Trump and the rise of populism
For years, many Americans have expressed to pollsters that they think the country is heading in the wrong direction. Public trust in all of the institutions of the republic has steadily declined.[15] A huge majority of Americans think Congress is a den of self-serving, crooks and liars. The presidency has precious little capacity to unify the nation with honeymoons barely outlasting the inauguration and approval ratings dropping away like the medical chart of patient in their final desperate stage of life.[16] The Supreme court is seen as hopelessly politicised, partisan and corrupt, a view borne out by decisions of dubious legality and pronounced ideology as well as by egregious perks and personal political connections.[17] So how surprised should we be when millions of Americans want to vote for anti-politics in human form?
Populism and anti-politics are a global phenomenon. Between 1990 and 2018, the number of populists in power around the world has increased fivefold, from four to 20.[18] Trump shares the characteristic populist assertion that the "true people" are in conflict with outsiders. The country's powerful leaders form a corrupt group that does not truly care about ordinary people or the public good. This is why anti-establishment politics is a key part of his populism. Accordingly Trump suggested that entire agencies should be abolished and tens of thousands of federal workers should be fired and that the FBI should itself be investigated. This was anti-establishment politics and it resonated with millions.
Across the West, there is a rising tide of people who feel excluded, alienated from mainstream politics and increasingly hostile towards minorities, immigrants and neoliberal economics. Many of these voters are turning to national populist movements, which have begun to change the face of Western liberal democracy, from the United States to France, Austria to the UK.
Another strand of populism which reflected a change in the political climate was anti-globalisation. In the first decades of this century anti-globalisation was dominated by the left and the politics of ecologism. Globalisation had created a free fire zone for global capitalism, fostering global debt and environmental despoliation. Anti-globalisation sentiments have since morphed into a populist revival of neo-mercantilism[19], where the interests of the nation state represent the interests of the ‘people’. It came with the concurrent baggage of isolationism where walls, actual or in the form of tariffs, provided a reassuring distance between the world and us.[20] This form of populist anti-globalisation looks to protectionism and is rooted in anger at the harsh disparities which globalisation inflicted on mature economies rather than on developing nations, which had been the focus of the left.
The uneven effect of globalisation and the political consequences were described in The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics by David Goodhart who contrasts those who welcomed and benefitted from globalisation, who he labeled the ‘anywhere people’ with those who were threatened by it, as it eroded their communities and way of life, these were the ‘somewhere people’.
Although this is a form of retro-sentimentalism where the somewhere people are located in America of the 1950s, a golden age destroyed by the ‘everywhere people’ characterised as the metropolitan liberal elites. It’s a simplistic picture that ignores the ultraism and idealism of internationalists as much as the deep desire to put down roots and find a ‘somewhere’ which is the profound desire of immigrants throughout history. However, the consequences of the decline of manufacturing, the export of jobs, and import of goods were a harsh reality, particularly for rural and rustbelt America. It was this reality that gave the imaginary its political force and vice versa. All that was needed was a standard around which this narrative could gather, by luck or judgement Trump supplied it- ‘Make America Great Again’.
The populist themes of retro sentimentalism and the fantasy ‘othering’ of external threats grew out of two very significant forms of inequality which have emerged in this century, in sharp contrast to the later half of the last century, these are inequality of opportunity and wealth inequality. The decades following World War Two, contrast with our current times in greater social mobility and narrower wealth distribution. The difference is significant and its political consequence is Trump.