The decision by GOP supporters to elect Donald Trump as the party’s presidential nominee is a symptom of the frustration and disillusion many in America feel towards the established order. Mr Trump has been defined as an aberration, an anomaly, which cannot sustain its meteoric rise, while the simple truth is that for millions, Trump represents an avenue through which disenchanted voters can strike back at a system that they perceive as exclusivist and iniquitous. This disenchantment, in turn, stems from the sheer inequality the neoliberal world order has perpetuated, the extent of which was laid bare in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007. Trump’s rise, therefore, is not in fact, an anomaly, but an inevitable reaction to, and a failure of the neoliberal world order America has upheld since the 1950s.
The Great Recession of 2007 came at a time when inequality in America was at historic heights. As Thomas Piketty points out in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the income divide between the rich and the poor right before the 2007 economic downturn had not been seen since the 1920s, the years before the Great Depression economic crash. The years that followed the Great Depression came to be defined as the totalitarian years, as authoritarian governments, capitalising on the squalid economic conditions of the time, came to power in Germany, Italy and Spain. These totalitarian governments gained their popularity by claiming to be anti-establishment and promising to make these nations — which were reeling from the effects of the Depression — great again, a discourse which is quite redolent of Trump’s favourite phrase, “Make America great again.” The rise of totalitarianism was, thus, a populist reaction to the economic inequality that emerged after the Great Depression, and this historical comparison explains why the rise of a demagogue like Trump in the wake of the 2007 recession — which has been defined as the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression — is a phenomenon that is not that hard to fathom.
It comes as no surprise then, that most of Trump’s votaries are the people most affected by the Great Recession. A majority of Trump’s supporters hail from a specific demographic subset of American society: white middle class males who have seen their economic fortunes suffer the most because of the global economic system. As Francis Fukuyama claimed in a recent Foreign Affairs article, “The real story of this [2016 presidential] election is that after several decades, American democracy is finally responding to the rise of inequality and the economic stagnation experienced by most of the population.”
What Fukuyama fails to understand, however, is that this inequality is a natural product of the neoliberal framework America has clung to so dearly since 1945. This neoliberal system is predicated on the principles of globalisation and capitalism, which have resulted in mass unemployment and a lack of economic opportunities for those supporting Trump. Trump’s rise therefore, is not simply “social class [returning] to the heart of American politics” as Fukuyama claims, but is a punitive strike at the very heart of America’s neoliberal system by a disillusioned segment of America’s population. And here lies the reason behind Trump’s successful attempt of alluring these disenfranchised Americans to his cause.
Trump has very shrewdly combined his anti-establishment rhetoric with an agenda that relies on xenophobia and Islamophobia. This has provided Trump and his supporters an avenue through which they can channel their hate against segments of the population they blame for their economic woes — mainly foreigners. This blame game has not only allowed Trump to attract a coterie of supporters who believe that their jobs have been stolen by foreigners, but it has also shrouded the real reason behind this economic collapse — the neoliberal framework. Thus, the rise of Trump is indeed an attack against the prevailing established order, but Trump’s penchant for hatemongering is deflecting scrutiny and censure from the real culprit — an unfair economic system.
Trump cannot, therefore, be the correct alternative to the present neoliberal framework. His opportunistic outlook that relies on racism and an utter disrespect for minority communities has hijacked the sentiment of anti-establishment and change that is currently percolating through the west. It must be noted, however, that Trump is not the only person who has come to define this xenophobic anti-status quo feeling with Marine Le Pen in France, Alternative for Germany in Germany, and perhaps most famous of all, Brexit in the United Kingdom, representing a majority feeling of resentment against the gross economic injustice prevalent today.
Trump has laid down a challenge to the prevalent establishment in America, and this reaction is not just an anomaly, but also an inevitable expression of disillusionment by America’s disenfranchised against the economic inequality currently extant in the world. Trump, however, must not be the man who leads America into a new order. To find genuine harbingers of change who will eradicate inequality, Americans might look at the immense support Bernie Sanders gained, or collective American memory might remember the 2011 Occupy Wall Street Movement-genuine populist movements that threatened to upend the iniquitous status quo.
The writer is an undergraduate student at Cornell University, USA, and an intern at a policy think tank in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at [email protected]