the designated notice or good cause.

It is important to point out that while the five year “initial term” of this contract was new, the County and Chamber have entered into similar one-year economic development agreements since 1999. Until Sherman and Janis became majority commissioners, disagreements were minimal and this “County-public,” “Chamber-private”, partnership for economic development reaped over-the-moon results for Washington County.

In a statement concerning the contract termination, Sherman announced, “At this time I feel it would be irresponsible to fund a contract that we’ve had zero return on our investment for the money.” However, a very different picture emerges from the 2024, Southwestern Pennsylvania Business Investment Scorecard for Washington County.

Last year, over $35 million in new capital investments were secured by the Chamber for our community. The Chamber was only paid $140 thousand to perform its contractual obligations, a significant return on investment. Had Sherman and Janis fulfilled the county’s contract responsibilities and cooperated, the results could have been even better.

In their search for excuses to end the agreement, the Commissioners have cited the need for “budget cuts.” But this contract was in no way dependent on funding from the recent state or federal budget impasses. Moreover, no budget cuts to other less productive county programs have been announced. Without the Chamber’s work product, the County will be obligated to develop and fund an internal economic development program at great expense.

I am not disputing the Commissioner’s right to oversee how funds are managed or which projects are prioritized. But the actions of Sherman and Janis to terminate this long-standing, productive arrangement to provide economic development, was imprudent and will be costly.

The citizens of Washington county deserve better cooperation between its elected officials and the business community; not a quagmire of no collaboration, made-up excuses and unsupported finger-pointing.

THE MAKING OF DONALD TRUMP & MAGA

 

Now that we are almost a year into Trump’s second term, it is an appropriate time to stand back from the head scratching and frustration to pose an important question. Where did Trumpism and MAGA come from? I am not referring to the man himself, but rather to the ideological and political movement that supports the president.

The contrast between Trump’s first term in office and today’s version is striking. The years 2016-2020 were characterized by internal dysfunction. Moreover, there were enough adults in the room to save the country from Trump’s worst impulses. The first administration’s inability to formulate coherent policies, the constant turnover of cabinet members, and the impeachment proceedings all slowed him down.

Trump learned from his earlier debacle and began laying the groundwork for a different approach well before he won reelection. He enlisted the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025 to provide a road map for a second term. The president hit the ground running with a more ideologically developed and institutionally robust movement.

He now surrounds himself with sycophants that never say no. His advisers all believe: 1) that foreign policy is transactional and does not require long-term goals; 2) that the free movement of goods is not acceptable; and 3) that the free movement of people is even less acceptable.

Trumpism and MAGA did not begin with the Heritage Foundation. The ideological position which supports a white Christian, isolated America, empty of as much diversity as possible, has a long and entrenched history.

These views can be traced back to early colonial Puritan beliefs, followed by the vision of 19^th century American exceptionalism, disengaged from the world. Manifest Destiny held that the U.S. had a divinely ordained mission to expand across the continent. Before the Civil War, slavery supported white nationalism. Following black emancipation, a segregated South kept the ideology alive. Over time, these ideas coalesced to create a movement that resulted in the Heritage Foundation and the alt-right.

Since WWII, a number of movements and individuals have been important in the making of Donald Trump. A new book with an unusual title helps provide historical background into the intellectual origins of today’s alt-right movement. Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right, by Quinn Slobodian outlines the genesis of right-wing ideology with a colorful cast of characters.

The book introduces Friedrich August von Hayek, an Austrian-born British economist and philosopher. Hayek (1899-1992) had considerable influence on a variety of political and economic thinkers, including the alt-right.

Slobodian traces a history of ideas inspired by Hayek based on “hardwired human nature, hard borders, and hard money” (gold or silver). The early movement “forged an alliance with racial psychologists, neo-confederates, ethno-nationalists, and goldbugs” that would become known as the alt-right.

Historians have linked the making of Donald Trump to several national politicians from America’s recent past. Gillis Harp, a retired professor of history at Grove City College draws a comparison with George Wallace in his recent commentary, “The first Trump ran for president in 1968.” Harp notes that in this Vietnam dominated election year “political violence and rapid social change opened the door to a candidate well outside of the mainstream.”

In a familiar theme, white working-class Americans became alienated from the conventional political order. Harp points out that “Wallace drew support from Northern blue-collar voters who were attracted to his folksy populism, social conservatism, and frontal attack on the political, journalistic, and educational establishment.” Wallace exploited “cultural war” issues. He campaigned on “taking the handcuffs off the police.”

“Make America Great Again” is not a Trump invention. Ronald Reagan made the same promise during his 1980 presidential campaign. Reagan was the first presidential candidate to use the slogan on campaign merchandise. Reagan and Trump are similar in their shared backgrounds in the entertainment industry and their strong communication skills. Both successfully tapped into a narrative that someone from outside the traditional political establishment could capture the presidency.

Ross Perot, who ran for president as an independent in 1992, provides another comparison to Trump due to their shared similarities as wealthy political outsiders. Both men ran anti-establishment populist campaigns focused on objections to free trade and government corruption. Like Trump, Perot called for a tougher stand on immigration. He also employed a Trump-like, blunt, communication style that appealed to voters not happy with “smooth-talking” Bill Clinton. My father, like many other life-long Democrats who always supported the Party’s nominee, voted for Perot.

In the online Politico Magazine, editor John Harris, wrote a feature article, Ross Perot: The Father of Trump. Harris reminds us that “Perot was a secular prophet who in his time anticipated and personified the disruptive currents of the present. Idiosyncrasy, or at a minimum an eagerness to break standard political molds was part of Perot’s charm.”

Harris concludes, “Perot’s campaign revealed clear evidence of a constituency in national politics, radicalized in its disaffection with the major parties and with a nagging sense of American decline. This constituency did not go away after Perot did.”

On a daily basis, we are gob-smacked by the barrage of statements, executive orders and policies issued by the Trump administration. Clearly, our political past was a prelude to our present predicament. What changed was the Republican Party’s willingness to capitulate to Trump and make him a mainstream candidate.