In the legend of German folklore, Dr. Faustus strikes a bargain with Mephistopheles, Satan’s representative, to surrender his soul in exchange for unlimited knowledge, power and worldly pleasures during his remaining time on earth. To surrender something of great value in exchange for current gratification has become known as a “Faustian Bargain.”
Republican surrender of once ostensibly held beliefs and principles, their toleration of Trump’s corruption and its normalization, and Trump’s ominous drift toward autocracy in return for promised gifts to his supporters have all the ingredients of a Faustian Bargain. Republicans have tolerated, even celebrated and assisted, Trump’s egregious actions in return for achieving the Republican agenda — reduced taxes at the high-income end, gutting health and environmental regulations, stacking the court system with conservatives — and prospective achievements including overturning Roe vs. Wade.
Republicans once billed themselves as the hardnosed anti-Russian, anti-communist party. Republicans, including Richard Nixon, founded careers on characterizing Democrats as “soft on communism.” While Soviet communism is now replaced by the Putin dictatorship, Republicans still claim to consider Russia as an adversary. But their actions don’t match their words. As Trump considers any allegation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election as questioning legitimacy of his presidency, his Republican sycophants have joined Trump in accusing Democrats of engaging in a politically motivated witch hunt.
Republicans would never tolerate a Democrat giving more credence to the word of Mr. Putin over our own American intelligence agencies. This is clearly a part of the greater Faustian Bargain, willingness to impugn credibility of our intelligence agencies in return for tax cuts, deregulation, and the rest of the right-wing agenda.
Even as Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Chief, Maguire, permitted informing congressional leaders of continuing Russian meddling, an angered Trump sacked him, claiming to seek “other positions” for him. Trump plans to nominate as Maguire’s replacement a Republican operative, currently Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell who has no experience in the field of intelligence.
Trump’s message is that if you want to keep your job, you tell Trump, congressional Republicans, and the media, only what Trump wants to hear.
To place a political operative with no qualifications on the job as DNI sends the wrong message, and undercuts, the role and the morale of career professionals in the intelligence agencies. Surely, senior Republican politicians know this, even as they remain silent — their end of the Faustian Bargain.
Republicans hold themselves to be the party of fiscal responsibility. That has long been pure eyewash, but at least they once went through the motions. Republicans who had long railed against federal budget deficits looked the other way during President Reagan’s tax cuts that sent the public debt to then-record highs. The last budget surpluses were under Democrat, Bill Clinton, but don’t count on the corporate media to remind anyone of that. The Republican “deficit hawks” again looked the other way when George W. Bush turned the Clinton surpluses into Republican deficits with ill-advised tax cuts, even as the US went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and invaded Iraq in 2003.
With the inevitable federal budget deficits during the Great Recession, and deficit spending necessary for recovery, Republicans again cried foul, even as during the Obama recovery, deficits began to decline.
Enter President Trump. He was going to eliminate annual deficits and pay off the public debt — he said. Instead, he engineered the Trump/Republican 2017 tax bill that has created trillion-dollar annual deficits and public debt of $23 trillion.
Republican politicians don’t even pretend to be concerned. They just tell us that the tax cuts will “pay for themselves.” They know better.
It’s the Faustian Bargain once again — exchanging something of long run value, fiscal responsibility, in return for short run gratification, the tax cut gifts to Republican donors and the top one percent of income recipients. “We must overlook Trump’s ‘style,’” they say.
Republicans can be counted on to once again decry deficit spending when the Democrats propose spending on education, federally assisted child care, or other programs that benefit the working poor and Middle Class. Even as Trump promised to keep Social Security and Medicare intact, he has expressed willingness to “look at these programs.” It’s time to pay attention as Treasury Secretary Mnuchin insists that we “can’t keep on going with these deficits”— even as the administration’s own tax bill exacerbates these deficits.
Where are the Republicans on this Faustian Bargain? Key Republican politicians and wealthy donors are willing to sacrifice fiscal responsibility in return for their benefits from the tax cuts, along with soaring stock markets and the sugar high fiscal stimulus created by deficit spending. Besides, if they get their way, the ultimate price will be paid by cuts to programs that actually help working people and the Middle Class.
Other hard right Republican objectives are on the horizon with this Republican-Trump Faustian Bargain. Republicans have long urged courts to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Trump has hailed his great success in naming two conservative Supreme Court justices and packing the federal court system with hard-right nominees, some of which are deemed by the American Bar Association as professionally unqualified.
The Supreme Court has already gutted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, and declined to object to gerrymandering.
Hard right Republicans and industry lobbyists have long railed against environmental and health regulations. Trump has come through for them.
Even though a majority of the population now approves of the Affordable Care Act, Trump still wants to end it. His Republicans are cooperating.
Whether it’s consequences of greater air and water pollution, or ridding pre-existing conditions for health care, we all, including people of low income and Trump supporters, will pay a high price. If the economy goes sour, even high income people will not be spared.
The price of this Faustian Bargain will be paid. In the original Faustian Bargain, Satan carries Dr. Faustus off to Hell.
— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Saturdays in the Monroe Times.
