Is Donald Trump an aberration, an alien bacillus invading the body politic? Studies, such as “How Democracies Die,” say no. He has plenty of company. In fact, the populist demagogue is a garden variety pest to which troubled societies are prone.
Liberal democracies flourish when a large, prospering, cautious middle class has a vested interest in resisting extremism. They wither when stress causes large segments of the electorate to despair and fall for simple solutions and alluring promises. Our current situation was ripe for a Trump.
The groundwork was laid by decades of political malpractice in which the playing field was tilted to favor the few over the many — in tax policy, social policy and educational opportunity. By 2016, a substantial portion of the society no longer trusted either party to provide them with the American Dream of job, home, better life for their kids, secure retirement, social safety net in case of illness or other trouble.
Instead of a “United We Stand” attitude, demagogues exploit and amplify divisions along racial, religious, economic and cultural lines. By 2016, the fractures were plain to see. The top 10% of Americans owned 81% of financial assets, the next 10% controlled an additional 11% of assets, leaving the bottom 80% with just eight percent of financial assets.
The story of the net worth of Americans flows from this fact, since capital grows faster than wages or productivity, particularly in times of stagnation or recession. So while many lost jobs and homes, the top 20% of the electorate now possesses 85 percent of the country’s net worth. The bottom 40% have less than one percent.
These are people who have more credit card debt than savings, the 49% of families who say they’d have trouble coming up with $500 in an emergency, who live paycheck to paycheck, and are one illness or layoff away from economic ruin.
Those at the nadir are often blamed for their own situation, branded as lazy or welfare queens, criminals and addicts. But as the middle class has been hollowed out, the ills of the poor have begun to afflict those who once had well-paying jobs, but have seem the ground shift under them.
Some of these people were open to Trump’s appeal, but even more so were elements of the lower middle class who were increasingly squeezed and lived in dread of falling another rung or two down the socio-economic ladder. They felt the country was in decline, and Trump aimed his pitch squarely at them.
In a time of an evolving economy, a government of the people would be working to help the dislocated weather the transition. In an increasingly technical world, in which eduction and retraining will be essential to achieve a middle class life, we are underperforming our competitors, and failing to invest for the future.
Census figures show 12% of American don’t have a high school diploma, another 30% have completed only high school and a further 16% have only a two-year degree. When machines and foreign competitors now perform the kind of labor that once provided a living wage, many of these people are ill-equipped for the marketplace
Trump played expertly to their fears and dreams. His appeal was half scapegoating and half promises he wouldn’t be able to keep. He blamed their troubles not on a changing economy but on immigrants and unfair foreign competition. He did not promise to help the country adapt to changing times, but to bring back the good old days of coal and steel by building physical and tariff walls.
He also exploited cultural fears over race and religion. In the 1950s, when he alleges America was great, 80% of the electorate was comprised of people who were married, white and Christian. By the 2000s, only 40% of the electorate was married, white and Christians. So Trump courted evangelicals, promised a ban on Muslims, and cozied up to white nationalists.
He also promised huge tax breaks for the working class and no more free ride for Wall Street. Since he was rich he knew how the game was rigged and would fix it. And it all worked, as a look at the results of the 2016 vote demonstrates.
By huge margins he lost the minorities he demonized, the educated whose intelligence he insulted (losing voters with graduate degrees by 58-37), and got only 41% of those with income under $50,000 a year. They rightly feared he would shred the social safety net they might have to depend on.
He won whites 58-37, voters over 50 by a 53-44 margin, and males 53-41, (but lost women 54-42). and won those with income between 50K and 99K by 50-46. Most revealing of all, Trump broke even in the suburbs, lost cities by a lopsided 59-35 margin, but won towns smaller than 50,000 in population and rural counties by a whopping 62-34.
Unfortunately for those who trusted his spiel, Trump has not delivered. His followers have been had. The fat cats got the tax cuts. Coal and steel won’t be back. And isolating one’s country from a global economy is a losing strategy for workers. Investor dollars can go anywhere, but workers are marooned on an island. Instead of funding education, infrastructure and a social safety net to protect our citizens from capitalist vicissitudes and make them more productive, Trump seeks to cut such programs.
Instead, of a big break for the working class, Congress voted and Trump signed a bill that delivers 80% of tax breaks to globalist corporations and the already wealthy. CBO analysis calculates that the result of this Robin-Hood-in-reverse, tax and spend policy will to be an increase in the national debt from $19 trillion to $30 trillion.
Trump promised to make voters rich like him, but it isn’t going to happen unless he decides to adopt them. He got his start in life at private schools funded by a wealthy father who taught him the family business, gave him millions as seed money, and helped bail him out of his many foolish bankruptcies.
As Jim Hightower said of George H.W. Bush, Trump was born on third and thinks he hit a triple. His skill set includes neither retooling America for the 21st Century, nor turning back time to the good old days.