Trump’s Victory: A Revolt against Complexity?
Like many Canadians, this morning (November 9, 2016)
I woke to the shocking news that Donald Trump is to be the next President of
the United States. I am no expert on
American elections, and I am waiting to find out who voted for Trump where and
why. Most of the pundits I’ve listened to or read discussed disaffected white
male voters lacking a college education. But such people are a relatively small
part of the entire American population. To whom else did he appeal?
I think that one appeal he had was to people who
want simple solutions to their problems.
“Elite”, “establishment” politicians like Hillary Clinton can’t offer
them such simple solutions.
Trump speaks slowly. He uses simple language
(although according to a recent report on the CBC program As It Happens, there was a surge of searches of the Miriam-Webster
dictionary for the word “stamina,” after he said Clinton lacked it). He proposes very simple solutions to very
complex problems. He repeats his key phrases ad infinitum. (And he has a
reassuringly deep male voice, unlike Clinton, whose voice became higher and
more strained as the campaign wore on.)
Trump presents clear explanations and enemies. China
is the reason free trade deals don’t work.
Free trade deals deprive Americans of jobs. Illegal immigrants, mostly
Mexican, are the reason that Americans can’t get those jobs that remain. Muslims
in general cause terrorism. There’s too much crime. All these problems can be
fixed by one-step solutions: end free trade, deport illegal immigrants, deny
entry to Muslims, let police use stop-and-frisk tactics.
Trump implies that there are simply solutions to
complex foreign-policy questions. Hillary Clinton should have known what to do
about ISIS, and she didn’t (this is, of course, partly because she wasn’t Secretary
of State when ISIS arose). Trump “alone,”
as he frequently said, knows what to do in the Middle East. He isn’t interested in the Middle East’s
complex history, America’s role in destabilizing the region, or the numerous
political and military actors involved. Bomb the hell out of them is probably
his solution.
Trump is anti-fact. This plays well with people who
don’t like evidence, who like to form their opinions based on their prejudices,
who don’t like to evaluate the legitimacy of the sources they watch or
read. Facts aren’t just irrelevant; they
are an annoying challenge to imagined reality.
Facts are what teachers expect you to consider.
So for Trump and his fans, the “elite” isn’t the
rich, including him. The elite is those who insist on complexity, who try to
evaluate conflicting pieces of evidence, who refer to empirical facts rather
than to prejudices. They are highly educated people.
I’ve seen the same attitude among some of my
neighbours and among acquaintances at the gym where I assiduously lift weights
three times a week. I’ve been advised to
read the “Clinton Chronicles” instead of mainstream media (actually, I read
“elite” media such as The New Yorker
and the New York Review of Books).
I’ve been told that I would learn that Hillary Clinton does not even have a law
degree from Yale, that the Clintons used their time in Arkansas to run drugs
into that state, and that the Clinton foundation is stealing billions from
Africa. I’ve learned that I should just thank these individuals for the
information they offer me and carry on: there’s no use arguing.
In January 2016 I posted a blog discussing whether Trump
was a fascist. You can find it here: http://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2016/01/donald-trump-and-fascism-debate.html
I think he does have some
characteristics common to earlier fascist regimes, and of course to the
nationalist, anti-immigrant right in the United Kingdom, France, Hungary and
elsewhere today. But maybe it is not so much fascism as simplicity that is
attractive to Trump’s voters. Hitler blamed Jews, modern demagogues blame
foreigners like Mexicans, Muslims, and Chinese.
Trump claims he can fix Americans’ problems easily
and quickly, implying that the elites he despises could do so too if they
weren’t so self-interested. People want to believe him, so they do. As my local
paper, the Hamilton Spectator,
reminded its readers in an editorial this morning by Howard Elliott, Canada is
not immune to Trump’s type of appeal. As Elliott put it, “We should be
worried.” http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/6954935-the-spectator-s-view-we-should-be-worried/
Meantime, my biggest worry is that the US will
shortly have a President who denies climate change and who thinks that it’s
okay for more countries to obtain nuclear weapons. His saner Republican
advisors will probably persuade him that the latter isn’t a good idea, but many
of them also deny climate change. Climate change is probably too complex for
many Republican voters to understand, though for others, mitigation of climate
change might lower their profits.
The real elite is the one Trump belongs to: the
corrupt, self-interested, tax-avoiding, scofflaw capitalist class.
