“American carnage.” This phrase, coming from Trump’s inauguration speech shortly after his praise on the Obama years, went viral on all sorts of mass media. The press is citing everywhere this powerful phrase that sounds a bit like an accusation. Trump no doubt stood firmly by his original political thoughts throughout the speech, promising infrastructure construction, domestic job opportunities, and radical Muslim terrorism elimination. “The neglected shall be neglected no longer”, said Trump in his speech.
He accused of the former economic system as a “carnage”, but to whom is he referring as victims? Who is the “neglected” that he tries to draw his future legislations’ attention on? The answer has already become common knowledge. Since the election, everybody came to understand that Trump and his Populist political stance is appreciated by half of the country’s population and despised by the other half. Populism, a philosophy that emphasizes the importance of ordinary people, reflects deep cynicism and resentment of existing authorities such as centralized banks and the rich. Even before Trump, populism has already pervaded Europe.
Ever since the thrive of global economic integration and the rise of eastern economic superpowers such as China, certain groups of people have become sacrifice of this phenomenon. According to a paper written by Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, two theories came up to explain its emergence. One states that the growing economic inequality resulted from international-wise economic development in industrialized countries and higher-level literacy of their populations has caused insecurity among certain social class. Small bourgeoisies, blue-collar workers, and the illiterates are squeezed out from state-led industrialization and international-wise economic interactions. Stimulated by fears of downward mobility and loss of social status, groups are thought to seek strong, authoritarian leaders to protect them from what are perceived as dangerous outsiders seen as threatening jobs and benefits. Data collected in European countries shows that experience of unemployment was linked positively with populist voting. In America, well before the Trump phenomenon, a substantial education gap can be observed in American approval of authoritarian leaders.
However, this theory explains the rise of populism to some extent, but it's is not the sole contributory factor. With the occurrence of the postmodern shift, the electorate had shifted from class-based polarization toward value-based polarization. Income and education had become much weaker indicators of the American public’s political preferences than religiosity or one’s stand on abortion or same-sex marriage.
The rise in populism partially resulted from economic inequality, but a backlash against the progressive social change is also a contributing factor. Trump has been very vocal about these two groups of population in the US, but does this match his signature slogan: “Make America Great Again”? Are they the one and only representation of this entire nation? How is benefiting this part of the population pushing the country forward?
Now the four years begin.
