Donald Trump’s populism – what does it represent?

With both candidates neck-and-neck in the run-up to election day, you can sense the anxiety of the ruling class, who mostly oppose the maverick Trump. But why has his anti-establishment message struck a chord with a section of American society?

[Originally published at communist.red]

Polling day in the USA is set for 5 November. On that same evening in Britain, families will light bonfires for Guy Fawkes Night, marking the Catholic Fawkes’ failed attempt in 1605 to blow up Westminster Palace with the King and Parliament inside.

For many of his supporters, Donald Trump is seen as following in Fawkes’ footsteps – looking to blow apart the hated political elite in Washington, popularly christened as “the swamp” by the Republican presidential candidate.

Whether Trump wins or not is still very much in the balance. He is running neck and neck with Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate.

However, as election day draws closer, you can sense the anxiety in the pages of the bourgeois liberal press.

One Financial Times article from 24 October laments that Harris’ pitch on the economy “has run out of momentum in the final stretch”. And the British New Statesman has candidly posed the question: ‘Has Kamala Harris blown it?’.

The establishment has mostly lined up against Trump. As a result, he is looking elsewhere to strengthen his base. As in previous election campaigns, he is attempting to win over a layer of victims of capitalism’s crises – especially workers living in America’s ‘rust belts’.

Despite his reactionary politics and his billionaire status, therefore, Trump is projecting himself as the radical ‘anti-establishment’ candidate. By contrast, Harris and the Democrats are regarded as being in the pockets of Wall Street.

Harris, while giving a nod to the unions, is proud to describe herself as a “capitalist” who believes in “free and fair markets”.

In reality, neither Trump nor Harris represent the interests of the American working class. Far from it!

In the latest twist, the Teamsters Union, with its 1.3 million members, has decided not to endorse the Democratic candidate, after a poll of union members found that some 58 percent wanted to endorse Trump.

Traditionally, the Teamsters have supported the Democrats. In 2020, the union endorsed Biden and Harris. Now, under pressure, for the first time in 28 years, the union has endorsed neither presidential candidate. This represents a significant shift in the situation.

Elsewhere, Newsweek has cited a poll forecasting that Trump will gain the most working-class support of any Republican in forty years.

Losing control

It is obvious that the dominant sections of the American ruling class would prefer Kamala (“I love capitalism”) Harris to the more disruptive Donald Trump as president.

Trump is regarded as a maverick, pursuing his own dangerous agenda. If victorious, he would enormously aggravate the instability and uncertainty that already plagues US society and world relations, which they would prefer to avoid. Harris, by contrast, is seen as a ‘safe pair of hands’.

But the ruling class is not in control of the situation. American politics is in turmoil.

In 2016, Donald Trump took on the establishment of the Republican Party, as well as the US establishment in general. Over the last decade, he has succeeded in defeating the old guard. The Republican Party is no longer the party it once was. It is now the party of Donald Trump.

As a result, the American ruling class has lost its grip over the Republicans, one of its two traditional parties.

A similar development has been seen in Britain. The ruling class temporarily lost control of the Labour Party under Corbyn, and is still struggling to retain its influence over the Tory Party.

Left behind

Trump, the populist, has open contempt for Washington. This view resonates with millions of Americans, who are disillusioned with the establishment and its representatives. They form Trump’s base of support.

Although his politics are without doubt reactionary, he is clever enough to pitch his propaganda directly towards the disillusioned American worker.

This has been very effective. Many workers are profoundly frustrated with the status quo; bitter towards those at the top. Working-class communities have been left behind. Traditional jobs have been lost, factories are closing down, and real wages are in sharp decline. Many are living from paycheck to paycheck, struggling to make ends meet.

For these workers and their families, the American Dream has turned sour. And disillusionment has transformed into anger and rage.

Trump has successfully tapped into this mood. The Democrats, meanwhile, are simply seen as defenders of the status quo. This has turned American politics upside down.

Big business vs blue-collar

Trump’s election rallies have sometimes been compared to religious rallies, where he fires up the crowd with promises to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA). His ‘America First’ policies – including economic nationalism – are mixed up with xenophobia and racism.

Trump’s election rallies have sometimes been compared to religious rallies / Image: Gage Skidmore, Flickr

His running mate, J.D. Vance, despite being a former venture capitalist, doubles down on this anti-establishment rhetoric. Trump deliberately picked him in a bid to court blue-collar voters in key battleground states.

In his speech to the Republican National Convention, Vance railed against big business and the “Wall Street barons”. He depicted the Democrats as part of the corporate elite, loyally serving global capital. At the same time, he described the Republicans as the party of America’s “forgotten” communities and blue-collar workers.

“We’re done catering to Wall Street,” he said. “We’ll commit to the working man.”

Vance employed radical language, more akin to Bernie Sanders, the left-wing senator from Vermont:

“I don’t think there’s a sort of compromise that we’re going to come to with the people who currently actually control the country, unless we overthrow them in some way we’re going to keep losing.”

“We’re done importing foreign labour. We are going to fight for American citizens and their good jobs and their good wages.”

“We need a leader who is not in the pocket of big business, but who answers to the working man, union and non-union alike; a leader who won’t sell out to multinational corporations,” he said, in endorsing Donald Trump.

This anti-corporate, isolationist creed – from the leaders of the traditionally business-friendly Republican Party – has alarmed Wall Street. “We don’t need a Republican Bernie Sanders,” said one investor to the FT, describing Trump’s running mate.

Tariffs and jobs

Treasury secretary Janet Yellen this year estimated that two million US manufacturing jobs have disappeared since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

In response, Trump has been at the forefront of demanding tariffs against America’s competitors – not least China. Foreign imports, he states, should have 20 percent tariffs slapped on them, rising to 60 percent for goods from China.

“This time round,” the FT comments, “Trump has developed a much more populist economic policy agenda, designed to present him as a defender of the interests of ordinary working people and domestic manufacturing.”

“When they come in and they steal our jobs, and they steal our wealth, they steal our country,” Trump told Time Magazine in April. “I call it a ring around the country.”

“No, we’re not going to allow these guys to have access to our markets when they’re trying to undercut American wages and steal American factories,” asserts Vance.

For lack of a mass socialist alternative, Trump’s rhetoric has resonated with many workers.

“I don’t know why we wouldn’t have tariffs on everything coming from China,” says Nelson Westrick, a worker at Ford who lives in Macomb County close to Detroit; “and everything from Mexico too,” he adds.

Isolationism and alarm

Trump has also distanced himself from the Democrats in terms of foreign policy. He is more isolationist: opposing the provision of more US aid to Ukraine; critical of NATO; and against entangling the US military in foreign conflicts, unless absolutely necessary.

For the American ruling class, this rhetoric poses grave dangers. All of Trump’s attacks on the establishment, Wall Street, and big business, only fires up his base even more.

Despite his wealth, he is seen by many as the ‘anti-establishment’ candidate; the man who represents them – the little man, the ordinary guy in the street.

This is seen as dangerous stuff by the capitalists and their apologists.

The fact that Trump has made inroads into the working class has created alarm in the Democratic Party.

Working-class voters used to be considered the bedrock of Democratic support. But they were always very much taken for granted. As a result, these voters are apparently now more open to Trump than they were previously.

In 2020, NBC’s exit polling showed workers favouring Biden over Trump by 16 percentage points. This figure has now been reduced to 9 percentage points.

Is Trump a ‘fascist’?

Biden’s main attack against Trump was that he was a threat to democracy and a disrupter. But such arguments don’t cut much ice these days.

There are many who are so disillusioned and angry that they want to see Trump in the White House precisely in order to disrupt and threaten the system.

Simply by attacking Trump as a ‘fascist’ will not undermine his support. In fact, it is counter-productive. Trump is not a fascist, aiming to destroy the American trade union movement or establish a ruthless dictatorship.

To be sure, Trump does possess a core of die-hard reactionary backers, including some small fascist groupings. He also has the support of a layer of reactionary small-business owners.

Primarily, he is a reactionary demagogue, standing on a right-wing, isolationist, ‘America First’ programme. But within this, he deliberately weaves in strident attacks on Wall Street and the Washington establishment.

It is this that resonates with Trump’s working-class base, who are very different from the small fascist gangs and layers that also support him.

For them, Trump is seen as being courageous – someone who is willing to stand up to the old guard, the privileged elite, and the lying media. He appears fearless, defying all traditions and conventions. He is not afraid to attack the cherished institutions of bourgeois democracy.

In doing so, he is articulating the anger of many. He is seen by his supporters as having a ‘pair of balls’, so to speak.

Attacks and allegations

Many see the attacks on Trump as attempts by the establishment to bring him down. And they are not wrong. The ruling class have thrown everything at him, but have failed to destroy him.

Nothing seems to stick. When he was president, they did everything to discredit him. You name it, they tried it – including two attempts at impeachment.

After Trump was ousted in the 2020 election, everything was done to prevent him from standing again. They tried to keep him off the ballot in different states. He was convicted on 34 criminal counts, with more than 50 pending. He was ordered to pay hundreds of millions in civil cases regarding business fraud and a defamation suit arising from a rape allegation.

But every criminal charge thrown against him only served to increase his support. Every allegation simply bounces off him.

In fact, all these attacks have backfired. These are viewed by his supporters as a witch-hunt against Trump by the “deep state” – the enemy of the people.

Similarly, recent assassination attempts have only increased the belief that he is a marked man, targeted by a ruthless establishment.

The situation in America has never been so polarised. You would have to go back to the Civil War of the 1860s for any real comparisons. The fact that 45 percent of Republicans supported the storming of the Capitol in January 2021 is a reflection of this.

What is ‘populism’?

Despite everything, Trump refuses to submit. Even when he lost the November 2020 election to Biden, he still gained over 73 million votes – 11 million more than in the 2016 election.

These millions were certainly not all reactionaries, as some suggest. They are voters who have been repeatedly betrayed by the old politicians; who want to try something new, something radical. This is what Trump is attempting to offer them.

Trump is described as a ‘populist’. ‘Populism’ is quite a vague term, which only means demagogy: when a leader appeals to the masses; appeals to their instincts, in order to get to power.

This is clearly a very elastic concept. There are different sorts of populists, coming from across the political spectrum; both of a right-wing and a left-wing variety.

This can be seen in Latin America, with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela on the radical left, and Javier Milei in Argentina on libertarian right.

Of course, Trump represents the right-wing, reactionary variety – someone who will cynically exploit the discontent of a layer of the masses for his own selfish interests.

Liberal commentators can’t understand how such a rabid reactionary, an outright misogynist and racist, is able to attract this level of support.

In fact, it is precisely the failure of the liberals and liberalism that prepared the rise of Trump. The liberals are wedded to capitalism and the Wall Street elite. They presided over falling living standards, while the rich got richer.

In the process, they alienated millions of people, opening up a section of the working class to Trump’s arguments and anti-Wall Street rhetoric.

Bernie Sanders

It is worth asking: has the left got anything to learn from Trump?

That question may disturb many who see him as an anathema. But there is no point in closing our eyes to what is happening.

Trump has qualities that attract those who feel disenfranchised. He comes over as a tough guy, who doesn’t care about what is thrown at him. He stubbornly refused to concede defeat in 2020, and maintained that the election was “stolen”. He has complete contempt for political ‘convention’.

He is therefore seen by his supporters as a courageous standard bearer for those downtrodden by capitalism; a disrupter of the system. He unashamedly appeals to the working class, as a determined fighter on their behalf.

The Democrats and liberals have no answer for this.

‘Democratic Socialist’ Bernie Sanders ran for President on a Democratic Party ticket, but succumbed to the Democratic Party establishment / Image: Gage Skidmore, Flickr

The only person who could challenge Trump and win over his working-class supporters was Bernie Sanders.

In words, Sanders came out forcefully against the “billionaire class”. In fact, he promised a “political revolution against the billionaire class”. He refused to take their money. He too was regarded as an anti-establishment candidate, as opposed to Hillary Clinton, the candidate of Wall Street.

Sanders’ radicalism appealed to Trump’s base. At one Trump rally there was a giant screen showing clips of Clinton speaking. This was met with howls of abuse from the crowd.

But when it showed a clip of Sanders, the response from Trump’s supporters was completely different. There was silence; a mark of respect from the crowd for this anti-establishment figure.

This showed how Sanders’ promise of “political revolution” connected with Trump’s base, who were looking for fundamental change. Clinton, by contrast, had absolutely no attraction to these layers. In fact, she actively repelled them with her aloofness and arrogance.

Both Sanders and Trump were seen as ‘outsiders’ by the political establishment. But that was precisely their attraction for millions dissatisfied with the system.

Like Trump, Sanders engaged in anti-establishment ‘populism’. He had an audience of millions who were looking for fundamental change, and who were attracted to ‘socialism’. This included the 43 percent of people who categorised themselves as ‘independents’.

He unleashed huge class forces, especially amongst the youth who had never voted before.

Despite his limitations, he gave a conscious expression to the unconscious desires of the working class to change society.

Unfortunately, in the end, rather than breaking with the Democrats and launching a new anti-capitalist party, Sanders ended up supporting Clinton, then Biden, and betraying the movement he led. The potential he aroused was squandered by his capitulation.

As a result, in the eyes of many, Sanders became an establishment man; part of the Democratic machine. This played into Trump’s hands. It suited him to be the only anti-establishment candidate in the race.

Lessons for the left

Today, Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the other ‘left’ Democrats have thrown their support behind Kamala Harris.

This is where the bankrupt politics of ‘lesser-evilism’ leads. For them, everything is reduced to supporting ‘democracy’ against the threat of ‘fascism’.

In reality, they have simply capitulated to the Democratic machine. At the end of the day, this reflects the weakness of their reformist politics.

The same was seen in Britain. The Corbyn leadership thought that they could coexist with Labour’s right wing – the agents of capitalism within the party. The Blairites should have been driven out when Corbyn had the chance. But the left leaders were terrified of a split.

The right-wing saboteurs were allowed to remain and undermine the party from within. Weakness invited aggression.

Compare this with Boris Johnson. As prime minister, he was faced with opposition from a layer of his own MPs over Brexit. He simply suspended 21 of them from the party, without any hesitation.

In contrast, the Corbyn leadership, despite having mass support, capitulated to the right wing and shamefully apologised for non-existent ‘antisemitism’. This prepared the ground for their eventual defeat.

Of course, as soon as the right wing were back in control, they did not hesitate to drive out the left and suspend Corbyn. The reason for this ruthlessness was that behind them stood the weight of the ruling class, their media, and the resources of bourgeois society.

If there is one thing we can learn from Trump, it is this. Despite being an out-and-out reactionary, he stands firm and refuses to compromise or buckle in face of his opponents. He refuses to capitulate, no matter what is thrown at him. This stubbornness earns him the respect of millions.

The left would benefit enormously by adopting such resolve. They need to fight fire with fire. Simply put, the left needs to grow a backbone.

This requires a revolutionary outlook and programme, an ingredient the reformist leaders sadly lack. They fail to understand that the masses, who are looking for a lead, want nothing less than a real revolution – not in words, but in deeds.

The coming American revolution

The ruling class caught and hanged Guy Fawkes. By contrast, in America, Trump the disrupter could well end up as president for a second time.

But neither Trump nor Harris will be able to solve the problems of the working class. On the contrary, the crisis of US and world capitalism – intensified by Trump’s economic nationalism – will mean increased austerity and attacks.

Given the bankruptcy of the Democrats, the failure of Trumpism will push layers of his working-class supporters to look for a new revolutionary way out.

These forces, in turn, will help form the ranks of the coming American revolution: a revolution against the billionaire class and their system.