America's Populist Upheaval

taking stock after Trump's victory

Cracks in PoMo, as a cultural platform that prioritizes aesthetics and ontology over ethics and politics, has avoided explicitly political commentary on national elections, as well as having expressed skepticism toward the two-party duopoly and “mainstream” political discourses. Further, as a big-tent “ecumenical” platform, we shy away from taking positions that would alienate some of our readers.

Though this piece by Eli Zaretsky, the great historian of the family and psychoanalysis based at the New School in NYC, veers outside of our typical repertoire, it offers food for thought that we deemed worthy of your consideration.

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The United States had one of the first modern revolutions, in 1776. It invented modern populism, including mass political parties and charismatic outsiders, in the 1830s. It invented the welfare state in its democratic form in the New Deal. It sparked global revolutions of women, gays and disabled people, and produced two world-historical Black leaders—Martin Luther King and Malcolm X—in the 1960s. Therefore, no one should be surprised that it underwent another populist upheaval last night, not, to be sure of the grandeur of some of its predecessors. One reason often given for the Trump victory is wrong: it was not part of a global trend. The United States does not follow global trends; it creates them.

The first factor explaining Trump’s victory was the Democratic Party’s elitism and antagonism to the Left. The party is deeply controlled by a handful of individuals—Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi James Carville and others—and by corporate interests, the media, Hollywood, technology, and Wall Street, especially. We saw the extent of control in 2020, when Bernie Sanders, with his strong lead in the primaries, was summarily dispatched and the unpopular Joe Biden put in his place. This destroyed the passion in the party, which came from young people and the Left. The Obama Presidency was a similar heartbreak. Obama ran as a figure of the Left (he introduced himself as a community organizer, a code word for the New Left) but governed as a fiscal hawk and technocrat. The roots of loyalty to the Democratic Party run shallow and for good reasons. Trump, meanwhile, learned from Obama to oppose forever wars and from Sanders the value of economic populism, including the crucial word, “rigged.”

The second factor is the gender polarization, which began in the 1970s when second wave feminism, which had been spawned by the New Left, revolted against its parent movement, in part for good reasons, in part, dismissing the New Left as a “rape culture.” There is no doubt that in the transition from industrial to post-industrial society, a major course correction in the nature and place of the family was necessary, and there was also no doubt that misogynistic sub-cultures and practices, such as old boy’s networks, needed to be destroyed. But to suggest that the relations between men and women were essentially patriarchal, or that the bond between the sexes was essentially—not partly—a version of oppression, was something else entirely. Sharing, cooperation, learning between the sexes has been and is one of the keys to societal advance. As Ezra Klein wrote last night, “for years, there’s been no real way of talking about masculinity in liberal circles that didn’t attach the word ‘toxic’ before it. There’s been a reveling in growing female strength and a deep critique of male culture. You can have any view you want on the merits of that, but it’s had consequences.” During the campaign, Trump appeared regularly on radio shows and sports events that were largely followed by men, including young Black and Latino men, who proved crucial to his victory.

The third factor is Biden. After a promising start in 2020, Biden’s Presidency was increasingly devoted to foreign expansion, leading to the disastrous and wholly unnecessary war in the Ukraine, and the genocide in Gaza, which the United States finances and enables, but over which it has no control. Trump’s critique of “forever wars” is one of his strongest motifs, especially given such precedents as Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. Furthermore, Biden’s choice of Harris as Vice President, a simple case of racial pandering, was irresponsible, given her lack pf preparation for the Presidency and her weak political skills, as demonstrated when she ran in the primaries in 2019, though improved in the campaign. Finally, Biden’s waiting to the last minute to withdraw from the race, and the foisting of Harris on the party, which followed, was unconscionable. In spite of all its problems, the Democratic Party has several candidates who probably could have beaten Trump, if there had been an open primary process, among them Gretchen Widmer and Josh Shapiro. 

The fourth factor is Trump himself. He is intelligent, funny and charismatic, something which the Democratic Party elites cannot see because they are so blinded by their aura of political correctness and techno-smarts, which leads them to throw up their arms continuously in horror. Essentially the US is a plutocracy, whose inner rapacity is veiled by the advanced cultural and social attitudinizing of its elites. Trump called them out on this, which is not to say that he offered an alternative. Understandably, the elites resented being called out (they think of themselves as victims, after all, but Trump’s strongest asset has been their virulent hatred of him—Trump derangement syndrome. Their hatred and forced contempt has repeatedly rescued him from missteps. Most notably, it was the multiple court cases mounted against him, which made him the Republican nominee, at a time when this was unlikely, as can be seen from tracing the polls. The progressive media and columnists in the United States were so certain that no one could support a sexist, homophobic racist, convicted felon, fascist insurrectionist, that they were in dream-state during the last campaign, unable to believe their good luck in having discovered at the last minute a candidate with the political skills and savvy of Harris. Nothing has helped Trump more than the Democratic attempts to cripple him.

What to do now? No one can predict the future, but I doubt that Americans have the stomach to mount another resistance, of the sort that they mounted during Trump’s first term in office. The idea of a new round of impeachments, lawsuits, press exposés of his business failures, sexual wrongdoings, and love of dictators, seems implausible. Of course, this will change if Trump actually tries to institute the mass deportation of immigrants that he has promised. Putting that aside, my own view is close to Ross Douthat, who last night described Trump as “a man I never wanted to be president, a man I still don’t think should be president, a man who trafficked in bluster and bigotry and ran a completely chaotic White House and tried to overturn an election…[but also] a man of destiny.” The US does need something like a revolution centered on those who have been excluded during the neo-liberal era, and if the Democratic Party goes through a period of soul-searching, there are reasons such as abortion rights and trans gender rights to remain active in it. But the Democratic Party is no longer the party of the working class. In my view, progressives should be open to work with Trump, certainly in changing American foreign policy and, possibly on some domestic issues. After all, we may be facing not four years of Trumpism but twelve, as Vance will be a formidable successor.