Socializing Elections

“Money On My Mind” is a monthly column by Jay Mandle. The views expressed here are those of the author (not necessarily those of Democracy Matters) and are meant to stimulate discussion.

 

 

February 2019
By Jay Mandle

Professor Diana C. Mutz of the University of Pennsylvania has written the most convincing study of Donald’s Trump’s electoral support that I know of. She is not satisfied with the conventional wisdom that Trumpism results from working-class voters’ reaction to stagnating wages and declining manufacturing employment. Rather, her sophisticated statistical analysis leads her to conclude that Trump appealed to white males because they experienced what Mutz describes as “status threat.” These voters, she argues, are responding to both “white Americans’ declining numerical dominance in the United States” and to “insecurity about whether the United States is still the dominant global economic superpower.” It is these anxieties that have led them to support Trump’s “opposition to immigration, his rejection of international trade relationships, and the perception of China as a threat to American well-being.” Their hope is that, by supporting Trump’s agenda, they will restore their loss in status.

But that agenda is doomed to fail. No administration, let alone Trump’s, can reverse the demographic changes that are altering the structure of the United States population. Birth and migration rates will no doubt continue to produce a declining proportion of self-identified white people in the United States. Similarly, the spread of economic development that is reconfiguring the structure of the global economy and international relations will not be halted. Technology that has allowed previously poor countries to experience their own industrial revolutions is not going to suddenly disappear.

We cannot know how Trump supporters will react as they come to realize that the President is unable to deliver on his racist and xenophobic goals. It is possible that, as the country continues to become phenotypically more diverse, and as globalization intensifies, Trump’s constituency will be increasingly frustrated and restive. Down that road lies political authoritarianism. Thus there are legitimate grounds to worry about American democracy.

Fortunately however, there are strong countervailing pressures to prevent such a catastrophe. The table below reports on votes by party for all 435 House of Representative seats in 2016 and 2018. What is clear is that during the two years of the Trump presidency, Republicans have experienced a sharp setback in their electoral support. Furthermore, there is every likelihood that by 2020 those losses will become torrential, as revelations about collusion with the Russians, evidence of outright corruption, and this Administration’s sheer incompetence become increasingly obvious.

Table 1
Percentage Distribution by Party of Votes for House of Representative Candidates 2016, 2018

YearDemocratsRepublicansDemocrats Minus Republicans
20164849.1-1.1
201852.544.58.3

A question that arises is whether it is possible to attract disappointed Trump supporters away from their current dystopian politics. Obviously, such change is not going to happen for those whose support for Trump is based on hard-core racism. But anecdotal evidence suggests that more than a few Trump voters were also attracted by Bernie Sanders’ campaign. That could suggest that the strident nationalism and chauvinism of many Trump supporters represent default positions that exist primarily because they are unaware of an alternative, more optimistic vision for the country. The hope is that they might be won over to a more democratic politics if they were to believe that something like the Sanders agenda could be implemented in this country.

Many Trump supporters possess legitimate grievances against the government. They, no less than the working class and poor people who voted for Hilary Clinton, did not receive adequate government support when their jobs disappeared because of technological change and the offshoring of jobs. And the same was true for the many who lost their homes because bankers engaged in criminal behavior in the years before the 2008 Great Recession.

It is in this regard that the recent discussion of socialism, and the success of candidates who identify themselves as democratic socialists, are of great importance. The socialist vision – that of a society that accords equal respect to all – could provide white working class men and women with an alternative politics to Trumpism. But for that to happen, socialists would have to demonstrate that important gains can be secured with an agenda of ethnic diversity at home and global economic prosperity.A 21st century socialist vision, however, cannot be adopted as long as our electoral system is dominated by private wealth. And here we confront a historical anomaly that socialists will have to overcome. Socialist thought concerning the economy has long seen the public sector as a vehicle to offset the power of private wealth in the economy. But that same need – to offset the power of money in the electoral system – has not been a socialist priority. The reality is that we will have to construct an electoral system in which money as a source of power is minimized. Doing that first will be necessary, in order to make a socialist option credible to disaffected working class Trump supporters.