“Economic Anxiety” or the Politics of Resentment?: Attempting to Explain the Age of Trump
“Why do we build the wall?
We build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free”- Anaïs Mitchell, “Why We Build the Wall,” Hadestown, 2010
I don’t think it will come as any surprise that I’ve been a little distracted recently. As it feels more and more like the entire late-capitalist order we’ve lived under has begun to burst at the seams, is what I’m doing here even relevant anymore? My scheduled topic for this entry feels particularly inadequate today. I planned to discuss some of the books I read in the last few years, written by journalists, historians, sociologists, and other experts hoping to explain the election of Trump in 2016, in addition to other global political tension throughout the 2010s, such as Brexit. I read the majority of them before the drastic changes of the COVID-19 pandemic, which changes utterly the context that I read them in, let alone since they were written and published. Things have changed even more drastically since I started writing this entry back in May. After the heinous, cold-blooded murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis more than a month ago now, and the demonstrations for justice that swept the nation and the world, the very status quo of the racist American police state is being challenged.
It’s been both horrific and heartening to witness this incredible moment of change happen so fast, a true challenge to the brutal, white supremacist American system that brings so much harm to so many people of color in our country. I can only lend my voice and presence to the calls for justice and change. We live in a white supremacist society, one built through the centuries (purposefully and inadvertently) to service the needs of white people over those of everyone else, but could we be on the verge of making something better? A revolution, even? As I continue attempting to make sense of and learn more about the dire times we find ourselves in as a country and as a global community, the more I feel a bit lost and overwhelmed.
In any case, the focus of this reading list now seems hopelessly obsolete. While many of the threads that run through these works, such as racism, extreme wealth inequality, environmental collapse, and social polarization continue to be relevant, in the face of this mass “unrest,” or perhaps uprising bending towards justice, the election feels all but eclipsed. It also seems a bit gauche to discuss, you know, those aggrieved white voters, which is where the majority of these works put their focus. Need we find the empathy to “understand how they feel,” why they chose to elect a president whose entire rise to prominence was fueled by racial resentment?
As we head into the 2020 election here in the US, hoping we can avoid a repeat, perhaps the context provided by some of these books can still be useful, a tapestry of some of the themes that brought us to this point. Trump and his regime itself play an important role in setting the tenor of the current zeitgeist and, election or no, people are reacting to his administration and their response, or lack thereof, to a global pandemic and an urgent struggle for racial justice in this country. These are historic times and I don’t think we need to wait for fifty years to make sense of what’s going on. As a sometime historian, I think it’s easy to forget that the present is part of history too, especially a few decades after it was decided that history ended. Why not look at the present as the unique time in history it is, and examine why things turned out the way they did and how we can maybe move towards something better.
Probably the major question that unites each of the works I’m discussing this time around is why white people in the United States continue to vote against their own assumed economic interests. Similar dynamics exist in other countries as well, as can be seen in Brexit in the UK and the elections of other reactionaries across the world. One common answer used to explain this, especially in the US, is the perceived “economic anxiety” of white working-class citizens. This seems to be an explanation that appeals to some leftists, like the authors I discussed in my previous entry, that if only, say, the Democrats had run an “actual leftist” candidate on an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist platform, the disenfranchised would have voted for them. The conclusions I came to after reading these accounts are interesting, if bleak, and for this reason, I feel that this will be an important contrast with the more optimistic, idealistic works I read for my last political entry, Socialism Maybe?
A good place to begin is with The Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Indian essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra, which takes a global and historical perspective on the current moment. Published in 2017, Mishra’s analysis here is a thought-provoking, complex, and dense undertaking that left me with a lot more questions than answers, but also offers a lot of insight into the historical undercurrents making up our tense contemporary world.
Specifically, he discusses the theme of “ressentiment” that has long been a backlash to the challenges of modernity across the world, fueling reactionary movements from Hitler’s Germany to Modi’s India. As Misha writes, “In an economically stagnant world that offers a dream of individual empowerment to all but no realizable dreams of political change, the lure of active nihilism can only grow.” This resentment, of cultural “elites” and marginalized scapegoats alike, is representative of an alienation from the deferred promises of the modern democratic nation-states and the emotional consequences of this, appears again and again in the works I read. It would be interesting to reread this one with the background of the last year, I think.
For a work more specific to examining the historic conditions of the United States, Fortress America: How We Embraced Fear and Abandoned Democracy by American historian Elaine Taylor May is a concise, readable survey of the cultural life of the last half-century of American culture. May describes the forces that have led Americans to perceive the world as being more dangerous than ever before, both at home and abroad, despite crime being at a historic low and global relationships being historically stable.
May’s analysis brings up another of the perennial questions of modern politics throughout the world, but especially in the United States; the balance between the “common good” (whatever that is) and “individual liberty” (or whatever you call it). As the national culture, among both Republicans and Democrats, has prioritized the idea of personal responsibility over that of social safety nets, feelings of community have decreased nationally. The expectation that “you’re on your own” if a disaster occurs, that not only will no help come but that it’s shameful to even ask for it, contributes to feelings of deep insecurity. This is particularly evident with the advent of COVID-19. With people feeling more atomized, their anxieties can be capitalized on to enact authoritarian policies. Trump found himself well placed to take advantage.
Another topic that has often been discussed in the media as a prospective reason for the election of Trump and other such upsets is the long growth of “fake news” and alternative facts, and the deepening of a disconnect and polarization between people of differing political beliefs throughout the world. This is the main topic of New York Times literary critic Michiko Kakutani’s book The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump.
A short, easily digested work, The Death of Truth feels more like an extended opinion piece than a deeper analysis of information literacy or the current state of journalism. Kakutani is an engaging writer with some interesting points, writing, for instance, “I believe in being truthful, not neutral. And I believe we must stop banalizing the truth.” This is something I believe in strongly, being a librarian, in particular, the knowledge that true objectivity is impossible and trying for “neutrality” betrays your own agenda.
The heart of her argument is that the theories of postmodernism and deconstruction that came out of the academic left during the 1970s, challenging modernist beliefs in objective knowledge, are a major culprit in bringing about this state of affairs. I did not find this argument quite convincing. It seems a little simplistic to blame some rather arcane literary theories for the proliferation of misinformation in political and civil life in the United States, and Kakutani’s criticism of “relativism” as allowing everyone to make up their own truth seems a facile answer.
One thing that she makes evident, though, is a theme that weaves through the rest of these books as well; that no matter your political background “feelings” are more important than reason in why we believe what we believe. As Kakutani cites when she describes prominent Republican organizer Newt Gingrich, for instance, telling a journalist “liberals have a whole set of statistics which theoretically may be right, but it’s not where human beings are. People are frightened. People feel their government has abandoned them.” Who exactly Gingrich means by “human beings” notwithstanding, I think this resonates with many people across the country, across race and across the political spectrum, and Trump (as well as Bernie Sanders) have an appeal to those who feel left behind by the status quo, by mainstream Republicans and Democrats alike.
These themes are expanded upon in several works I read that attempted to focus on Trump voters themselves, letting them detail their emotional reasons for identifying with Trump, and perhaps by trying to paint a more sympathetic picture of them. It is certainly understandable that many people feel anxious during this time of great uncertainty in the world, though I think the common perceptions of Trump voters are challenged in these works as well. Mostly, I think, that the anxiety they express is not really of an economic nature. It seems evident in the works of Arlie Russell Hochschild in Louisiana, Jennifer M. Silva in Pennsylvania, and Katherine Cramer and Dan Kaufman in Wisconsin that many white Trump voters are motivated more by a feeling of uncertainty about their place in American society, and like elsewhere in the world, the resentment discussed by Mishra. These authors paint a picture of friendly, generous people who nonetheless exhibit a deep hostility to those they perceive as attacking their way of life and the disturbing implications of these beliefs. Though some regional differences existed, it was interesting to see how similar the attitudes were throughout the country, among very different demographics. These people are not stupid, but Trump’s appeal to giving them a special place in Ameican life in this uncertain time, a place that, for many, feels like it was taken from them, leads them to some very dark places. Attempting to understand, if not challenge, this emotional resonance was at the heart of each of these works.
In Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild writes an empathetic and fascinating account of the “political divide” as it is lived by self-described members of the Tea Party in Louisiana. Specifically, she describes the contradictions between their first-hand experiences of environmental disasters in their own backyards, while maintaining a belief that corporations can do as they choose without regulations, even if this directly harms the communities they themselves live in. Attempting to understand the “deep story” that informs their worldview, she focuses on the metaphor of a great line to the American dream that each person waits in, and how undeserving outsiders (immigrants, say, or the homeless, or even an endangered animal) continue to cut in front of hard working Americans just taking care of themselves. For her subjects, freedom, and liberty as Americans means that they must take responsibility only for themselves, as each CEO and member of the billionaire classes who own the companies dumping toxic waste into the rivers and bayous they and their families have fished for generations.
Through this lens, Hochschild paints a picture of the emotional lives of her subjects during the months leading up to the 2016 election, coming to understand the importance of “fairness” in this culture of self-reliance. While I admittedly find this concept of “fairness” difficult to grasp, that at the same time that millionaires and corporations are being given all manner of breaks and advantages including lax environmental laws, I feel Hochschild did a great job at humanizing these beliefs. All in all, Strangers in Their Own Land is another one I’d like to revisit in light of current events.
Even bleaker and more challenging than Hochschild’s book, fellow sociologist Jennifer M. Silva’s We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America takes a deep dive into the political lives of the disenfranchised working class of western Pennsylvania, another economically depressed region of great ecological degradation. Most interestingly, Silva focuses not only on the white working-class men and women of coal country but also interviews Black and Latinx Americans in the same situation, comparing and contrasting their experiences and explicitly surveying their reactions and participation in the 2016 election. It was especially interesting to contrast each of these groups’ perceptions of their community, with Black residents feeling much more positive despite the racism they felt in the community, while the white people felt nothing but hopelessness, often turning to dark, fascistic tendencies. No hope that Trump will actually help them, even among those who found the will to vote at all, they felt that the American dream had long since died.
The bulk of Silva’s findings, though, showed how in many ways both groups felt very similarly about their place in American society, and how their paradoxical political beliefs and seemingly apathetic attitudes toward the government showed a practical strategy to get through another day and protect themselves from despair. The women Silva interviewed, in particular, reported some extremely horrific stories of abuse and poverty. With a culture that prioritizes this self-reliance, when the community can offer no help and there is a stigma to accepting even when it is available, the idea that change is possible becomes impossible, and there is a distinct lack of trust for fellow community members. In fact, conspiratorial thinking united many in the community under the belief that not only did the federal government not care about them, but they were also actively working to cull the population.
Finally, I read a couple of books dealing with Wisconsin, Katherine J. Cramer’s The Politics of Resentment, and Dan Kaufman’s The Fall of Wisconsin, hoping for some insight into the state most familiar to me besides my home state of Minnesota. I’d watched with some concern and confusion from across the river as the state to the east had begun to transform itself over the last decade with the election of Scott Walker, concluding with Wisconsin’s support of Trump in the 2016 election. In many ways Wisconsin represents where Minnesota could have gone, so similar are we in demographics, history, and the deep racial disparities we both share.
The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker by political scientist Katherine Cramer was informative, if a little academic, ethnographic study of the “rural consciousness” of Wisconsinites outside of the major cities of Madison and Milwaukee, and how this identity shifted their support towards the reactionary positions of Scott Walker. Cramer spent about a decade before 2016 traveling across the state and getting to know small groups in local diners and convenience stores, asking them what was important to them.
Like the people of Louisiana discussed by Hochschild, the citizens listened to by Cramer felt that they were not being treated fairly by the state and federal governments in regards to policies attempting to aid social and economic inequality, resenting these “undeserving” groups as benefiting at their expense, and they look down on them to boot. That these perceptions are not entirely accurate in terms of actual dollars spent per capita or policy, but to them, the disrespect paid to them by institutions from the state DNR to the local teachers felt very real. The major issue with Cramer’s work, I felt, was that racial tensions endemic in Wisconsin (as well as in Minnesota) were left mainly to inference, rarely discussed openly.
Journalist Dan Kaufman’s 2018 work Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive State and the Future of American Politics, in contrast, looked at Wisconsin through the lens of its history and its political establishment. An interesting book, with a jumbled organization, jumping from the history of Wisconsin’s Scandinavian immigrants’ role in shaping the political nature of the state to the background of Paul Ryan in the course of a few paragraphs, The Fall of Wisconsin does go to some very thought-provoking places.
Describing the state of Wisconsin’s progressive past, home of progressive titan Robert La Follette, the sewer socialists of Milwaukee, and some of the United States’ earliest environmental laws, Kaufman spends time with indigenous activists opposing increased mining in northern Wisconsin and with union organizers. During the course of his research, he finds similar themes to what has been discussed so far, writing that the “tension between social responsibility and individual responsibility, government action and individual action” goes back for generations in Wisconsin.
However, the bulk of Kaufman’s reporting sheds light on ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and the various other private think tanks, lobbying groups, and wealthy donors who, invited into the state by the likes of Walker and Ryan, write the industry-friendly, anti-worker legislation to go through the statehouse themselves. Treating Wisconsin as a laboratory for their theories, utilizing a “divide and conquer” strategy to pit constituents against each other while they deregulate as much as they can.
This recalled another book I had read recently that went into great and terrifying detail about institutions such as ALEC and other ideological think tanks put together by the Koch Brothers, historian Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. An important glimpse into the historical influence of Libertarian and radical right thought in the political history of the United States over the twentieth century, MacLean traces much to the beliefs and ideology of one James McGill Buchanan and his Virginia school of economics. While it may be a bit hyperbolic to put the blame onto one single person, her research traces an extremely compelling (and disturbing) history of how Buchanan’s philosophies and teachings influenced the billionaires of the radical right to attempt to remake American society, kneecapping any democratic processes in order to preserve the “liberties” of the wealthy over everyone else.
Delving deeply into Buchanan’s own personal papers, MacLean finds a philosophy rooted in the traditions of the Southern United States with its emphasis on “liberty,” a world where the bulk of people enjoy few freedoms. Galvanized by the fight against integration after the ruling of Brown vs the Board of Education, Buchanan began to rally followers opposing such affronts against the rights of citizens. Not the right for people not to be deprived of education by the color of their skin, of course, but the “rights of the individual,” i.e., the wealthy, the “producers” in a sea of everyone else, we, the “takers.”
The policies pushed by ALEC, the Cato Institute, and other think tanks drawing from Buchanan’s theories serve to offer cover for this bleak worldview. More than mere “self-reliance,” they envision an elite completely unshackled from any concession to the community they live in, while the rest of society, in work and in life, are on their own. Knowing that most people would not support their end goals, they work to weaken public trust in government, partly through privatization, which serves less as a “business-friendly” way to save government money and more to lessen people’s live connection to the government. From making it more difficult for unions to operate to lobbying to make voting more difficult, any form of “collectivity” is crushed and any way to circumvent the democratic process is advanced, up to and including changing the Constitution itself to install “locks and bars.” This cold, monstrous indifference for human rights draped under the banner of liberty frightens me to my core. As MacLean notes from Buchanan’s correspondence in 2005, “people who failed to foresee and save money for their future needs, are to be treated as subordinate members of the species, akin to animals.”
As seen by the populations discussed by the previous books, I think that the philosophy espoused by such groups has had more effects than merely political. The feeling that each of us is on our own has really taken root, along with the awareness that something about this is not right. As Katherine Cramer notes in Dan Kaufman’s book when asked how things have changed in the last few years with the groups she had interviewed, she says that they were “still angry,” and while voting for Trump had illustrated their anger, and a way of punishing those who they felt had taken from they, they conclude, “nothing is going to change around here.”
However, one thing that was lacking from a majority of these works was a stronger understanding of race. While focusing on majority white populations, on their feelings of powerlessness and that others were unfairly benefiting from their loss, we don’t delve far into who, exactly, the bulk of their resentment is flowing towards. This resentment can lead to some pretty dark places, which is where I’ll be going in one of my upcoming entries, where we begin to delve into the specter of fascism, currently haunting the halls of power here in the United States as well as elsewhere in the world.
Well, I might have ended on kind of a dark note, so I think I’ll throw in one more book I found more inspiring, a collection of essays, Red State Blues: Stories from Midwestern Life on the Left. A quick and interesting read, the essays included here explore the conflicting feelings of being on the left from the perspectives of people living in the Midwest, seen as prototypical conservative America. The voices published here (from moderate Democrats, progressive activists, and more radical perspectives alike) have some very thought-provoking things to say, that provide food for thought. Lori Tucker-Sullivan’s “Introductory Communication: Teaching Across Michigan’s Urban-Rural Divide,” in which she expresses her experience teaching courses at a rural community college and an urban state university in Michigan and the political expressions of her students during the fall semester of 2016, for instance, was my favorite, illuminating and heartrending, yet hopeful. This, I feel, was the general tone of the work as a whole.
Okay, I think that’s more than enough for now. Next, I’ll be sharing some thoughts on cookbooks before I head back into politics.