It is not about Trump, it is about the Underlying Crisis
Donald Trump was a symptom of a much more serious crisis in the United States; if Americans fail to take action in wise and a timely manner, the crisis might just get worse. People who celebrated his electoral loss should be reminded that the crisis that initially gave rise to Trump was there before he came, and it will therefore not cease to exist following his departure from the White House. While indeed his loss presents a moment of hope for Americans, the international community, and for the global ecosystem, the battle is not yet over.
For the past four decades, the vast majority of Americans have been subject to brutal and systemic government policies intended to increase the profits of big corporations while in the same time stagnate living conditions for most Americans. The results of these policies were sharp inequality among the rich and the poor, unseen since the great depression1, and real wage stagnation that has “barely budged” in four decades2, to mention only the most salient consequences. These neoliberal policies have torn the American society into fragmented and scared individuals and groups ready to appeal to race, religion, or ideology in pursuit of a meaningful belonging. These neoliberal policies have bred major social pathologies that go beyond any individual in the White House.
For someone with little historical knowledge, all of this is reminiscent of pre-World War II Germany and Italy which, suffering from the socioeconomic outcomes of their loss in the WWI, have been pushed to most the extreme options. In 2010, the American linguist and public intellectual Noam Chomsky warned that:
If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says ‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy’? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation.
Trump’s election in 2016 was a sign that the USA has a serious underlying condition that needs to be considered; for someone with prior knowledge about the condition, Trump’s election did not come as a surprise, in fact, it was prophetically predicted beforehand. For now, let us assume that Trump is over, and let us be enthusiastic enough to assume that he won’t come back even four years from now, does that make the situation any better? The short answer is NO!
Between the years 2016 and 2019, things have been fluctuating slightly within the same general socioeconomic situation which followed the 2008 financial crisis, with inequality remaining at the same level and real wages not changing significantly towards any direction3. This has been the case up till the outbreak of the pandemic, which in combination with the same disastrous policies described earlier, have only worsened the condition. In fact, the condition now is far worse than it has been in the last recession. Unemployment and inequality have surged to unprecedented levels4, but this time the inequality gap is widening both vertically between classes, and horizontally between races and cultural groups, with minorities remaining as the most affected groups5.
One does not have to guess what effects these wealth gaps have on the political and ideological orientations of those affected by them. Over the past few years, Pew Research Center conducted multiple studies to measure the political divide in the USA, and with each new study, a new record number of political and bipartisan division is reached6. Participants didn’t think of these divisions as partisan or secondary, instead they thought of them as divisions about the very “core American values” that define what it means to be American in the first place7. Unsurpiringly, these record numbers of political and ideological division were first recorded in Barack Obama presidency8.
All of this shows that the crisis transcends Donald Trump as a person, and to put it in Barack Obama’s words in a interview with the BBC, the crisis “preceded him, and it will outlast him”9. Since none of the factors that gave rise to Donald Trump disappeared, it is not conceivable how the next president will be able to curb the current crisis, especially when we know that that the crisis has been hitting record numbers when Biden was a vice president. The crisis is likely to continue in Biden’s term, and unless the root causes are considered, the battle is not yet over.
References
Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. 2011. 20 Facts about U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know. Retrieved on 02/12/2020 from:
https://inequality.stanford.edu/publications/20-facts-about-us-inequality-everyone-should-know
2Pew Research Center. 2018. For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades. Retrieved on 02/12/2020 from:
3Lauren Bauer. 2020. Ten Facts about COVID-19 and the U.S. Economy. Retrieved on 04/12/2020 from:
https://www.brookings.edu/research/ten-facts-about-covid-19-and-the-u-s-economy/
4Ibid
5Ibid
6Pew Research Center. 2017. The Partisan Divide on Political Values Grows Even Wider. Retrieved on 04/12/2020 from:
7Pew Research Center. 2020. America is Exceptional in the Nature of its Political Divide. Retrieved on 04/12/2020 from:
8Ibid, 2017.
9BBC. 2020. Obama on division, 'crazy conspiracies' and 'truth decay'. Retrieved on 04/12/2020 from:
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-54946926
1Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. 2011. 20 Facts about U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know. Retrieved on 02/12/2020 from:
https://inequality.stanford.edu/publications/20-facts-about-us-inequality-everyone-should-know
2 Pew Research Center. 2018. For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades. Retrieved on 02/12/2020 from:
3 Lauren Bauer. 2020. Ten Facts about COVID-19 and the U.S. Economy. Retrieved on 04/12/2020 from:
https://www.brookings.edu/research/ten-facts-about-covid-19-and-the-u-s-economy/
4 Ibid
5 Ibid
6 Pew Research Center. 2017. The Partisan Divide on Political Values Grows Even Wider. Retrieved on 04/12/2020 from:
7 Pew Research Center. 2020. America is Exceptional in the Nature of its Political Divide. Retrieved on 04/12/2020 from:
8 Ibid, 2017.
9 BBC. 2020. Obama on division, 'crazy conspiracies' and 'truth decay'. Retrieved on 04/12/2020 from:
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-54946926