For liberals, Donald Trump’s victory this week prompts adjectives like “scary,” “terrifying,” “depressing,” and “demoralizing.” But one word it should not evoke is this: “surprising.” In a downwardly mobile country, Democrats’ rejection of working-class politics — and the party’s open hostility to populist politicians in its midst — was always going to end up creating prime political conditions for a conservative strongman promising to make America great again.
Trump and his cronies spun tales of overbearing bureaucrats, DEI warriors, and migrant gangs to weave a narrative that the government of elites is so out of touch — or focused on identity politics — that it doesn’t care about the affordability crisis ruining everyone’s day-to-day lives. Democrats countered by trotting out Hollywood stars, the Cheneys, and billionaire Mark Cuban to tell a story of an assault on establishment norms that is imperiling brunch and jeopardizing a West Wing reboot.
Shocker: the working class responded by giving Trump a decisive popular vote victory.
I’ve spent much of my adult life working to prevent this — both in the slog work of campaigns and in my reported articles, books, and audio series. One of those articles was published twenty years ago at what felt like a very similar point in American history, when a Republican running for reelection won big swaths of the working class. Change the names and it reads like a description of the current moment.
Vindication is not consolation. I’m angry about what happened and how predictable it all was. I feel like Randall Mindy in the film Don’t Look Up — specifically in the scene where he’s just scream-weeping up at the sky, saying he tried to…
Auteur: David Sirota
