We can say everything about Donald. But his political acumen cannot be denied. The choice of JD Vance as vice president is the most notable example. Is there an heir to Trumpism?
Right. But that is not the point. The point is that Vance’s choice is decidedly based on the Republicans as the party of the white working class in the United States. The change is as seismic as the transformation of the secessionist and Southern Democrats (until 1950) into a Republican bastion (after 1950 and to this day).
In fact, if there was any doubt, read Trump’s words justifying the choice: “American workers and farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota and far beyond” will have their defender in JD Vance.
Trump knows that to win the White House, he needs Pennsylvania (first of all) and then Michigan and Wisconsin, to vote for Trump (in 2016) and Joe Biden (in 2020). How to win them both back?
The choice of the legitimate son of this abandoned America.
Because of this, the question is clear: how was it possible that the American is left (and longer) alienate so his traditional base of support?
Cleric economist Daron Acemoglu tries to explain suicide in an interview with the German Der Spiegel.
First of all, “third way” politicians (Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder) surrendered to the easy promises of globalization, in the hope that no one would be left behind.
We know today that this optimism was excessive, especially for less qualified workers.
The damage had already been done by the increasing automation in agriculture and industry since the 1970s. The death knell for the working class in the West was the relocation of jobs to emerging markets.
In this regard, I always remember the words of Francis Fukuyama in the important paragraph “Liberalism and its Discontents”: “Few voters think in terms of aggregate wealth. They do not say to themselves, ‘Well, maybe I lost my job, but at least there is someone else in China or Vietnam, or a new immigrant in my country, who is proportionately much better off.”
Indeed. The work has a personal and community importance that cannot be replaced by any subsidy or social welfare transfer.
How the liberal Fukuyama understood this, unlike other liberals, only increased my respect for him.
On the other hand, Daron Acemoglu hits the nail on the head when he recalls the great replacement that American (and European) progressives promoted: they replaced the working class with an intellectual elite and their elite agendas. Result?
Cognitive dissonance between workers’ concerns and the priorities of progressive parties.
The case of immigration is the most interesting: if unrestricted immigration is perceived as a threat by native workers with little training, the same is not true among the elites, who even need drivers or housekeepers.
Not surprisingly, the topic disappeared from civil conversation. Only “fascists”, in the catchy language of the more radical left, worry about uncontrolled immigration.
Acemoglu’s message is simple and accurate: if the populist right is a problem for democracy, then the desert left will have to get its hands dirty again with the “basket of deplorables”.
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