In America, the insurgent versus the institutionalist

As president, Trump remained an insurgent. He didn’t respect the institutional policymaking process and acted unilaterally, often on an instinct, both domestically and externally. He encouraged White supremacist mobs while calling for military action against Black protesters. He empowered his family, monetised power for business, harboured no pretence of America’s exceptionalism, fought with allies, cajoled adversaries, took on China, and packed the Supreme Court with exactly who he wanted. He also presided over the death of the largest number of Americans in peacetime in recent history during Covid. Yet, he got more votes than in 2016, more than any other president in American history and second only to Joe Biden, in the 2020 election.

After the election, Trump remained an insurgent. He refused to accept the outcome, bullied states to change results, encouraged a mob to block the certification of the results at the US Capitol, and turned a blind eye as the violent mob sought his own vice president’s head. He took classified files from the office. And he acted like a wronged man even as he faced a set of legal challenges for clearly illegal actions that would have drowned anyone else. Yet, he survived.

And as a third-time presidential candidate, he continued to be an insurgent. He created an alternative historical narrative about the 2020 elections, leading half the country to doubt its result. He built his own alternative Far-Right information, policy and political structure that communicated directly with his base. He took pride in what others considered criminal action, framed every judgment against him as a part of the “Deep State” vendetta machine, remained unapologetic, eliminated every moderate Republican who stood in his way, clinically swept the field in the primaries, attacked any part of the American polity, civil society and press that didn’t accept him as an enemy, and survived two assassination attempts. Yet, he is today the frontrunner to become the American president.

Trump has tapped into a visceral anger in American society with the status quo. As scholar Raj Chetty’s work has shown, if you were born in the 1980s, there was only a 50% chance of you earning better than your parents, a sharp dip from those in the 1950s and 1960s who had a 90% chance of earning more than their parents. Trump has tapped into a visceral anger in American society with the status quo. As scholar Raj Chetty’s work has shown, if you were born in the 1980s, there was only a 50% chance of you earning better than your parents, a sharp dip from those in the 1950s and 1960s who had a 90% chance of earning more than their parents. His more recent granular work, comparing those born in 1978 and 1992, showed that class gaps within Whites grew; so, kids in White high-income families earned more, but in White low-income families earned less, resulting in the intra-racial class gap increasing by 28%.  But the inter-racial class gap between Whites and Blacks shrank; earnings for all Black families increased, not surprising given their extraordinarily low base, but this meant that the gap between low-income White and Black kids, born in 1978 and 1992, shrank by 27%.

Politically, this has meant that low-income Whites are furious that their prospects are grim even as they see the rich Whites, often college-educated and often liberal, do well. They are perhaps even more furious when they perceive the prospects of Black neighbours to have improved. They are furious when they see immigrants come in and do well, in a country that they consider theirs.

And while prospects for the Blacks may have improved, deprivation among Black and Hispanic populations remains staggeringly high, adding to the group of disenchanted. Young men across racial groups are furious at the wasted wars they have been deployed in, at the recession and economic downturn they have confronted since the pandemic. And there is a chaotic and fragmented 24/7 media cycle that is channelling this anger against the existing system. Add religion to the mix. Christians are furious at the increasing secularisation of society, and gleeful at what Trump did, through the abortion verdict, to make the American State more Christianised.

And that is why when people wonder how Trump is popular despite his rhetoric and actions, they are beginning with the wrong assumption. It is precisely his rhetoric, the aura of non-conformity, the projection of fighting with the elites who are held responsible for all of America’s ills, his racist dog-whistles, and his promise of total disruption that is the secret of his appeal. His personality, politics and policy are all one. And that’s the campaign he is running.

Kamala Harris’s campaign understands there is anger in American society. But it believes that Trump has manufactured and exaggerated this environment of rage. It is, therefore, focused on addressing, through institutions and policies, specific grievances. Housing? We will support you with the down payment. Childcare? We will give tax credits. Small business? We will give loans. Health care? We will reduce the prices of prescription drugs. Manufacturing? We have brought jobs to America. Inflation? Prices are coming down. And all of this, the candidate who has always abided by law suggests, can be done from within the existing structure of the American State and political norms.

The Harris campaign also believes that Trump’s insurgency appeals to 47% of the electorate, with a hard stop there. Every extreme statement then is an opportunity to win over the undecided vote — of moderate Republicans who don’t share Trump’s extremism, of women who live through the Trump-caused structural violence against their bodies, of Hispanics and Blacks as the Trump ecosystem issues periodic reminders of its racism. And that is why her campaign is focused on incremental reform and warnings of Trump’s extremism.

The election outcome will reveal how angry Americans are, the level of disruption (including the real danger of self-harm) they are willing to countenance, and the country they want to live in.

The views expressed are personal