I’ve read a lot of pro-Trump material, and it seems to me that Trump officially recognises and publicises one main true message. Whether he does anything to make it better is another question. This message is:
- Most of the American people have had their incomes lowered, their sense of security diminish, and their sense of participation in US political and social life scratched. They feel powerless. They feel that they have no chance of social progress. Even worse they feel ignored, and set upon. They feel mocked and scorned by the elites, and not listened to by politicians and the State. They feel most media does not ‘get’ them. They feel outsiders in their own country. Some of them also feel that they get to participate in irrelevant and pointless wars which leave ordinary people, like them, scarred, injured or dead.
These positions are pretty correct for many people, and they are angry that this is happening.
Trump is seen by most people as successful businessman – ironically largely because of promotion in the mainstream media, certainly not through most people’s encounters with him or his companies. He is seen as a person who has little to do with the elites, and who is also scorned by those elites. Unlike many politicians, he says what he thinks, irrespective of whether it’s nice or not. He speaks ‘ordinary American.’ He appears down to earth. He is not a politician and not compromised by political action. He does not listen to politicians, he listens to his own sense of the situation. Every time someone, who his supporters see as being elite, criticises Trump for being redneck, for stupidity, for lying, for adultery, for corruption, or for not understanding foreign policy, or economics or whatever, they see his outsider status confirmed. By the attacks on him he is confirmed as one of them, fighting for them. This is one reason why the President continually emphasises he is a victim, and it does not misfire with his supporters, even when he starts the fight.
Trump supporters see Trump as speaking directly, and without polish, to them via Twitter because he can’t get fair coverage elsewhere. The fact that he sometimes says silly things shows how unvarnished and genuine the comments are. His typos also show his messages are real and not vetted. If people criticise the typos, that’s just snobbish elites in action and shows how distant those elites are from real Americans. No President has previously had such an intimate and constant contact with his supporters. They tend to feel that he works to keep in touch and tries to tell them what is really going on. This appears unusual in US politics and, again, means he can be trusted – at least more than anyone else in Washington.
They see Trump as a person who keeps his promises – because that is what they are told by the President himself, and his media. It gets a bit harder when it comes down to listing what he has actually done with accuracy. But they see any failures as resulting from obstruction. Obstruction by people who are, by definition, against ordinary people. These failures through obstruction, again justify the President and his fight. But if you are confident the President’s successes would not be reported by the elite media, then the lack of reporting of those successes could be further confirmation of his struggle.
While the complaints about contemporary US life are accurate, I would suggest the diagnosis is not entirely accurate.
To be clear: Yes people are more precarious than they were, yes people no longer feel taken notice of, or being counted as part of the country. Yes people are angry about this. Some of this anger may express nostalgia for a time that never was, but some of it points to times (the 1950s and 60s) in which many people did have valid hopes of social mobility, greater prosperity, greater support, and a sense of political relevance.
However, most of this disappointment could well have been generated by what we might call the “five points of Republican policy” since Reagan turned away from Carter’s warnings of hard times to come over 40 years ago. These policies have been largely supported by the mainstream media, politicians and corporations. Most Democrat politicians have also gone along with these policies, or policies with similar consequences, but with a little more restraint. Resentment against Democrats is not undeserved, but they are not the primary culprits.
The main policies.
- Supporting the transfer of wealth, power, liberty and support to the corporate class, under the disguise of ‘free markets’ and ‘liberty’. This is pretty close to socialism for the wealth elites alone.
- Promoting the removal of wealth, power, liberty and support from the middle and working classes, also under the disguise of ‘free markets’ and ‘liberty’.
- Encouraging destruction of environments and the emission of pollution to help reduce corporate costs and increase corporate profit, largely under the disguise of ‘free markets’ and ‘liberty’. This also makes life for ordinary people, particularly farmers, more precarious.
- Encouraging culture wars to disguise the three main policies.
- Conduct the culture wars with marked violence and rudeness, so as to encourage the left to respond likewise, so it becomes impossible for people on either side to discuss anything across the divide, or even realise the others have a point. The aim here is to make strong social categories, which only minimally overlap, and which do not trust each other.
Such policies will generate not only precisely what Trump voters feel and live, but attempt to make sure they do not blame the parties who are mostly responsible.
The culture wars help persuade voters that “the real elite” are intellectuals, journalists, Democrat politicians, socialists etc, rather than Corporate bosses, billionaires, members of corporate think tanks, or Republican politicians etc. This works so that people generally do not blame the real elites, or look at how Republican policies largely benefit those elites alone. With the social categories established by the culture wars, the victims of the main policies may even identify as Republicans campaigning in favour of liberty and traditional morality.
This may be one reason why the Republicans have worked against public health measures, because they can claim to represent the freedom that ordinary people don’t have. Campaigning for the freedom not to wear masks is great, as it will hardly effect any of those who are wealthy enough to self isolate. It will mainly kill or injure ordinary folk. It also does not risk an attack on established wealth elites or corporate power.
If the culture wars can persuade people they are part of something great like America, which is under attack by the (fake) elites, and that the President aims to ‘Make America Great Again’, which they interpret to mean ‘to restore their lost possibilities’, then this seems to contrast with those who would exclude them from belonging to anything of value altogether (because they are ‘rednecks’ or ‘Christians’ or whatever convenient abuse can be found…).
If the Culture Wars can further convince people that some of their problems are generated by people who are, in general, equally or even less powerful than they are, or with only small amounts of privilege, such as migrant workers, feminists and black people, then you have a handy set of scapegoats. It gives the disempowered and ignored groups someone to blame who is unlikely to be able to retaliate, or whose retaliation can be crushed without sympathy.
The aim of the culture wars, and the Republican elites is to produce unity amongst supporters and passionate divisions between the supporters and everyone else. Trump is really good at intensifying this process, hence he seems the natural result of the strategy. But even if he gets voted out, and if he goes without encouraging violence and civil war, then someone else will eventually take advantage of the same system, and the situation will get worse.
Improving conditions for voters might even cause the Republicans to lose their political leverage, so it is unlikely to happen with their support for a while yet…
Tags: pandemic, politics, social category theory
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