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.
Brooks, GPS Transcript: ZAKARIA:
Ronald Reagan: In the minds of many on the right, he will forever be the king
of conservatism, his presidency the high point of that movement.
So what
does Donald Trump’s presidency represent? Where does conservatism go from here?
Where does the Republican Party go from here?
Early
in the week, I had the opportunity to talk to a man who thinks a lot about
these issues, the New York Times
columnist David Brooks.
(BEGIN
VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA:
David Brooks, pleasure to have you on.
BROOKS:
Good to be with you.
ZAKARIA:
When you look at Trump and the way he’s been governing, the things he’s passed,
it’s, kind of, a hodgepodge of some things that seem hardcore Republican
economic agenda, the repeal of Obamacare. Some of it is the trade protectionism
he’s always promised. Is there a new conservatism developing?
BROOKS:
No, I don’t think so, not – not in this administration. I think we saw glimmers
of it in the campaign. And what Trump understood but a lot of us didn’t
understand, what debate we were having. We grew up in the debate of big
government versus small government, whether you wanted to use government to
enhance equality, as Democrats did, or reduce government to enhance freedom, as
Republicans did. But in the campaign, Trump said “That’s not our debate.” As
many people, including you, have said, it’s open-closed. It’s between those who
feel the headwinds of globalization blasting in their faces and they want
closed borders, closed trade, security, and those who feel it’s pushing at
their backs, and they want open trade, open opportunity and open social mores.
And he
identified that we’re having a new debate now. And what's central to his
administration is he hasn't delivered on that.
And
that’s because there are not a lot of Trumpians in the world of policy. And so
he hasn’t exactly helped the people who got him into office. He’s staffed his
administration, to the extent it is staffed, with people who basically believed
in the Reagan bargain of 1984, which is, you know, cut tax rates, reduce
government regulation. And so I think he opened the door for a new kind of
conservatism but has not fulfilled it. That’s for somebody in the future.
ZAKARIA:
So where do Republicans go?
When
you look at Republican congressmen, politicians, have they looked at that
campaign and said, “We need to become more populist conservatives?” Is that
where the party is heading?
BROOKS:
Yeah, there was a book that was really useful to read, a short book called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas Kuhn. And he said what happens in science – but it’s also true in
politics – is you get a paradigm; you get a way of looking at the world,
Reaganism. That was a paradigm. It works for a little while and then slowly it
detaches from reality and it’s hollow, but nobody knows it. Somebody comes
along, punctures it and it collapses.
And
that’s what Trump did to Reaganism. But then you get this period of chaos,
where people really haven’t released the old paradigm but they haven’t – don’t
know what the new one is. And then you get a period of competition of
paradigms.
And so,
in the Republican Party, you’re going to get a libertarian paradigm; you’re
going to get a paleo-conservative Pat Buchanan paradigm. You’re going to get a
whole bunch of different ones and they will fight it out.
And if
I had to bet, I would like an Alexander Hamilton, open trade, a lot of
immigration, a lot of economic dynamism. But frankly, when I look at the polls,
there are not a lot of people who want what I want. The Steve Bannons of the
world – that’s where a lot of the people are. If you – they’re older; they’re
economically disadvantaged, and they want a national conservatism that will
protect them.
ZAKARIA:
And if that is what they want, the party, you think, will – will fold. Because,
to me, what’s been really interesting to watch is conservative intellectuals
have, by and large, particularly the more prominent ones like you, have stuck
true to their ideas and ideals and, you know, been very critical of Trump. I
think somebody like George Will essentially got fired from Fox for that reason.
BROOKS:
Yeah, right.
ZAKARIA:
But the Republican politicians have not. They have all caved and, in some way
or the other, have accommodated themselves to Trump?
BROOKS:
Yeah. And either those of us in the intellectual class are hidebound and rigid
and we’re stuck with our ideas and we’re not reflecting reality, or the
politicians are craven and they just don’t want to lose their jobs, so they’ll
go wherever the people are. And that’s basically where they are.
I think
one of the things we’ve learned and Trump has demonstrated is that parties are
not that ideological. Trump ran against a lot of Republican positions and
Republicans signed on.
What
parties are these days are cultural signifiers, social identity markers and
just teams. And people think, “What team has people like me on it? What fits my
social identity?”
A lot
of people looked around; a lot of suburban women in Missouri looked around and
said “Sarah Palin, she’s, kind of, like me.” And whether Sarah Palin believed
in high tax rates or low tax rates or health insurance markets or some other
health care policy, that’s not what they were thinking about. They were
thinking about, “Who’s like me?”
And for
a lot of people in the Republican Party, which is older, whiter and less
educated at the core, Trump was like that.
ZAKARIA:
Does that tell you that they will be loyal to him to the end, if there – if
these investigations go – go badly for the president?
BROOKS:
Yeah, pretty much. One of the things I think we’ve learned in spades over the
last 20 years is that we in the political class get super-excited about
scandal, and we think, “Oh, it’s about to tear that person down.” But, time and
time again, when you actually go out to districts where people are voting, it’s,
sort of, just a noise in the background, and they’re voting the things that
they care about, their economics, their health care, their education, or they
like the person.
And so,
in my conversations with Trump voters, the scandals just don’t come up. They
think – always, he’s kind of a buffoon or whatever, but at least he’s still
basically trying to say the right things. And so I don’t think it will have any
difference.
ZAKARIA:
And is part of Trump's support that that – you know, that core 35 percent or so
of the country strengthened every time the media criticizes him?
BROOKS:
Yeah...
ZAKARIA:
Because the last thing they want to do is to give you the satisfaction...
(LAUGHTER)
BROOKS:
Correct.
ZAKARIA:
... of having been right about Donald Trump?
BROOKS:
Correct. Yeah, one of the things we learned about the class structure in this
country is that people in the lower middle class or people in the working class
or people who voted for Trump don’t mind billionaires; they do not mind rich
people. What they mind are bossy professionals, teachers, lawyers, journalists
who seem to want to tell them what to do or seem to want to tell them how to
act.
And if
you had to pick the classic epitome of that person who most offends them, that
would be Hillary Clinton. And so she was exactly the wrong person.
And so
I find them remarkably stable in their support. There’s been some seepage
around the edge for Donald Trump, but so far it’s just seepage.
ZAKARIA:
David Brooks, pleasure to have you on.
BROOKS:
Thank you. Steinhorn (excerpt):
But
populism has always been about more than a loss of jobs, status and prestige.
It’s also about who they blame for that loss. And typically they train their
fire on those they view as elites.
Notwithstanding
the threads of nativism and xenophobia woven into the early populist rhetoric,
their targets were clear: monopolies, banks, industrialists and those who
controlled the levers of capital in America. To them, they traced their loss of
livelihood and status directly to the economic barons who constituted the
elites of their time.
But
today’s populists — with the notable exception of the Bernie Sanders wing —
don’t rage against the capitalist elites and corporate boards and CEOs and
financiers for outsourcing their jobs, closing their plants, squeezing their
incomes and soaking up much of the nation’s wealth.
In the
white working-class worldview, these elites have hijacked what Sarah Palin once
called the “real America” — through globalization that stole their jobs,
dispensations and benefits for those that haven’t earned it, and a politically
correct hierarchy that privileges gays, minorities, immigrants and now the
transgendered, but not the white working class even though, to them, they’re
the ones who built the country and deserve respect.
From
their perspective, all these elites seem to hand them is disdain and
condescension. So they see themselves, in the words of President Trump, as the
“forgotten Americans.”
Trump
understood all of that from the very beginning of his campaign. Sporting his
trademark “Make America Great Again” red baseball cap signaling white
working-class solidarity, he vowed to stomp on the elites that his supporters
believed were putting them down.
President
Trump discusses an executive order on trade, March 31, in front of a portrait
of President Andrew Jackson, who served 1829-37. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS
Trump will be successful if he puts U.S.
interests first—while still helping to maintain global order.
If
Donald Trump were a liberal Democrat, some of the media’s descriptions of
“chaos” and “disarray” in the White House probably would be replaced with
stories about “creative tension” among a “team of rivals.” As it is, the
struggle between “nationalists” like Steve Bannon and “globalists” like Gary
Cohn is characterized in near-apocalyptic terms. Yet as Mr. Trump told The Wall
Street Journal last week, “I’m a nationalist and a globalist.” That is good
news: Mr. Trump and the Republican Party should be weaving nationalist and
globalist themes together rather than picking them apart.
Nationalism—the
sense that Americans are bound together into a single people with a common
destiny—is a noble and necessary force without which American democracy would
fail. A nationalist and patriotic elite produces leaders like George
Washington, who aim to promote the well-being of the country they love. An
unpatriotic and antinationalist elite produces people who feather their nests
without regard to the common good.
Mr.
Trump is president in large part because millions of Americans, rightly or
wrongly, believed that large sections of their country’s elite were no longer
nationalist. Flawed he may be, but the president bears an important message,
and Trump-hating elites have only themselves to blame for his ascendancy. A
cosmopolitan and technocratic political class that neither speaks the language
nor feels the pull of nationalist solidarity cannot successfully lead a
democratic society.
The
president symbolized his nationalist commitment by hanging a portrait of Andrew
Jackson in a place of honor in the Oval Office. Now Mr. Trump must stay true to
that commitment or he will lose his political base and American politics will
spin even further off balance. But life is rarely simple. Jacksonian means will
not always achieve Jacksonian goals. Sometimes, they even get in the way.
Jackson
learned this when his populist fight against the Second Bank of the United
States ultimately led to a depression that turned the country over to his hated
Whig rivals. As Mr. Trump comes to grips with the tough international economic
reality, he is realizing that not everything the Jacksonians think they want
will actually help them. The president has already discovered that ripping up
the North American Free Trade Agreement won’t help the middle-class voters who
put him in office.
Jacksonian
voters don’t want North Korea to have the ability to threaten the U.S. with
nuclear weapons. They also don’t want a second Korean War. Reaching the best
outcome on Korea could mean giving China a better deal on trade than many Trump
voters would desire. Populists like to rail against globalization and world
order. Yet the security and prosperity of the American people depend on an
intricate web of military, diplomatic, political and economic arrangements that
an American president must manage and conserve.
Mr.
Trump is learning that some of the core goals of his Jacksonian program can be
realized only by judiciously employing the global military, diplomatic and
economic statesmanship associated with Alexander Hamilton. Bringing those two
visions into alignment isn’t easy. Up until the Civil War, the American party
system revolved around the rivalry of the Jacksonian Democrats with the
Hamiltonian Whigs. Abraham Lincoln fused Jacksonian unionism with Henry Clay’s
Hamiltonian vision when he created the modern Republican Party. Theodore
Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan revitalized the party of their times by returning
to the Jacksonian-Hamiltonian coalition that made the old party grand.
The
future of the Trump administration and the Republican Party largely depend on
whether the president and his allies can return to these roots. The elements of
fusion are there. While Jacksonians are skeptical of corporate power and
international institutions, they like economic growth that benefits the middle
class, and they strongly believe in an America that stands up for itself and
its allies. They are less worried about budget deficits than they are about a
strong economy. If the tide is lifting the rowboats, they do not care all that
much that the yachts are rising too.
For the
coalition to work, Hamiltonians need to realize that the health and cohesion of
American society is fundamental to the world order that allows corporations and
financial firms to operate so profitably in the global market. In other words,
Peoria matters much more than Davos. It was American power and will that built
the present world order and ultimately must sustain it. A divided society with
an eviscerated middle class cannot provide the stable, coherent leadership that
is required.
The
U.S. must be simultaneously a nationalist power, focused on the prosperity and
security of its own people, and a globalist power working to secure the
foundations of international order that Americans need. Mr. Trump appears to
understand this truth better than many of his most vituperative critics. The
task now confronting the president and his team is to develop and execute a
national strategy based on these insights. Nothing in today’s world is harder
than this, and nothing is more essential.
THE
PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. (Applause.)
Wow, what a nice visit this was.
Inspirational visit, I have to tell you. I’m a fan. I’m a big fan.
I want
to thank Howard Kettell, Francis Spradley of the Andrew Jackson Foundation, and
all of the foundation’s incredible employees and supporters for preserving this
great landmark, which is what it is -- it’s a landmark of our national
heritage.
And a
special thank you to Governor Bill Haslam and his incredible wife, who -- we
just rode over together -- and Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, two
great friends of mine, been a big, big help.
Both incredible guys.
In my
address to Congress, I looked forward nine years, to the 250th anniversary of
American Independence. Today, I call
attention to another anniversary: the 250th birthday of the very great Andrew
Jackson. (Applause.) And he loved Tennessee, and so do I -- to
tell you that. (Applause.)
On this
day in 1767, Andrew Jackson was born on the backwoods soil of the
Carolinas. From poverty and obscurity,
Jackson rose to glory and greatness -- first as a military leader, and then as
the seventh President of the United States.
He did
it with courage, with grit, and with patriotic heart. And by the way, he was one of our great
Presidents. (Applause.)
Jackson
was the son of the frontier. His father
died before he was born. His brother
died fighting the British in the American Revolution. And his mother caught a fatal illness while
tending to the wounded troops. At the
age of 14, Andrew Jackson was an orphan, and look what he was able to do. Look what he was able to build.
It was
during the Revolution that Jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant
elite. Does that sound familiar to
you? (Laughter.) I wonder why they keep talking about Trump
and Jackson, Jackson and Trump. Oh, I
know the feeling, Andrew. (Laughter.)
Captured
by the Redcoats and ordered to shine the boots of a British officer, Jackson
simply refused. The officer took his
saber and slashed at Jackson, leaving gashes in his head and hand that remained
permanent scars for the rest of his life.
These were the first and far from the last blows that Andrew Jackson
took for his country that he loved so much.
From
that day on, Andrew Jackson rejected authority that looked down on the common
people. First as a boy, when he bravely
served the Revolutionary cause. Next, as
the heroic victor at New Orleans where his ragtag -- and it was ragtag --
militia, but they were tough. And they
drove the British imperial forces from America in a triumphant end to the War
of 1812. He was a real general, that
one.
And,
finally, as President -- when he reclaimed the people’s government from an
emerging aristocracy. Jackson’s victory
shook the establishment like an earthquake. Henry Clay, Secretary of State for the
defeated President John Quincy Adams, called Jackson’s victory “mortifying and
sickening”. Oh, boy, does this sound
familiar. (Laughter.) Have we heard this? (Laughter.)
This is terrible. He said there
had been “no greater calamity” in the nation’s history.
The
political class in Washington had good reason to fear Jackson’s great
triumph. “The rich and powerful,”
Jackson said, “too often bend the acts of government to their selfish
purposes.” Jackson warned they had
turned government into an “engine for the support of the few at the expense of
the many.”
Andrew
Jackson was the People’s President, and his election came at a time when the
vote was finally being extended to those who did not own property. To clean out the bureaucracy, Jackson removed
10 percent of the federal workforce. He
launched a campaign to sweep out government corruption. Totally.
He didn’t want government corruption.
He expanded benefits for veterans.
He battled the centralized financial power that brought influence at our
citizens’ expense. He imposed tariffs on
foreign countries to protect American workers.
That sounds very familiar. Wait
till you see what’s going to be happening pretty soon, folks. (Laughter.)
It’s time. It’s time.
Andrew
Jackson was called many names, accused of many things, and by fighting for
change, earned many, many enemies. Today
the portrait of this orphan son who rose to the presidency hangs proudly in the
Oval Office, opposite the portrait of another great American, Thomas
Jefferson. I brought the Andrew Jackson
portrait there. (Applause.) Right behind me, right -- boom, over my left
shoulder.
Now I’m
honored to sit between those two portraits and to use this high office to
serve, defend, and protect the citizens of the United States. It is my great honor. I will tell you that.
From
that desk I can see out the wonderful, beautiful, large great window to an even
greater magnolia tree, standing strong and tall across the White House
lawn. That tree was planted there many
years ago, when it was just a sprout carried from these very grounds. Came right from here. (Applause.)
Beautiful tree.
That
spout was nourished, it took root, and on this, his 250th birthday, Andrew
Jackson’s magnolia is a sight to behold.
I looked at it actually this morning.
Really beautiful. (Applause.)
But the
growth of that beautiful tree is nothing compared to growth of our beautiful
nation. That growth has been made
possible because more and more of our people have been given their dignity as
equals under law and equals in the eyes of God.
Andrew
Jackson as a military hero and genius and a beloved President. But he was also a flawed and imperfect man, a
product of his time. It is the duty of
each generation to carry on the fight for justice. My administration will work night and day to
ensure that the sacred rights which God has bestowed on His children are
protected for each and every one of you, for each and every American. (Applause.)
We must
all remember Jackson’s words: that in
“the planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer,” we will find muscle
and bone of our country. So true. So true.
Now, we
must work in our time to expand -- and we have to do that because we have no
choice. We’re going to make America
great again, folks.We’re going to make
America great again -- (applause) -- to expand the blessings of America to
every citizen in our land.And when we
do, watch us grow.Watch what’s
happening.You see it happening
already.You see it with our great
military.You see it with our great
markets.You see it with our incredible
business people.You see it with the
level of enthusiasm that they haven’t seen in many years.People are proud again of our country.And you're going to get prouder and prouder
and prouder, I can promise you that.(Applause.)
And
watch us grow. We will truly be one
nation, with deep roots, a strong core, and a very new springtime of American
greatness yet to come.
Andrew
Jackson, we thank you for your service.
We honor you for your memory. We
build on your legacy. And we thank God for
the United States of America.
Death Is Optional. By Yuval Noah Harari and Daniel Kahneman. Edge, March 4, 2015. Video at YouTube. The Case for Old Ideas. By Ross Douthat. New York Times, March 7, 2015. Commenting on Harari and Kahneman.
Via
TED: “How do we make sense of today's political divisions? In a wide-ranging
conversation full of insight, historian Yuval Harari places our current turmoil
in a broader context, against the ongoing disruption of our technology,
climate, media – even our notion of what humanity is for. This is the first of
a series of TED Dialogues, seeking a thoughtful response to escalating
political divisiveness. Make time (just over an hour) for this fascinating
discussion between Harari and TED curator Chris Anderson.”
“I
think the basic thing that happened is we have lost our story. Humans think in
stories and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories,” the
historian said. “And for the last few decades we had a very simple and very
attractive story about what was happening in the world. And the story said that
the economy is being globalized, politics is being liberalized, and the
combination of the two will create paradise on earth. And we just need to keep
globalizing the economy and liberalizing the political system, and everything
will be wonderful.”
“2016
is when a very large segment of the Western world stopped believing in this
story,” he said. “For good or bad reason it doesn’t matter, people stopped
believing the story, and when you don'’ have a story it is hard to understand
what is happening.”
“The
old 20th century political model of left vs. right is now basically irrelevant
and the real divide today is between global and national, global or local. All
over the world this is not the main struggle.”
