The 2016 Election (Part 2) – Why Did It Happen and Why Didn’t We See It Coming?

The election of Donald Trump caught a lot of people by surprise – and I’m certainly one of them. Clinton had every advantage – her approval ratings, although terrible, were better than his; she raised more money; she had the support of almost every major media outlet; she had a ground game and he did not; she had the strong support of the entire Democratic Party political establishment, his support from the Republican Party establishment was tepid at best. I could go on.

Yet, as the night of November 8^th went on, battleground state after battleground state in the Midwest and South fell to Trump in what was an endless cascade of unimaginable defeats. It seemed like a bad dream (read, nightmare) and it still does. How could the polls and the pols have been so wrong?

While there are other factors that need to be considered (see below), one clue to the Democratic defeat can be found, not so much in “how” people voted, as in “who” voted. We know that the turnout in general and among African-Americans and young voters was down. On the other hand, it appears that significant numbers of what has been described as the “missing white vote”, may have tipped the balance in Trump’s favor – particularly in rural areas and small towns. What distinguishes these areas is that they have not benefitted from the policies of the liberal establishment – especially those associated with trade. Little wonder that in those areas, there was no enthusiasm and much distrust for the Democratic Party standard bearer, Sec. Clinton, who was seen as the embodiment of liberal establishment politics.

Further, if we look at which areas of the country gave strong support to the Democratic ticket, we see areas that have not experienced the economic decline to the extent middle America has. Although income inequality is very high in these areas, economic growth has, for the most part, been concentrated there. As a result, there is not the same level of anti-establishment sentiment and less support for a loose cannon, who promises to “overthrow” much of the system.

This may also account for the fact that the liberal establishment (leadership of the Democratic Party and the main stream media) never saw this coming. They have little awareness of, and much distain for, this part of American society. They live, both physically and intellectually, in a different world, and have written these folks off, assuming that the support from women, minorities, the LBGT community and young people, generated by the Democrats’ liberal social policies, would provide them with a new majority. Thus, the same “identity” politics that promised a victory for Sec. Clinton blinded the campaign to the danger from rural America.

The reliance on the Democratic constituencies might have elected Clinton, except that significant sectors of these constituencies are no longer motivated by the “more of the same” approach of the Democratic Party, as they too have failed to benefit from the economic growth over the past 40 years (see American Dream Collapses for Young, StarNews, Wilmington, NC). Fear of what Trump could do if elected, particularly since it seemed that he had no real chance of winning, was not enough for them to get out and vote. Perhaps they would have come out to vote had the Democratic candidate offered an alternative to “politics as usual” (yes, I’m talking about Bernie) but we will never know.

Trump won the enthusiastic support of many whites (and a significant number of Hispanics) by scapegoating the “other”. But scapegoating doesn’t go very far unless people are dissatisfied with what is going on in their lives. It allows someone to look at their problems as caused by terrorists or immigrants or anyone who is different, particularly if they are not given a clear and credible alternative explanation.

To summarize, I would argue that the main factor leading to Trump’s election was the failure of the Democratic Party to offer a hard-hitting and genuine alternative to economic policies of both Democrat and Republican administrations over the last 40 years. These policies have left large part of American society behind and have provided fertile ground for the rise of reaction – first the tea-party and now Trump. This is not an American phenomenon alone; we are seeing it from Brexit to the resurgence of right-wing, nationalist parties in Europe.

These developments seem to share one thing in common; they result from the extreme (and rising) inequality in these countries and the growth of a class, which has been appropriately named the precariat by Guy Standing, of individuals who live on the edge of poverty and who have little or no stability in their lives. Their lack of stability, in contrast to the traditional working class, makes them more susceptible to demagogues like Trump.

Two other factors in Trump's “win” merit attention, because they show how great a danger our democracy faces in the years ahead. The first is the “ignorance factor”. A poll recently released to MSNBC shows that 2 in 5 Trump voters are so misinformed that they believe the stock market actually went down during the 7+ years that Obama was President and 2/3rds think that unemployment went up during the same time. No wonder “fake news” had such a significant effect during the election.

I would argue that the ignorance factor is the result of two interrelated components: first, the transformation of the media and its decline as a source of news and other information and second, the rise of the internet. Today the mainstream media (particularly the broadcast media - who reads newspapers any more?) is focused on entertaining, rather than informing, the public. Trump’s antics were much more entertaining than dealing with the issues in the election, so he “merited” more coverage. For many, their main source of information, besides radio talk shows, was the internet. The problem here is that anyone can post on the internet (even me) without one shred of support, and “fake news” can spread like wildfire.

The second factor is voter suppression. While we don’t know exactly how great an effect the successful acts of voter suppression were in places like Wisconsin, just the widespread information about voter IDs may have kept millions from attempting to vote. A personal note: I spent over 100 hours as a poll greeter (in New Hanover County, NC) and had countless individuals who came to vote ask what kind of ID they needed, even though the voter ID law in North Carolina had been thrown out over 3 months before the election. How many more simply decided not to try to vote because they were unsure if they had the “right” ID? Voter suppression, I would argue, works even if there is no legal barrier but only a perception that one exists.

Why is all this important? Because, unless we understand what happened and why, we will continue down the rabbit hole and the forces of reaction will lead our country in a direction to scary to even contemplate.