The social lift that Americans were so proud of has not worked for years. The American dream of getting rich by working hard has vanished. The United States was the first country to create a new class: the working poor. They are the losers of globalisation, who put their money on Trump en masse.
Donald Trump’s presidential election can be compared to the election of Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980, which set in motion a neoliberal, conservative revolution that transformed the United States and the world. That Reagan revolution and its aftermath are at the root of the current frustration of many Americans who, paradoxically, voted for Trump. He is another Republican who wants to change his country and, by extension, the world order. To what extent we do not yet know.
This time, Trump’s campaign is backed by the fascist far right, which has prepared a whole programme, Project 2025, a plan to ‘right’ the country after all the evils it blames on the left.
Trump’s programme addressed the issues that were important to the people who voted for him, but in practice it is a programme that is against immigrants, against women’s rights, against environmental protection, against public education, against the independent press, against the LGTBIQ+ movement, against cooperation with Europe…
Trump’s new victory as president of the United States is the result of almost half a century of neoliberal policies, of capitalism without rules, with an unregulated and self-regulating media, where journalistic honesty and rigour are no longer required. The new unregulated information landscape and the influence of social media have facilitated misinformation and the manipulation of public opinion.
Many people have suffered from years of tax policies that benefit big business and the wealthiest and have seen millions and millions of dollars spent on wars abroad, while education, health and social housing policies that would have allowed progress for the middle and working classes have been sidelined.
According to exit polls, 55% of white people voted for Trump. Many of them belong to the classes that lost out in Reagan’s conservative revolution and have not recovered. They are the losers of the drastic reduction of the role of the state in favour of private initiative. Although the Democrats have tried to patch things up when they have been in power, the truth is that they have not changed anything fundamental, because unleashed capitalism has proved difficult to tame.
The Reagan administrations facilitated the relocation of companies that left – and never returned – to Mexico or China, leaving large areas depressed and thousands of workers unemployed. Many people lost the health insurance that was almost always tied to their jobs. Thousands of children and adults are dying from diseases that are curable with medical care. Millions of people have lost access to insurance, and others have gone bankrupt trying to treat serious illnesses.
The social lift that Americans were so sure of has not worked for years. The American dream of getting rich if you work hard is gone. President Biden and Kamala Harris are among those who have fought for higher living wages because America was the first country to create a new class: the working poor, those who work all hours and can’t make ends meet because wages are too low.
Neither Democratic nor Republican leaders heeded President Eisenhower’s warning as he left office. Those who followed have allowed the military-industrial complex, i.e. the Pentagon bureaucracy and the arms companies, to influence US foreign policy, a policy of warmongering and interventionism. Citizens see millions of dollars being spent on wars that do not benefit the country, instead of that money being spent on more education, health care and social housing.
Trump’s victory was made possible by the distrust of part of the country towards the political class and the discontent caused by the social and economic changes that have led to the neoliberal policies and globalisation implemented in the United States over the last half century. They have believed in the character, despite all the negative aspects he represents, and that he will probably never give them back the great America they want.
Trump’s victory is also a consequence of the disastrous way in which the Democrats approached Kamala Harris’s campaign. Harris’ proposals on the two key issues at stake in this campaign, immigration and the Gaza war, also frustrated many people: millions of Democrats stayed home and did not vote.
On immigration, Harris got bogged down in Trump’s signature issue of security and walls. He was unable to change the message and remind Americans that immigration is an economic issue, that it is immigrants who grow the food they eat, who build their homes and roads, who care for their grandparents and children. It would have been better to remind voters that without immigrants – as Trump wants – the American economy will not be sustainable.
In Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon, Kamala Harris has continued the policies of the Biden administration point by point. She has been unable to break with the anti-Arab interventionist and endless war policies of the extremists in charge of the State Department. Harris has persisted in supporting Israel no matter what it does, dismissing the influence of opponents within the Democratic constituency and Arab communities.
There are calls for an arms embargo on Israel and pressure on Netanyahu to end this war that Harris has not heard. In a difficult economic situation for many Americans, with bloody social inequality, astronomical spending on military aid seems intolerable to many Democrats who have turned their backs on Kamala Harris.
