Decoding Trump

Trump could be president of the United States. What up until very recently seemed like a pipe-dream is now becoming a reality, causing astonishment and concern from Europe to China and triggering alarm in the U.S. The no longer remote possibility that Trump could become the leader of the only real remaining superpower compels us to take a close look at its significance. It is necessary to deconstruct the campaign of a character who appears to be a charlatan, who comes across as coarse, intolerant, a rabble rouser and a bully, who stirs up ethnically and racially-motivated resentment toward Hispanics and African-Americans and dispenses simple solutions to complex problems.

Trump resembles his caricature, and it would be dangerous to focus solely on it — the multimillionaire construction mogul who funds his own campaign, the showman we see on television, the anti-politician who is buying the presidency, admirer of Putin, advocate of torture and of deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, of building a wall along the Mexican border and of punishing China with elevated export tariffs because “China is ripping us.” Trump is excessive, dishonest, but not at all stupid. He is riding the wave of anti-elitism, which is sweeping the United States. We must not underestimate this Yankee Berlusconi parody.

The American people have not suddenly gone mad, nor does the Republican Party want to commit suicide. However, its irresponsible demolition campaign of anything related to Obama has resulted in extreme political polarization, from which the Trump phenomenon has sprouted. The tea party, gun lobby, far-right radio flamethrowers are the layer below the surface of Trumpism. The party of Lincoln has sold its soul to populism to take back the White House.

Donald Trump does not operate in a vacuum. The primaries showed the grassroots support that is encouraging him. They are white, with no college education, generally coming from the lowest middle classes and from households with an income of less than $30,000 per year whose quality of life has collapsed. They feel besieged by the Hispanic and African-American minorities, who are beginning to overtake them demographically, and neglected by the political establishment in Washington. All the while, they feel their more conservative values are being undermined.

Trump speaks their language, without mincing his words. It is the middle class that has ended up poor. The majority of voters, explains Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, “do not listen through their ears. They listen through their stomachs,” and Trump connects with them on an emotional level. He is a product of the age of anti-politics, a right-wing populist. He is playing in the same league as Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Viktor Orban in Hungary. He also shares the demagoguery, which, as the president of Mexico reminded us when referring to Trump, put Mussolini and Hitler in power. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy gave us a hint to help us understand the Trump phenomenon. He wrote in The National Review that “Donald Trump is not the cause of deterioration in our politics. He is the effect of deterioration in our culture.”