We live in an era of political news that is,all too often, shocking but not surprising.
The rise of Donald Trump definitely fallsinto that category. And so does the electoralearthquake that struck France in Sunday’sregional elections, with the right-wingNational Front winning more votes thaneither of the major mainstream parties.
What do these events have in common?Both involved political figures tapping intothe resentments of a bloc of xenophobicand/or racist voters who have been there allalong. The good news is that such voters area minority; the bad news is that it’s a prettybig minority, on both sides of the Atlantic.
If you are wondering where the support forMr. Trump or Marine Le Pen, the head ofthe National Front, is coming from, you justhaven’t been paying attention.
But why are these voters makingthemselves heard so loudly now? Have theybecome much more numerous? Maybe,but it’s not clear. More important, I’dargue, is the way the strategies elites havetraditionally used to keep a lid on thoseangry voters have finally broken down.
Let me start with what is happening inEurope, both because it’s probably lessfamiliar to American readers and becauseit is, in a way, a simpler story than what ishappening here.
My European friends will no doubtsay that I’m oversimplifying, but froman American perspective it looks as ifEurope’s establishment has tried to freezethe xenophobic right, not just out of politicalpower, but out of any role in acceptablediscourse. To be a respectable Europeanpolitician, whether of the left or of the right,you have had to accept the European projectof ever-closer union, of free movementof people, open borders, and harmonizedregulations. This leaves no room for rightwingnationalists, even though right-wingnationalism has always had substantialpopular support.
What the European establishment maynot have realized, however, is that its abilityto define the limits of discourse rests onthe perception that it knows what it isdoing. Even admirers and supporters of theEuropean project (like me) have to admitthat it has never had deep popular support ora lot of democratic legitimacy. It is, instead,an elite project sold largely on the claim thatthere is no alternative, that it is the path ofwisdom.
And there’s nothing quite like sustainedpoor economic performance – the kind ofpoor performance brought on by Europe’sausterity and hard-money obsessions —to undermine the elite’s reputation forcompetence. That’s probably why onerecent study found a consistent historicalrelationship between financial crises andthe rise of right-wing extremism. Andhistory is repeating itself.
The story is quite different in America,because the Republican Party hasn’ttried to freeze out the kind of people whovote National Front in France. Instead,it has tried to exploit them, mobilizingtheir resentment via dog whistles towin elections. This was the essence ofRichard Nixon’s “southern strategy,”and explains why the G.O.P. gets theoverwhelming majority of Southernwhite votes.
But there is a strong element of baitand-switch to this strategy. Whatever dogwhistles get sent during the campaign, oncein power the G.O.P. has made serving theinterests of a small, wealthy economic elite,especially through big tax cuts, its mainpriority — a priority that remains intact, asyou can see if you look at the tax plans of theestablishment presidential candidates thiscycle.
Sooner or later the angry whites whomake up a large fraction, maybe even amajority, of the G.O.P. base were boundto rebel — especially because these daysmuch of the party’s leadership seemsinbred and out of touch. They seem, forexample, to imagine that the base supportscuts to Social Security and Medicare, anelite priority that has nothing to do withthe reasons working-class whites voteRepublican.
So along comes Donald Trump, sayingbluntly the things establishment candidatestry to convey in coded, deniable hints, andsounding as if he really means them. And heshoots to the top of the polls. Shocking, yes,but hardly surprising.
Just to be clear: In offering theseexplanations of the rise of Mr. Trump andMs. Le Pen, I am not making excuses forwhat they say, which remains surpassinglyugly and very much at odds with the valuesof two great democratic nations.
What I am saying, however, is that thisugliness has been empowered by the veryestablishments that now act so horrifiedat the seemingly sudden turn of events. InEurope the problem is the arrogance andrigidity of elite figures who refuse to learnfrom economic failure; in the U.S. it’s thecynicism of Republicans who summonedup prejudice to support their electoralprospects. And now both are facing themonsters they helped create.
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PAUL KRUGMAN>
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