Israel as a Preview of America

Mass demonstrations if Trump wins in 2024?

On Monday, the governor of the Bank of Israel, Amir Yaron, said that uncertainty caused by continuing debate over the overhaul has led to a sharp devaluation in the country’s currency, the shekel, as well as the underperformance of the country’s stock market. 

—WSJ, July 11

Suppose that Donald Trump wins the 2024 Presidential election. I can imagine a scenario in which by December or January, massive street protests erupt in the United States, bringing the country to a standstill.

Something like that is happening in Israel today. There are massive protests against the coalition government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu.

These protests are so large and so disruptive that I am tempted to joke that the only thing holding the state of Israel together is Palestinian terrorism. The vast majority of the country supported the recent incursion into Jenin in response to murders of Israeli civilians.

Otherwise, Israel seems to be unable to produce a government supported by a majority. If the Palestinians would just sit on their hands and watch, they might see Israel collapse.

The two important issues in Israeli politics are Palestinian relations and religious observance. The far left wants a dovish policy toward Palestinians, but most Israelis disagree. The religious right wants to enforce more religious observance, but most Israelis disagree.

The obvious central political position is to be hawkish toward Palestinians and moderate on religious observance. The largest parties on both the Israeli left and right share those stances. But the main center-right and center-left parties will not form a government together, because Netanyahu is personally anathema to leaders of other major parties.

In recent decades, Israeli coalition governments have not leaned excessively to the left or the right. But the current Netanyahu coalition incorporates the religious right to an unprecedented degree. If he makes no concessions to them, then they leave his coalition and the government falls.

Because Netanyahu must make some concessions to his coalition partners on the religious right, his opponents have grounds for treating his government as illegitimate. Remember, the vast majority of Israelis want moderate religious policies, not radical ones.

It is difficult to argue that the protesters represent just the diehard leftists and bitter Netanyahu-haters, although of course they are heavily involved. But the government is in no position to claim that the protesters represent a small faction when the government itself is hostage to a small faction.

Trump and protests

If Mr. Trump does win the election in November of 2024, I imagine that the left in America will be trying to mobilize protests along the lines of those taking place in Israel now. If he were to again win only narrowly in the electoral college, opponents might use his loss in the popular vote as the issue to take to the streets. Or one can imagine him making a controversial, divisive statement that gives protesters a pretext to mobilize.

Once mass protests begin, they may take on a dynamic of their own. In December of 2024, there might be large counter-protests by Trump supporters, with violence ensuing. Once Mr. Trump takes office, he may order a military crackdown, which also could lead to violence.

Elites usually try to denounce violence on both sides. But in this case, elites may choose a side rather than remain neutral. While elites on the left sympathized with Black Lives Matter protests, they usually stopped short of approving of vandalism and violence. But with post-election protests, center-left elites could end up going further, endorsing and even participating in destructive protests.

I sketch out such a sequence of events not as the most probable scenario but as one that might occur should Mr. Trump win. I thought about this while considering America’s fiscal position, which we know in the long run is not sustainable. I was trying to imagine what could happen that would trigger a loss of confidence in financial markets. A persistent, disruptive post-election protest movement might spook investors in U.S. government bonds, finally dislodging those bonds from their perch as the perceived lowest-risk asset.