{"id":280466,"date":"2024-11-18T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=280466"},"modified":"2024-11-17T08:54:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-17T08:54:06","slug":"its-the-system-stupid-the-underlying-causes-of-trumps-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/11\/its-the-system-stupid-the-underlying-causes-of-trumps-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s the System, Stupid!\u201d – The Underlying Causes of Trump\u2019s Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

14 Nov 2024 –<\/em> In 2016 Steve Bannon told Donald Trump that if he played his cards right, he could become \u201cthe Roosevelt of the Right.\u201d\u00a0 That is, he could create a coalition of ultra-wealthy capitalists, small entrepreneurs, and discontented workers and bind them together under the flag of cultural nationalism.<\/p>\n

The key to doing this was to campaign against \u201cthe System\u201d \u2013 not the system of capitalist oligarchy, of course, but the structures of administrative regulation, relatively free trade, and military commitments abroad that defined what Trump and Bannon called the \u201cDeep State.\u201d\u00a0 They key to their electoral success was to cast MAGA as the movement of systemic change and the Democrats as the party of the status quo \u2013 a trap into which the supporters of Biden and Harris blindly fell.\u00a0 If Trump took steps toward becoming the Roosevelt of the Right, the Democrats looked more and more like Herbert Hoovers of the Left.<\/p>\n

The pain and suffering inflicted in defeated Democrats and independent liberals by the train wreck of November 5th<\/sup> is real and understandable.\u00a0 That many of them have learned very little from this experience is revealed each night on CNN and MSNBC, whose anchors and guests can\u2019t stop complaining about Trump\u2019s rude attacks on established bureaucratic practices and foreign policy norms.\u00a0 For example, they repeatedly call him a \u201cfelon,\u201d unwilling to admit that trying to use the judicial system to discredit him was not only a failure but a serious political mistake and a diversion. \u00a0Liberals turn to the courts when they are losing the battle for hearts and minds in the streets, workplaces, and legislatures. Unfortunately, Stormy Daniels did not supply them with a program to win back the alienated working class.<\/p>\n

What Did the Voters Want?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Exit interviews and other analyses reveal that those who voted for Trump or didn\u2019t vote at all were reacting to two major problem-sets, one socioeconomic, the other ethnocultural.\u00a0 The socioeconomic <\/em>issues included high prices and stagnant wages, growing personal debt, lack of opportunities to get ahead, the impact of deindustrialization and automation, skyrocketing inequality, and feelings of being abandoned and disrespected by the \u201celites\u201d.\u00a0 The ethnocultural<\/em> problems involved perceived threats to people\u2019s identities as Americans, males, whites, Christians, non-college educated workers, Arab-Americans, country people, or members of other groups sensing a decline in their status and opportunities relative to those of more favored groups.<\/p>\n

What would it take to solve problems like these?\u00a0 Clearly —\u00a0 or so it seems to me \u2013 these are structural <\/em>problems requiring changes\u00a0 in existing socioeconomic and ethnocultural systems.\u00a0 But the Democrats licking their wounds would rather debate whether Kamala Harris lost because she was too progressive, as conservatives or centrists say, or because she wasn\u2019t progressive enough, as Bernie Sanders and others on the Left believe.<\/p>\n

The answer, I\u2019m sorry to say, is \u201cboth.\u201d<\/p>\n

With respect to socioeconomic issues, Harris was not progressive enough.\u00a0 She pointed to reforms adopted by the Biden Administration that were helpful to working people but not remotely adequate to solve the underlying problems causing mass insecurity and suffering.\u00a0 Harris would not even commit to increasing taxes on the super-rich \u2013 but, if she had, she would still have had a credibility deficit.\u00a0 This is because the measures advocated by progressives like Sanders \u2013 reforms such as taxing the rich and raising the minimum wage \u2013 do not have the power to correct major structural malfunctions related to deindustrialization, automation, or even the challenge of low-wage immigration.\u00a0 More radical change is needed.<\/p>\n

What sort of change?\u00a0 Consider the undocumented worker issue, so potent in influencing even the votes of Hispanic Americans.\u00a0 The economists agree that the U.S. has a serious labor shortage \u2013 but low-wage immigration clearly undermines the income levels of low-wage workers living in the same region. This problem could be mitigated, even eliminated, by adopting the sort of economic planning, with input from local communities, that would permit the government to guarantee high-wage jobs and public welfare subsidies in areas of high immigration.\u00a0 But so long as progressivism as defined by Democratic neoliberals excludes the possibility of serious economic planning and collective action, the Dems will be incapable of offering credible solutions to the real problems of our market-driven system.<\/p>\n

What about the ethnocultural problems \u2013 the identity-based insecurities and ambitions mentioned earlier? Some say that, with regard to these issues, the Harris campaign was too<\/em> progressive, in the sense that, in addition to economic reforms, it advocated women\u2019s reproductive and workplace rights, racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and protection of the interests of other marginalized groups such as undocumented workers and prisoners. \u00a0But the problem is not that liberals fight for the rights and interests of historically oppressed groups.\u00a0 It is that, by accepting the zero-sum rules of the existing oligarchical system, they declare less oppressed groups to be \u201cprivileged\u201d and lump them in with elite oppressors.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, this threatens and alienates groups that are only relatively <\/em>privileged, and who are actually potential allies against the oligarchy and its political camp followers.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be clear about this.\u00a0 The historic oppression of some groups, continuing into the present, is a fact.\u00a0 It is also a fact that systemic oppression to some extent benefits everyone who is not a member of the most oppressed group.\u00a0 For example, the cheap cotton produced by slaves provided jobs for white workers in the clothing industry as well as consumer goods for everyone who could afford them.\u00a0 But to be white rather than Black, male rather than female, straight rather than gay, gives straight white males only relative advantages over the members of more oppressed groups.\u00a0 It clearly does not<\/em> relieve them of oppression by far more powerful elites.\u00a0 In fact, their relative superiority over other groups is part of a sleazy divide-and-conquer game used by those with oligarchical power to keep them in line.<\/p>\n

People do not live \u201cby bread alone\u201d; even if relatively comfortable, they will fight to defend the existence and interests of the groups they strongly identify with.\u00a0 Even so, it seems undeniable that socioeconomic struggles and precarity incline many of those suffering either to challenge more powerful groups or to seek scapegoats among groups considered their social inferiors or pariahs.\u00a0 MAGA\u2019s identification of immigrants as rapists and criminals was a classic exercise in such scapegoating.<\/p>\n

Cui bono<\/em>?\u00a0 Who benefits from such a conflation of economic and moral threats?\u00a0 Of course, those at the top of the socioeconomic ladder would much rather have troubled workers and insecure middleclass folks punching down than punching up!\u00a0 The MAGA movement thrives on this dynamic, and the Democrats do not yet seem to understand that the way to challenge it is not just to defend the interests of the most downtrodden groups but to relieve their suffering \u2013 and that of the slightly less downtrodden \u2013 by punching up!<\/p>\n

The Enemy Is the Oligarchy<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How to punch up?\u00a0 Consider that our political system offers voters a choice between two parties, one more \u201cliberal\u201d and the other more \u201cconservative,\u201d both of which claim to represent all classes of Americans, from workers and small entrepreneurs to the great capitalists who control our key financial, manufacturing, communications, and service companies.\u00a0 The roughneck working on an oil rig and Elon Musk in his Austin, Texas compound are both Republicans. The scholarship student at a march against genocide and the CEO of Lockheed Martin are both Democrats.\u00a0 Some bargaining between the elements of each party coalition is permitted, but the masters of the economy maintain and modify the basic rules of the game.\u00a0 So, whichever party citizens vote for, the wealthiest, most powerful groups in our society remain in the driver\u2019s seat. \u00a0Whichever party is elected, the solutions to certain problems that might alter the system to the elites\u2019 disadvantage are automatically placed out of bounds, and thinking seriously about them becomes taboo.<\/p>\n

Consider the weapons industry, tor example.\u00a0 Producing weapons and weapons delivery systems is the healthiest, most profitable sector of the U.S. manufacturing economy. \u00a0The military-industrial complex is an oligarchical industry, with profits guaranteed by the government, that kills millions of people and destroys property around the globe.\u00a0 Suppose that you don\u2019t like this situation and want to slash the military budgets and redirect this production to peacetime uses.\u00a0 Forget it!\u00a0 You will be called irresponsible, pro-Russian, pro-Chinese, AND anti-worker, since you will be threatening jobs as well as investments.\u00a0 The Democrats will be as opposed to your proposal as the Republicans \u2013 if not more so.\u00a0 This is because the same oligarchs owning the same or related companies, and financing the careers of the same or related politicians, set the rules and define the limits of permissible discussion in both political parties.<\/p>\n

What is vicious about this is not merely that elite power makes a farce of democracy, but also that it continually generates solution-less problems.\u00a0 Thus, we export weapons of destruction as if there were no possibility of converting military production into a program to produce goods and services to satisfy basic human needs. \u00a0We fight over immigration as if there were no such thing as a planned economy capable of remedying our labor shortage without lowering wage rates and bankrupting social services. \u00a0And we choose sides in disputes between relatively oppressed and less oppressed identity groups as if there were no way to reduce competition between them for unnecessarily scarce resources and economic opportunities.<\/p>\n

What James Carville might say, if he understood the situation better, is \u201cIt\u2019s the system, stupid!\u201d\u00a0 If we do not recognize that it is the system of capitalist oligarchy and its political servants that limit the possibilities of conflict resolution and generate most of this discontent, we will keep fighting unnecessary battles that Democrats are unlikely to win against a movement that claims (however falsely) to be anti-system.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell: the Republican victory of November 5 was not a rejection of the Left \u2013 it was the result of a vacuum on the Left.\u00a0 The MAGA Republicans allowed themselves to consider forms of change that many consider taboo, for example, making radical cuts in federal regulatory agencies.\u00a0 These changes will make the plight of working people worse, not better, but they point in an instructive direction.\u00a0 Those on the Left must also permit themselves to consider forms of system change that are now taboo.<\/p>\n

Critics may brand proposals to reconstruct a destructive neoliberal system \u201csocialist,\u201d \u201ccommunist,\u201d \u201canarchist,\u201d or what have you, but if they point the way to shifting power from the oligarchs to the people, working people will respond positively.\u00a0 They are already anti-system.\u00a0 The challenge now is to make it clear to everyone that Trumpism is nothing more than a disguise for oligarchical tyranny, and that we can only control the economy by owning it and operating it collectively.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Richard E. Rubenstein is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/em><\/a> and a professor of conflict resolution and public affairs at George Mason University\u2019s Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution. A graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), and Harvard Law School, Rubenstein is the author of nine books on analyzing and resolving violent social conflicts. His most recent book is <\/em>Resolving Structural Conflicts: How Violent Systems Can Be Transformed (Routledge, 2017). <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s be clear about this.\u00a0 The historic oppression of some groups, continuing into the present, is a fact.\u00a0 It is also a fact that systemic oppression to some extent benefits everyone who is not a member of the most oppressed group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[392,249,70],"class_list":["post-280466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-elections","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280466"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280546,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280466\/revisions\/280546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}