Trump's America: interclass, interethnic and anti-ideology
‘Trumpism’ is not so much a populism, as often derogatorily described by its enemies, but a ‘people's party’ that expresses the new economic, social and cultural balances in the United States that have matured in recent decades.
Donald Trump's resounding victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election represents - even more than his earlier success in 2016 against Hillary Rodham Clinton - a historic turning point for the United States and the entire West in several respects.
One of the most important facts is that, after the controversial and contested defeat in 2020 against Joe Biden, this comprehensive victory - of Trump in the ‘big electorates’ of the states and in the popular vote, of the Republican Party in both Houses of Congress - emblematically represents the end of a cycle in American and Western politics: that of the hegemony of progressivism based on identity politics, ‘rightism’, ‘political correctness’ or woke ideology. And, symmetrically, it represents the consecration and consolidation of a conservatism very different from the one dominant between the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st: no longer an abstract and doctrinaire economic liberalism dominated by a white and Anglo-Saxon elite, but a concrete interclass and interethnic culture of freedom and growth under the banner of national cohesion.
The collapse of the left-woke hegemony - anticipated by much criticism, even from the left, of its extremist fanaticism increasingly remote from the reality of society - was in fact accelerated and accentuated by the very choice, decided by the ruling class of the US Democratic Party last summer, to replace incumbent President Joe Biden, winner of the party primaries, with his deputy Kamala Harris as candidate, in a literally unprecedented practice. And, likewise, to set almost the entire electoral campaign of the latter on the emphasization of themes typical of that ideology, held together by the axiom of ‘intersectionalism’ (the natural alliance between groups differently identifying themselves as discriminated against): contrapositional feminism, and in particular abortion claimed as a banner of freedom and emancipation; the Lgbt/gender agenda, with particular insistence on the exaltation of transgenderism and ‘fluid’ identities; the all-out defence of unlimited immigration; the claim for special protection of every ‘non-white’ ethnic minority.
Harris's concentration on identity, cultural and symbolic issues has gone hand in hand with her evident lack of political depth, leadership, and credible concrete proposals on the problems most felt by the public, such as the economic crisis, inflation, immigration, security, and the ongoing wars in the world. And so, despite an initial invigorating effect on consensus, in the end it did not produce, as the Dems hoped, an identity compacting of the progressive electorate, but on the contrary many conflicts between its components, irritation and disaffection. The election results mercilessly show how Harris and her party have entrenched themselves in the position of political representatives of a predominantly white, urban and metropolitan affluent and educated middle class, and instead have lost ground, to varying degrees, among all the categories they aspired to hegemonise: women, young people, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians. Resulting in a net defeat even in states that were originally thought to be in their favour.
On the other hand, Donald Trump has instead pursued with consistency and determination a political path - made arduous and difficult by the 2020 defeat, by various politically oriented prosecutions against him, by the almost absolute media and cultural dominance held by liberals - towards the transformation, already begun since 2016, of the Republican Party in the sense of the ‘MAGA’ political culture embodied by his leadership. His leadership of the opposition, his new almost unconstrained victory in the primaries, and his election campaign for the 2024 White House have been set on the objective of coagulating and cementing a social coalition that is as broad and diverse as possible, concretely and not ideologically inclusive, founded on the idea of a rebirth of the nation that brings benefits to all its components, and on concrete and realistic goals of improving the quality of individual and collective life.
In particular, the programme of Trumpian anti-ideological conservatism has further focused on the ambition to represent the forgotten people, the social strata heavily damaged by the dynamics of globalisation, the relocation of production, international conflicts, and the pincer between recession and inflation, i.e. the working class and the various middle classes; while at the same time supporting the leading hi-tech sectors of national entrepreneurship, the alliance with which was symbolically represented by the support given to Trump by the volcanic and multifaceted Elon Musk, who thunderously broke the leftist monopoly of Silicon Valley and digital media. Tariffs on China and other Asian manufacturers, tax relief for labour and investment, a decisive fight against illegal immigration and its downward competition on wages, are clear and comprehensible programmatic points that can be seen by heterogeneous sections of the electorate as functional to a design for growth and social security. As is a realistic foreign policy line hinging on the attempt to resolve ongoing conflicts, and to restore global security based on comprehensive dialogue and deterrence.
This platform which is the exact opposite of any ideological abstractness, and which significantly goes hand in hand with the restoration of moderation and common sense, transversally shared in the popular strata of society, on questions of rights and identities.
It is no coincidence, then, that while the Dems were increasingly losing touch with the country's widespread culture and sensibility, Trump - also through the fundamental role played by his deputy candidate and ‘dauphin’ J.D. Vance - succeeded in attracting the consensus of the working class, the impoverished middle classes, the under-30s, the main ethnic minorities, and the Catholic electorate (which is traditionally very widespread among the Latino minority), without losing votes, despite Harris's feminist lunges, in the female electorate. Trumpism is now clearly not so much a populism, as it is often derogatorily described by its enemies, but a ‘people's party’ that expresses the new economic, social and cultural balances of the United States that have matured in recent decades in a world in which a hegemonic role for America and the West has become much more difficult.
