That's right folks.
US election: a triumph of left-wing populism
I got my predictions spectacularly wrong. So did the US politicians most closely involved in the campaign itself. Clinton did not visit Wisconsin once in the contest. Donald Trump’s people cancelled a rally there because they thought they had no chance and there was no point spending their resources in Wisconsin. Yet look at the result in Wisconsin. Clinton fell behind early in the night and Trump went on to win.
Or take Virginia. Clinton didn’t visit Virginia after July. Trump withdrew resources from Virginia, against some protest by his local campaign managers. Yet Virginia was desperately close.
Both sides — Clinton and Trump — the people who had most at stake in this business, apparently thought Wisconsin and Virginia were beyond any meaningful contest. It was all done and dusted in those states. Yet that’s not how they voted. Democracy can confound everyone.
We get accustomed to accurate polls in Australia because we have compulsory voting. A friend of mine who desperately wanted Trump to lose went to bed with a black hole of fear in his stomach because he saw the weather forecast was clear and fine across the US.
Clear and fine weather normally means that the working class will vote. That normally favours the Democrats. But this time it favoured the Republicans. And therein lies a clue to something potentially much deeper.
American elections are the cricket of world politics. The statistics are endless, infinitely absorbing and can prove almost anything.
But apart from the result of the election — who wins, which is all-important — the question is what deeper and long-term political trends are revealed.
It used to be said, by Americans often and by Europeans even more often, that America had two right-wing parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. Both parties believed in a mixed economy, a free market moderated by a modest welfare state, a strong defence and a leading role for the US in the world.
Now, the US has two left-wing parties. Trump ran essentially as a left-wing populist. The one huge exception to this is that he made frequent racist statements and racism is typically associated with the far Right, not the mainstream Right but the far Right, rather than the Left. Also, he has promised some tax cuts.
But the majority of Trump’s program was a classic leftist populist program. He was a fierce and trenchant protectionist. He excoriates free trade and especially free trade agreements. This is, comprehensively, a left-wing position. It privileges the position of the state above the workings of the market.
The irony of Trump’s hatred of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is now presumably dead, is that it would have been of enormous benefit to the US. Overall, the US has low protectionist barriers. A number of its trade partners in Asia have much more substantial protectionist barriers.
The TPP would have vastly reduced the trade barriers US exporters of goods and services would have faced.
The Left, despite its notional internationalism, typically supports national protectionism strongly.
Now both the Republicans and the Democrats are protectionist parties.
US election: a triumph of left-wing populism | The Australian
US election: a triumph of left-wing populism
I got my predictions spectacularly wrong. So did the US politicians most closely involved in the campaign itself. Clinton did not visit Wisconsin once in the contest. Donald Trump’s people cancelled a rally there because they thought they had no chance and there was no point spending their resources in Wisconsin. Yet look at the result in Wisconsin. Clinton fell behind early in the night and Trump went on to win.
Or take Virginia. Clinton didn’t visit Virginia after July. Trump withdrew resources from Virginia, against some protest by his local campaign managers. Yet Virginia was desperately close.
Both sides — Clinton and Trump — the people who had most at stake in this business, apparently thought Wisconsin and Virginia were beyond any meaningful contest. It was all done and dusted in those states. Yet that’s not how they voted. Democracy can confound everyone.
We get accustomed to accurate polls in Australia because we have compulsory voting. A friend of mine who desperately wanted Trump to lose went to bed with a black hole of fear in his stomach because he saw the weather forecast was clear and fine across the US.
Clear and fine weather normally means that the working class will vote. That normally favours the Democrats. But this time it favoured the Republicans. And therein lies a clue to something potentially much deeper.
American elections are the cricket of world politics. The statistics are endless, infinitely absorbing and can prove almost anything.
But apart from the result of the election — who wins, which is all-important — the question is what deeper and long-term political trends are revealed.
It used to be said, by Americans often and by Europeans even more often, that America had two right-wing parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. Both parties believed in a mixed economy, a free market moderated by a modest welfare state, a strong defence and a leading role for the US in the world.
Now, the US has two left-wing parties. Trump ran essentially as a left-wing populist. The one huge exception to this is that he made frequent racist statements and racism is typically associated with the far Right, not the mainstream Right but the far Right, rather than the Left. Also, he has promised some tax cuts.
But the majority of Trump’s program was a classic leftist populist program. He was a fierce and trenchant protectionist. He excoriates free trade and especially free trade agreements. This is, comprehensively, a left-wing position. It privileges the position of the state above the workings of the market.
The irony of Trump’s hatred of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is now presumably dead, is that it would have been of enormous benefit to the US. Overall, the US has low protectionist barriers. A number of its trade partners in Asia have much more substantial protectionist barriers.
The TPP would have vastly reduced the trade barriers US exporters of goods and services would have faced.
The Left, despite its notional internationalism, typically supports national protectionism strongly.
Now both the Republicans and the Democrats are protectionist parties.
US election: a triumph of left-wing populism | The Australian
