"Trump gives these astonishingly Mussolini-ish press conferences," he said. "He says to the press, 'Shut up. Stop!' The press screams at him like a mob, a bunch of cattle. How can they be taken seriously? It is like the end of the Roman Republic. Important political leaders from the Senate, along with their rivals, would move around Rome with 50 people to protect them. Scenes, exactly like Trump's interactions with the press, defined the end of the Roman Republic. Nobody knew what was going on. There was no dignity. You can't have a democracy without a level of respect and dignity. You only have chaos. This chaos eventually leads to a call for autocratic order. Trump benefits from the confusion, even though he resembles a cartoonish figure out of a funny novel, a character from Jean Genet's 'The Balcony,' although without the self-awareness."
Trump's decision to launch a trade war -- Canada will impose punitive measures on $12.63 billion worth of imported American goods in response -- is an example of the damage a despot who has little understanding of the economy, politics, international relations or law can do. These self-inflicted wounds, Saul warned, see despots intensify attacks on the demonized and the vulnerable, such as Muslims and the undocumented. Despots frantically scapegoat others for their mess, often inciting violence among their supporters to placate an inchoate rage.
"I've always opposed trade deals not because I oppose trade," Saul said, "or because I thought they were about getting a fair balance in the trade, but because the trade deals were about something else. They were about deregulation. They were about handing power to corporations and banks. They weren't about trade. Trump has again and again attacked the Canadian dairy system. Nobody has stopped to ask him, 'Why are you opposing this instead of adopting it for yourself?' A lot of American dairy farmers would like to have the Canadian system.
"The free market approach to agriculture produces a surplus that drives prices down and destroys the income of farmers," Saul said. "There are two ways of responding to this. One of them is subsidizing. Europe, following the old social-democratic approach, subsidizes their agricultural sector. This drives down the income of farmers, so [the governments] subsidize [agriculture] more. They have enormous surpluses. Periodically, they're throwing millions of tomatoes on the streets.
"The United States claims it embraces the free market, but it does the same thing as the Europeans," Saul said. "It too heavily subsidizes the agricultural industry. This leads to American dairy farmers producing too much milk. This economic argument says the way to win is to mass-produce cheap goods. This is the Walmart argument. You're not selling your milk or cheese for enough to make a living. The end result is, even though you subsidize them, the farmers go bankrupt. They commit suicide. You have terrible unhappiness in the [U.S.] dairy community.
"We have a very efficient management system in Canada that keeps the prices up, not so high that working-class people can't buy milk and cheese, but it keeps the prices up high enough that farmers can make a proper living," Saul said. "Because farmers can make a proper living they're not committing suicide. What Trump is saying to Canadians is that they should give up a system that works so Canadian farmers can commit suicide with American farmers.
"The problem with the Western world is surplus production," Saul said. "We're in surplus production in almost every area. But there is a terrible distribution system where people around the globe suffer and die from starvation. This is a distribution problem, not a production problem."
Saul said the imposition of tariffs and the crude insults Trump uses against American allies--he called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau "dishonest and weak"--are rapidly destroying America's clout and standing in the global hierarchy. This behavior is having very negative political, economic and social consequences for the United States.
"The whole world, the Western world in particular, invested enormously in the idea that the United States is the leader," Saul said. "The idea that the United States is to be admired. What's sad about it is Americans take it for granted that the world loves them. They've never analyzed the responsibilities that come with being the leader. It's what you expect from a good parent. You act in a certain way. People want to identify with the United States. It's been that way since the Second World War. All this is being thrown away. Like or dislike Obama, he rebuilt a great part of the world's admiration for the United States. I know what his failures were. But I also know his strengths. He was a president who was capable of acting and talking like the intelligent, civilized American that everyone wants to admire.
"But there's always a shadow to the bright tower," Saul went on. "Trump's feeding that shadow. 'Americans are stupid. Americans are corrupt. Americans are not educated. Americans can't be trusted.' The whole list. The longer the chaos goes on, the worse it gets."
The collapse of the legislative and executive branches of government has now been accompanied by the collapse of the judiciary. The loss of an independent judiciary, Saul warned, is especially ominous.
"The biggest problem in the United States is a very powerful and deeply corrupted Supreme Court," Saul said. "This will set patterns for decades. It will be hard to undo the evil being put into place."
Saul despaired, at the same time, over the Trump administration's attack on public education, which he called "the most fundamental service of government when it comes to a democracy."
"What holds democracy up?" Saul asked. "What makes democracy work? Public education is number one. A well-educated citizen. [Secretary of Education] Betsy DeVos is undoing that. There is a special place for her in hell."
U.S. trading partners and allies such as Canada and European states will, he said, reduce their dependence on the American market. The traditional strategic and political ties to Washington will be steadily weakened. And when the next financial crash comes, and Saul expects one to come, the United States will be bereft of partners when it needs them most.
"If you treat your closest allies as a threat, who is going to stand with you?" he asked.
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