24-2-25
Dear Partners in Thought,
A good friend told me recently that I may have focused too much on the negative impacts of Trump on America and the world while not recognising that a majority of voters backed him in a democratic election. To be fair, I saw Trump’s impacts as more relevant to review so we could deal with them. However, I also recognise that it is interesting to understand why so many people (77 million) voted for Trump and elected him President without this time around the always strange but legal assistance of the Red States-favoured Electoral College. And in doing so, I also wanted to stress in all fairness and a positive note – even if irrelevant now – that he would not have won if his swift and destructive programme had been known by his voters beyond the showbiz flavour and drivers that allowed his win.
So why did so many vote for Trump and what where some or all of their drivers?
- A feeling of being left out and not mattering, often residing in rural areas or small cities, away from metropolises where decisions are taken for them.
- A limited education and often no college degree of any sort, combined with increased loneliness for many, while relying on social media they want to hear (making them easier to manipulate).
- A resentment against the “undeserving elite” and its set-up (like the DC policy establishment, Ivy League colleges, old money, the well-offs, the natural concentration of wealth in key cities like NYC, Chicago, Boston, San Fran) even if strangely not minding the likes of Musk, Thiel and now Bezos, Zuckerberg, most of Big Tech and many of the Wall Street crowd – indeed the real elite of the day – having pushed for Trump as they wanted fewer regulations, less taxation and fewer constraints of any sort.
- The cost of living felt at the supermarket for key goods (even if Biden’s policies had helped the US to fare better than any other major countries).
- A resentment against “Woke” and any kind of excessive diversity and how it was at times insanely applied in businesses and schools (this especially from young and not so young males).
- A low understanding of, and interest in, international affairs seen as non-core to their lives and often a useless cost (USAID is a waste and seems corrupt according to my podcasters… And why do we need soft power?).
- A low understanding of economics (tariffs are great as foreigners pay – when they also will through inflation and their own purchases).
- The ability of Trump and any populist leaders (like in Europe) to “showbiz capitalise” on voters’ pain (real or imagined) while grabbing votes via easy solutions to deal with complex problems, often too costly to implement or unmanageable efficiently and with poor outcomes.
- A feeling that public sector bureaucracy is inherently wasteful and inefficient so let’s get rid of it and sack all the bureaucrats (hence a DOGE that is also questionable in many ways).
- A belief that immigration – even in a land that was built by it – is bad on many grounds and primarily affecting national identity as too ethnically and culturally differentiated, this combined with the inability of governments/bureaucracies to manage documented and undocumented flows, even if needed in some key economic sectors. (And in all fairness, immigration is also a European topic.)
It is interesting to realise that the above drivers – not always the best and the brightest – led the vote of many, while Trump’s strange, if not downright unacceptable, personality and style combined with a shady history did not seem to matter. He was simply seen as the right medium for the angst of many voters, even if some would never want him as a buddy (putting aside the MAGA-hat and T-shirt wearing crowd in search for amusement or simply a need to exist).
Voter frustration can be understood with regard to some matters that many governments usually do not manage well, both in the US and across Europe. Many Trump voters wanted strong and easy-to-grasp policy proposals that make sense on the surface and deal radically with their issues (or indeed grievances). It is clear that some of their drivers are fully understandable; liberal-democratic governments have always been bad at managing bureaucracy (even if an inherent feature), or immigration – often for fear of allegations of racism and given the need for more workers in unwanted jobs at home. It is also true that in most countries, voters do not care much about foreign policy and its substantial funding features unless they are under clear threat. We, and especially the US today, thanks to the rise of Trump a decade ago, live in an increasingly polarised world where discussions or compromises no longer matter, and views should only be fought for in what becomes a hostile political debate fuelled by partisan social media. Voters, usually ill-informed by design, are more “against” than “for” anything, which translates into strong views fuelled by exciting podcasted disinformation, leading them to backing populist politicians with extremist programmes that become more normal and expected in a gradually consensus-free world.
As stated in earlier notes (notably “Getting the right take on Trump’s impact on America and the world” – February 19th), Trump’s deluge of executive orders (67 in one month, a record) and daily offensive announcements, creating both chaos and low understanding of what is happening even from his voters, was unexpected and very surprising, even from an individual like him. On a side note, his “deluge” with at least one breath-taking key news a day, makes it challenging to keep track of the man, with many of his decisions still seen as Trump’s and not as America’s by many observers, given their uniquely unusual and at times world game-changing nature. After hijacking a now servile GOP (look at the confirmation of weird secretary nominees), Trump is now hijacking America and its role in the world, after all feeling that he can as an elected President. Trump’s personal features clearly bear no similarities to those of any prior Presidents and reflect the change of the political debate in the US (and within Western democracies). Every day of his short tenure brings more bad and world order-shattering news as if “shock and awe” was the expected norm and radically new approaches now making the US a self-centred super-great power is right and sound. In this new era the form, usually violent, matters more than the substance and the policy impacts. Trump’s voters are bound to grow tired of this new approach after a while and will likely be the first to pay at home for his policies, while Europe (and indeed Ukraine) will suffer from his betrayal and their own complacency in having relied too much on American support, even if the latter also fully served America’s interests at many levels.
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll released on February 20th showed that Americans are mixed-to-negative on Trump’s nascent second term while 57 per cent say he has exceeded his authority since taking office. Polls on Musk and his DOGE leadership show worse results, with some Republican legislators even worrying about the method and impact of the drastic Federal job and funding cuts. Even Fox News joined all key media networks to ask for a lift of the ban on Associated Press from attending White House briefings following their sticking to “Gulf of Mexico”. Over the last month, the S&P stock market index vastly underperformed the Stoxx Europe 600 index (1.7 per cent vs. 5.7 per cent) while US inflation has already started to rise in anticipation of tougher times. Trump would likely lose the Presidential election if held today as many American voters, including some driven by the above-stated features, would not be happy with his rapidly-engineered civilisational meltdown. The flood of self-destructive domestic and foreign policy executive orders and announcements we saw in his first month, that will eventually be felt at home very directly, has also triggered the redefinition of what America has stood for during almost a century. Even if not caring for international affairs and “protected by an ocean”, voters would not back the destruction of the Atlantic Alliance, making Trump in effect an agent of a very happily surprised Russia about what is increasingly seen, through the de facto validation of the Ukraine invasion, as a historical pivot of sinister proportions. Had they known what was really on offer, it is indeed highly unlikely that a majority of voters would have supported Trump, whose actual approach reflects only too well his unbalanced personality and style. However, even if Trump would have lost the November election based on what we see today, it is not clear that his majority in Congress would be defeated in 2026 as it likely should be if Team Trump was successful in gradually destroying the US Constitution and rules attached to it, like mid-terms every two years, which Americans have known since 1781. With Trump, anything is possible.
The last month was too full of unmanageably sad news. So, to conclude on a funny note, let’s rejoice that Canada just beat the US in the final of the 4 Nations hockey championship allowing Trudeau to deservedly needle Trump about his deranged 51st state offer threats.
Warmest regards,
Serge
Desperate Measures 