Trump and Trumpism: How did we get here and what are the lessons for all of us?
Sunday National, 26 January 2025
Gerry Hassan
There has only been one international political story this week – the return of Donald Trump as US President. Beyond the bombastic inauguration and plethora of executive orders is the story of how we got to this sorry state. Long term factors about the founding and nature of America combined with a more immediate set of reasons relevant to the UK and West provide insights about what the Trump phenomenon means for politics and leadership and its implications for the rest of the planet.
The Longer Story
Central to understanding Trump is comprehending the mythology at the heart of how America sees itself. The US is a constitutional republic according to how the Founding Fathers set out the American Constitution. What that document does not say (which is just as important) is that the US is a democracy.
Neither does it lay out the fundamental right of citizens to be able to vote and decide on their preferred form of government. This may surprise some – including many Americans who consistently present the US through a mixture of fables and folklore which are sometimes part of a deliberate deception about what America is, and how it was founded.
The US Constitution, decided by the Philadelphia Convention, emerged from a small group of wealthy and influential men who wanted to ensure government by the rule of law, due process – and for and by elites. Democracy was just not an idea then for them; even more so it was perceived as a threat to how they saw government.
A common misconception is that the opening words of the American constitution – “We the people” – assumes (as modern-day US politicians tend to promote) the inclusion of all Americans. It did not then; just as is it does not now. The notion of who and what constituted “the people” in 1789 was a very narrow group of privileged men. The Founding Fathers did not include women in the idea of citizenship – nor did they include black Americans and indigenous peoples.
This brings us to what many observers call the “foundational sin” of America: the issue of slavery and segregation. The millions of slaves brought to America were legally and ethically viewed as “not fully human”, as the property of their owners, and hence, not worthy of freedom and human rights.
This led to the American Civil War and the defeat of the slavery-supporting Southern Confederacy by the North but even that has not resolved the issue and the deceptions and violence that founded the US and which continue to the present. It took until the late 1950s for indigenous peoples to be fully granted the right to vote; and despite the 1964 Civil Rights Act the past few decades have seen the Republicans engage in widespread voter suppression to drive black people off the voter register (as well as mass incarceration, criminalisation and blatant electoral gerrymandering).
A major defining fissure is the issue of state rights in relation to the US federal government. This tension existed at the outset of the writing of the US Constitution; was present in the Philadelphia Convention (nearly leading to a walkout) and in how the Founding Fathers saw the power of the Presidency; shaped the role of the legislature and judiciary and in particular the Supreme Court. It is the principle of the limits of state power which led to the Civil War and is behind such contemporary controversies as the overturning of Roe v Wade and the right-wing attempt at a national ban on a woman’s right to choose.
Nick Bryant in The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict With Itself observed that “the history of American history” is anchored in “the Disneyisation of the national story” and what he calls a “historical amnesia and illiteracy”. This has deliberately denied the nature of how the US was founded, who for – and who was excluded. All these powerful and elemental influences continue to ripple into the present day.
The recent hollowing out of the Republic
The rise of Trump and right-wing populism in the US did not come from nowhere. First, white supremacy, anger and nationalism was present and powerful at the onset of the USA. Second, “America First” sentiment has a long tradition. It was seen in the American response in the immediate aftermath of World War One (which it had belatedly entered in 1917) when it refused to join the League of Nations; and in the response to the rise of the Nazis from the likes of Charles Lindbergh who invoked the phrase “America First” in support of US isolationism.
In recent decades the reaction to hyper-globalisation, advocated by such figures as Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroder when in office, has given an added impetus and modern expression to these strains.
A major fault-line is the after-effects of the 2008 banking crash and subsequent banking bailouts. This was a watershed where, despite all the plaudits Gordon Brown got, the Obama administration intervened to save Wall Street, bankers and finance capitalism. What it did not do was intervene to support the wider economy, workers and homeowners, leaving millions without assistance and resentful.
This was a massive turning point and one that Obama has subsequently reflected upon commenting that “the Wall Street bailout was unjust and should have reached out to the economy.” This led post-2008 to politics focusing on restoring the economic model which had caused the banking crash in the first place. There is a direct connection from 2008 to Brexit and Trump and rise of right-wing populism, alongside the conspicuous failure of centre-left governments and parties – whether Obama and Biden or Brown and Starmer.
Political thinkers Thomas Piketty and Michael Sandel (one French and one American) in a recent New Statesman conversation expressed some optimism, seeing over the long historical trend global progress towards greater equality. Piketty responded to Sandel about concerns over rising inequality: “The numbers you mentioned about today’s inequality are correct, but they were worse 100 years ago. They were even worse 200 years ago. So, there’s been progress in the long run. It’s never been easy.”
America and the International Order
Post-1945 the USA stepped forward in the immediate aftermath of World War Two and led the creation of the architecture of the new international order. This was influenced by lessons from the defeat of fascism; the weakness of European powers such as the UK and France in the post-war era, and the onset of the Cold War – all aided by America learning the lessons from the costs of its isolationism post-1918.
The post-1945 world witnessed the creation of a host of institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank alongside the Bretton Woods agreement which heralded a new age of managing and controlling capital, trade and currencies internationally. Meanwhile, this created a new era of government intervention across the West to prevent mass unemployment and to institute in domestic economies Keynesian demand management that would avert a return to “boom and bust” and economic depression and recession as seen in the 1930s. This system produced “the gilded age” of post-war capitalism in the US from 1945 onwards which saw three decades of unprecedented growth, prosperity and greater equality.
A major challenge to this situation occurred in 1971 when, faced with rising costs and debts due to the ongoing Vietnam War, Richard Nixon floated the dollar internationally to fund the overstretched US economy. Thus began the dismantling of the Bretton Woods order of managed capital, trade and currencies and the beginning of an age where freedom of capital led to new instabilities, rise of finance capitalism and neoliberalism.
A further pivotal moment came in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union which produced a feeling of hubris and triumphalism in Western elites and liberal intellectuals such as “the end of history” thesis. In the light of this, the US led a remaking of the international order based on globalisation, free trade and free movement of capital. It witnessed the creation of North American Free Trade Agreement and World Trade Organisation (WTO), and opening to China of WTO membership and integration in the world economy.
This zenith of hyper-globalisation however led inexorably to the 2008 banking crash and populist backlash. The rise of Trump and Trumpism is a conscious signal that part of the USA no longer wants to be the leading pillar and advocate of this international order.
Trump in his first week pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement (again) and the World Health Organisation – and these strategic and significant withdrawals are potentially just the start. Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group consultancy observed that this is “a return to power politics and rule by the powerful: the US, China and Russia, based on regional power blocs” and in many respects a return to international power politics of the 19th century.
Lesson from Trump and the Revolt on the Right
This combination of factors aided the Trump phenomenon alongside his personality and previous celebrity, right-wing American politics and failures of the Democrats. These have wider consequences and lessons for all of us; here are five of the main take aways.
First, politics as process. Democrats will challenge Trump on the issue of the rule of law as he continues to use his Sharpie pen to exert revenge and to cause disruption. One key pivotal area concerns birthright citizenship giving every person in America the right to citizenship and enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. Any repeal must entail a widespread consensus involving two-thirds of the Senate and three-quarters of all US state legislatures – no amendment has been agreed in over thirty years.
Democrats criticise Trump on the grounds of process, saying rightly that what Trump is proposing is unconstitutional. They are by doing so defending process and rules, not the ethics and values they are based upon. Even more, they are not laying out any clear counter-vision to Trump’s America. Continually talking about the US Constitution in this way is invoking an abstract and not addressing what concerns most Americans. As one Republican strategist noted this week: “If Democrats continue obsessing about the Constitution and Trump violating it they will lose in 2028.”
Second, anti-establishment politics and disruption. Most people feel the world is stacked against them and is working in favour of elites and those with power, status and wealth. More and more people feel this – in the UK, as well as in the United States. Three-quarters of people in the UK (74%) now think that a class struggle exists, up from 48% in 1964; the figures today include 80% of Labour and 82% of Reform supporters showing the deep well of discontent and powerlessness that Nigel Farage has capitalised upon.
Many voters identify with Trump’s rule-breaking and outrageous flouting of all known mores and traditions, and feel he is speaking for them. Anti-Trump forces should take heed of this and challenge appropriately how the existing order works. Too often parties of the centre-left have become so incorporated into the system that they defend the existing status quo whether public services or the welfare state, and do not go any further in proposing anything different.
Trump makes this conundrum explicit when he talks of the “crooked, corrupt establishment” – the audacity of which is staggering given his support of and from the billionaire class and tech bloviators such as Elon Musk which amounts to “plutocratic populism” in the words of Michael Sandel. Yet it has cut-through because people know that the system is rigged, the economy works against them and they feel a sense of powerlessness. Trump’s anti-establishment language might be risible and clearly motivated by his own psyche and desire for status and power, but millions feel seen by it. What does it say about the Democrats that they have been outplayed and defeated by this rogue behaviour?
Third, public spaces and mobilisation. Trump and Republicans have in the past year utilised a host of public spaces and places which have allowed them to speak to and mobilise voters previously they have not been able to reach out to.
An example of this has been the use of sports and sports events such as American football occasions by the Republicans and Trump campaign. On one occasion last June Trump attended an Ultimate Football Championship event in New Jersey where fans chanted “We love Trump!” These have allowed the right to associate themselves with key leitmotifs of American culture and moments of “collective joy” and to introduce a political set of messages in apolitical settings. The Democrats have done little to none of this to their detriment.
Fourth, the power of rhetoric. For decades centre-left parties and thinkers have emphasised complexity and said that the world is messy and knotty. Yet while complexity exists the opposite is also true: simplicity has reach and traction.
Trump has been telling a simple set of stories – that only he can avert what he sees as the US’s economic and moral decline, that America is being invaded and weakened by immigrants and is being taken for a ride internationally by its allies and enemies. Trump consistently repeats the same simplistic, one-dimensional messages that have an elemental force and represent a take on America which reaches out to millions of Americans.
Too many politicians speak a disembodied, managerial, robot-speak language which represents a dead rhetoric with no vibrancy or connection. This is not some additional add-on to politics but central to how political communication and leadership conducts itself.
Fifth, the reach of spectacle. Spectacle, symbolism and occasion has power and impact in politics. Trump represents and invokes spectacle in how he presents himself at rallies, speeches and Presidential interventions. There is a common thread in all Trump does of performative politics, theatre and drama.
Stephen Duncombe – US academic, activist and author of Dream: Reimagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy – believes that spectacle is central to politics and power. He told me that “Trump embodies spectacle. Everything he does is a performance and it is unclear (purposefully, I believe) whether there is any reality behind it. Invade Greenland? Retake Panama? (Remember “Build the Wall! And make Mexico pay for it!! from his first term) Will he do it? Won’t he? It’s all part of the drama.”
What does this tell us about mainstream politics?
All the above ingredients matter and contribute to a bigger picture about the kind of story, vision and country people want to create. Trump has an answer to this – Make America Great Again. This outrageous but brilliant slogan, like “Take Back Control” in relation to Brexit, gets right to the point and promotes action and positivity. What do the US Democrats, UK Labour, SNP and others have on the stocks that can touch it?
None of these parties have convincing narratives and visions of the kind of society they wish to bring about. Because of this all of them and more across the West embody a problematic politics which clings to the old order, dead rhetoric and defensiveness which enables and fuels the rage of the populist right.
Trump’s ascendancy is both a surprise in that he is with all his contradictions and limitations the unlikely beneficiary of the above. Clearly he has some qualities as a communicator and shameless showman, and in the wider context the revolt on the right has been deeply predictable and gathering force across the West since 2008.
A politics of anti-Trumpism, anti-populism and opposition to nativist, racist, xenophobic politics will not be enough. Similarly, any such politics must navigate the allure of strong men leaders like Putin, Trump and Orban who are riding the backlash against feminism, the rights of women, and the trans and cultural war divides to promote back to the future notions of gender and the family. This symbolises in the words of academic Ashley Morgan a “dangerous masculinity” at odds with much of what used to be seen as uncontroversial in today’s world.
As well as this the changing nature of class, inequality, status and the economy, has to be addressed. The centre-left narrative of the Blair and Bill Clinton era and post-2008 has unconditionally embraced globalisation, Wall Street and the City of London and the power of unregulated capital. All at the cost of working people and living standards. Trump has as populists have done elsewhere turned this anger on such targets as immigrants but critically domestically the “woke mindset” and as potently the professional managerial class (defined by their education and qualifications). This toxic brew is not that dissimilar to what Kemi Badenoch is trying to articulate in the UK with the British Conservatives and her belief that it is “the bureaucratic class” of regulators and administrators who are holding back the UK.
If that were not enough it must come to terms with the unapologetic politics of domestic state violence which the populist right represent, and internationally the consequences of power politics and high imperialism. Despite never-ending wars post-2001 and the savage conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, a significant part of Western liberal elite opinion prefers to shy away from the brutal violence and reach of the military-industrial complex which defines the West.
Liberal myopia is such that Trump has twice successfully won by presenting himself as the anti-war candidate; we have even been here before with Nixon doing the same in 1968 in relation to the Vietnam War. This is in the context of the assertion of American power and dominance by Trump when the reverse is happening. “American hegemony is over” observes global economic historian Adam Tooze: meaning that wherever you look – economically, militarily or cultural – American power no longer carries all before it; while the US and its democracy is no longer seen anywhere in the world as “the Shining City upon a hill” and an example to follow.
A politics which defeats Trumpism, Faragism and the various strands of the populist right will not come from safety-first, cautious, centrist administrations anywhere in the world. The writer David Graeber has put the dilemma dramatically: “Everywhere the centrist argument that the left has to abandon its principles to fight fascism, leaving the only choice between corporate bureaucrats and Nazis, has had the effect of empowering Nazis. That’s a failed formula everytime.”
Powerful words, but such a stance still necessitates that those who oppose the right from populism to fascism stand for something beyond opposition. That requires more than defending processes, rules and the existing order and recognising the need for simple stories, rhetoric with emotional resonance and the importance of spectacle.
Weaving through this, the forces of the broad centre-left need to divorce themselves from the failures of Bill Clinton, Obama and Biden, Blair, Brown and Starmer and address the powerlessness that millions feel, the rigged economy, fragile safety-nets, broken social contract and behemoth of corporate power while acknowledging the existential questions of humanity of AI and climate change.
This will not be easy but the road from 2008 of the globalising centre-left has contributed to bringing us to this impasse. There is another road to be travelled and the forces, constituencies and stories to express it are desperately waiting to find voice and viable and articulate, confident, collective leadership in the US and across the West.