FOUR MORE YEARS OF TRUMP

Victorious again - Donald Trump

I cannot say that I was particularly surprised when I woke up to find that Donald Trump has been re-elected to the presidency of the USA. The opinion polls put him and his opponent Kamala Harris neck and neck but he won quite comfortably in the end, carrying all the swing states and winning both in the electoral college and the popular vote, which he actually lost quite heavily to Hilary Clinton. This time he won on both counts fairly easily. 

Why was this? Obviously, Harris is a woman of colour and, although America was prepared to elect a black man to the presidency – and Barack Obama campaigned valiantly for her – the country would not elect a woman, even a gun-owning one, to the office. Sexism is stronger than racism it seems and people would not admit this, even to an opinion poll questioner. This applies especially to black voters, probably both male and female.

 

There were other factors too. A large number of Moslem voters would not turn out for her because her boss Joe Biden was a strong supporter and supplier of arms to Israel. Prices kept on rising, bills were increasing and improvements in the economy had not registered strongly enough. American voters were more interested in paying the bills rather than saving the world. Let us not sneer at them – most people around in other countries are the same.

 

Trump, despite not yet being in office at the time of writing, is already saying that he will increase tariffs on goods coming from other countries, particularly Canada and Mexico and its biggest trading partner China. This is an attempt to stem the flow of drugs like fentanyl into the country - as well as illegal immigrants. That was one of the main issues in the election, stopping people coming into a country that has always relied on immigration.

 

This is one of the many problems Trump will face when he takes office. There is a real tension between his promise to put America first, to secure the borders from illegal immigrants and to protect American workers from cheap imports on the one hand and the support of neoliberal people on the other hand. The neoliberals believe in free trade and market forces and Trump has promised to protect the American people from these forces.

 

Trump sounds good. He knows how to work a room simply by telling people what they want to hear. However, he relies on backing from people (mostly men) who may agree with his conservative agenda but who also support free trade and are quite happy to buy goods from the cheapest supplier whatever their country of origin. This is a fundamental contradiction that will not disappear – free trade versus the protection of American jobs.

 

Trump’s message to those who voted for him – keep working in the jobs you have done for generations and do not worry about things like the environment – is very different to that of those who bankroll him. Sooner or later, the tension between the two will become obvious and I have a feeling that market forces will prevail, as they usually do. Whenever I go to the shops, I tend to go for the cheaper option if the goods are of similar quality.

 

The ability to work a room is an often underestimated quality but it is essential for those who want to be elected. I have to admit that Ronald Reagan was good at it. The old actor spoke well and I was naïve enough to think that he was speaking off the cuff when he was really reading his speech from an autocue. In my defence, it was some time ago that I heard Reagan speak and I was not familiar with this machine at the time. I soon learned.

 

Who else had the ability to work a room? Bill Clinton, who had very good ratings when he left office, had it but I do not think that his wife Hilary did so. (Bill would never have made the mistake of labelling potential voters as ‘deplorables’.) George Bush junior had it but George Bush senior did not. JFK and Obama had it in a rather lofty way while LBJ had it in a down-home way – but lost it, I believe, because of Vietnam, a war he could not defend and which eventually cost him the chance of re-election when he dropped out of the race.

 

The elephant in the room, of course, is Adolf Hitler, who had the ability to inspire the German people into thinking he was their saviour. It is said that even well-meaning liberal Germans who went to his rallies became carried away with patriotic fervour once they heard him and started screaming for revenge against the enemies of the fatherland. The ability to convert people who, in their sober selves, would disagree with you is obviously priceless.

 

The Nazis, incidentally, were very sexist, believing that women were best employed as mothers and housewives, staying at home and producing male soldiers for the German army. In that, they had something in common with Trump supporters. He is reported to be something of an admirer of the German leader and the belief that women were better off at home rather than in jobs or on the campaign trail is something right-wingers all share.

 

People often look back when they vote, trying to recapture a lost golden age when men went to work at traditional jobs and women stayed at home and did not worry about things like equal pay. We live in a forward-looking society, however, in which women sometimes earn more than their partners and are not content with being housewives. Trump will find this when he eventually stops sounding off and starts making real-world decisions.

Edwin Lerner

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com