What Next for Trump’s 72 Million Voters?

How could a president who behaves much of the time like an omnipotent two year old, who blatantly ignores the experts, disregards his advisors, and ridicules those who disagree with him have been so popular? How could anyone believe that Trump boasted that the deaths of 200,000 Americans from COVID was a HUGE success because deaths were predicted to be in the region of two million? And why are immigrant groups, like the Hispanics in Florida, supporting policies to keep out other immigrants? These are just some of the questions that have perplexed observers around the world and many of the Democratic constituencies in the United States. The real question is what did Trump’s supporters believe in and what will they continue to believe in?

If we don’t try to understand what is behind these questions and take them seriously, there will be no chance of healing the divide in the United States or indeed in other countries, such as the UK, Europe and eastern Europe where similar divisions are emerging.

Populism is generally understood as “the people” against the “elite”. But when populism first appeared in the late nineteenth century in the US it was very much tied to the promotion of democracy and engaging those outside the establishment in political decision-making. This democratic principle was foremost; it was an ideology not just a movement.

Today’s populism, while it may appear to be similar, is markedly different. Antipathy towards the elites, which Trump voices in nearly every tweet, is still a driving force but it arises from a wave of anxiety that has swept the world since the increasing dominance of globalization. The anxiety is about losing livelihoods in the face of new technologies, losing a way of life in which the expectation was that if you worked hard you could do well,  and losing pride in the United States as a world leader – as a powerful military force and in its economic supremacy. These losses are fundamental and have threatened what many Americans see as their basic identity. Trump’s mantra, “Make America Great Again!” was about reversing these losses. It was about turning the clock back and restoring an old way of life based on an idea of what it meant to be American.

Trump’s attempts to ward off loss have in fact been remarkably successful, at least in terms of the economy. Up until this last year of his presidency, Trump has produced a significant and steady economic growth and income redistribution – no mean feat. Christopher Caldwell notes: “a disproportionate share of the gains went to low-income workers…Workers in the lowest quarter of incomes saw their wages rise almost 5 per cent. This was the first sustained downward redistribution of income and wealth since the last century, a vindication for voters in the forgotten parts of the country who voted for Mr Trump in 2016. It may account for the shock of this election: the gravitation of young Latinos and black men to Mr Trump’s candidacy.” (Caldwell, C., “The movement that backed Donald Trump is here to stay,” Financial Times, 6 November 2020)

In his drive towards restoring American supremacy, Trump has also placed restrictions and bans on imported goods, particularly Chinese goods. Despite the shortage of protective equipment that has been such a weak point during the pandemic and the fact that trade policies have cost consumers about $800 per year because of everyday items becoming more expensive, Trump’s slogan “Buy American” has been another important signifier of strength and protectionism.

So maybe Trump’s followers have a point?

But these immediate economic benefits cannot be sustained in a world that is changing rapidly and when countries’ economies are so inter-dependent. Restoring things to how they used to be, appealing as it may be in a time of uncertainty, is not the same as a vision of the future. It is world in stasis, defending itself against change and loss and the invasion of the new. It is the promise of a narcissistic bubble that will protect everyone who remains inside. Trump’s slogan, “America First” quickly morphs into “America Only.”

Walls – concrete and metaphorical - are also ways of keeping the country intact, of sealing the bubble. Trump’s Mexican wall was not only intended to keep out the murderers and rapists from abroad, it signified keeping out anyone who is not “American”, keeping out what is “other”, what is impure and what is different. Reminiscent of Hitler’s Third Reich, the right to become a U.S. citizen has been restricted under Trump to protect national purity and cohesion. This is a far cry from the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty welcoming immigrants to America:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”

In trying to understand the roots of US populism, many critics point the finger at what they see as the demise of the American Dream - the dream of a country that enables everyone to get rich. However, the American Dream as set out by its founding Fathers states that all men are created equal with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It has only been since the aftermath of World Wars One and Two that the American Dream became more specifically associated with the accumulation of wealth. The fact that so many Americans and others equate the American Dream with getting rich indicates what a shallow, apolitical view of the world we have come to.

The liberal left across the world have been ringing alarm bells that if Trump had won it would have effectively signalled the end of democracy. An even greater threat, however, is that it would signal the end to political ideology – not just democracy but other political beliefs and ideals too. 72 million voters in the United States were, as far as we know, primarily concerned with keeping taxes low and keeping police on the streets. These are not typically political ideals; taxation and internal safety enable states to govern and pay for civic services. As Anne Applebaum pointedly asks, “What is Trumpism?”

Our real worry is what happens when movements like populism are devoid of ideology and fuelled by anxiety? Maintaining the status quo becomes paramount over and above values and beliefs of what kind of society we want to live in and what kind of society we want to leave for our children.

In a recent interview on Channel 4 News, Anthony Scaramucci, former Director of Communications in 2017 for Trump, admits that he accepted the White House appointment out of pride and ambition but then, after being fired, had the psychological insight to realize he was suffering from cognitive dissonance – basically he was trying to do a job based on a premise he didn’t believe in. Scaramucci stressed, “…the President has captured the imagination of about 72 million Americans so we have to have a reckoning for that. (Whether you’re Republican or Democrat)…you have to look at what’s going on the country…we better wake up as a society and recognize that there’s a problem….We need to make the lives of those 76 million Americans more aspirational so they can drop (Trump).”

Scaramucci goes to the heart of what is ailing the United States (and indeed other countries around the world) and what is threatening further conflict and polarization. When a group’s aspirations are to stay as they are in the face of inevitable change, they become not only vulnerable to despair but to extinction – and to violence as a survival tactic. Without a vision of the future and without political beliefs and ideals of the kind of society that we want to be part of, we are truly lost. As Scaramucci urges, we need to find a way of making people believe in a new future, a future that includes them and will be shaped by them and to which we can all aspire.  

Coline Covington