Fareed Zakaria: Trump’s Victory Was “A Class Rebellion Against People Like Us.” Video. Mediaite, July 31, 2017. YouTube. Full CNN New Day segment here, here.
Donald Trump and the endgame of “The End of History”: The latest news from World War IV. By Andrew O’Hehir. Salon, August 5, 2017.
Francis Fukuyama On Why Liberal Democracy Is In Trouble. Interviewed by Steve Inskeep. NPR, April 4, 2017.
See also Rush Limbaugh, Real Clear Politics.
Zakaria:
The real question of the 2016 presidential election isn’t so much why did Donald Trump win, as why did he even get close?
After
all, Trump was a totally unconventional candidate who broke all the rules and
did things that would have destroyed anyone else running for president. So why
did he break through?
Here’s
the answer: America is now divided along four lines, each one reinforcing the
others. Call them the four Cs.
The
first is capitalism. There was a time when the American economy moved in tandem
with its middle class. As the economy grew, so did middle class employment and
wages. But over the last few decades that link has been broken. The economy has
been humming along, but it now enriches mostly those with education, training,
and capital. The other Americans have been left behind.
The
second divide is about culture. In recent decades, we’ve seen large scale
immigration; African-Americans and Hispanics rising to a more central place in
society; and gays being accorded equal rights. All of this has meant new
cultures and narratives have received national attention. And it’s worried a
segment of the older, white population, which fears that the national culture
they grew up with is fading. One comprehensive study found that after party
loyalty, the second strongest predictor of a Trump voter was “fears of cultural
displacement.”
The
third divide in America today is about class. The Trump vote is in large part
an act of class rebellion, a working class revolt against know-it-all elites
who run the country. These voters will stick with Donald Trump even as he
flails, rather than vindicate the elite, urban view of him.
The
final C in this story is communication. We have gone from an America where
people watched three networks that provided a uniform view of the world to one
where everyone can pick their own channel, message, and now even their own
facts.
All
these forces have been at work for decades, but in recent years, the Republican
Party has been better able to exploit them and identify with those Americans
who feel frustrated, anxious, angry – even desperate about the direction that
the country is headed in. Donald Trump capitalized on these trends even more
thoroughly, speaking openly to people's economic anxieties, cultural fears, and
class rebellion. He promised simple solutions, mostly aimed at others –
Mexicans, Muslims, Chinese people and, of course, the elites and the media.
It
worked. He won. Whether his solutions are even enacted is another matter. But
the real victory will come for this country when someone looks at these deep
forces that are dividing it and tries to construct a politics that will bridge
them. Rather than accept that America must remain a country split between two
tribes – each uncomprehending of the other, both bitter and hostile – he or she
would speak in a language that unites them.
That
kind of leadership would win not just elections -- but a place of honor in
American history.
