The Return of the Middle American

Transcription

1 MEMBER CONTENT What is this? The Return of the Middle American Radical An intellectual history of Trump supporters. } October 2, 2015 In 1976, Don ald War ren a so ci olo gist from Oak land Uni versity in Michigan who would die two dec ades later without ever at tain ing the rank of full pro fess or pub lished a book called The Rad ic al Cen ter: Middle Amer ic ans and the Polit ics of Ali en a tion. Few people have read or heard of it I learned of it about 30 years ago from the late, very ec cent ric pa leo con ser vat ive Samuel Fran cis but it is, in my opin ion, one of the three or four books that best ex plain Amer ic an polit ics over the past half-cen tury. While con duct ing ex tens ive sur veys of white voters in 1971 and again in 1975, War ren iden ti fied a group who de fied the usu al par tis an and ideo lo gic al di vi sions. These voters were not col lege edu cated; their in come fell some where in the middle or lower-middle range; and they primar ily held skilled and semi-skilled blue-col lar jobs or sales and cler ic al white-col lar jobs. At the time, they made up about a quarter of the elect or ate. What dis tin guished them was their ideo logy: It was neither con ven tion ally lib er al nor con ven tion ally con ser vat ive, but in stead re volved around an in tense con vic tion that the middle class was un der siege from above and be low. War ren called these voters Middle Amer ic an Rad ic als, or MARS. MARS are dis tinct in the depth of their feel ing that the middle class has been ser i ously neg lected, War ren wrote. They saw gov ern ment as fa vor ing both the rich and the poor sim ul tan eously. Like many on the left, MARS were deeply sus pi cious of big busi ness: Com pared with the oth er groups he sur veyed lower-in come whites, middle-in come whites who went to col lege, and what War ren called af flu ents MARS were the most likely to be lieve that cor por a tions had too much power, don t pay at ten tion, and were too big. MARS also backed many lib er al pro grams: By a large per cent age, they favored gov ern ment guar an tee ing jobs to every one; and they sup por ted price con trols, Medi care, some kind of na tion al health in sur ance, fed er al aid to edu ca tion, and So cial Se cur ity. Page 1 of 11

2 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets supporters during a campaign rally at the American Airlines Center on September 14, 2015 in Dallas, Texas. More than 20,000 tickets had been distributed for the event. TOM PENNINGTON On the oth er hand, they held very con ser vat ive po s i tions on poverty and race. They were the least likely to agree that whites had any re spons ib il ity to make up for wrongs done to blacks in the past, they were the most crit ic al of wel fare agen cies, they re jec ted ra cial bus ing, and they wanted to grant po lice a heav ier hand to con trol crime. They were also the group most dis trust ful of the na tion al gov ern ment. And in a stand that wasn t really lib er al or con ser vat ive (and that ap peared, at least on the sur face, to be in ten sion with their dis like of the na tion al gov ern ment), MARS were more likely than any oth er group to fa vor strong lead er ship in Wash ing ton to ad voc ate for a situ ation when one per son is in charge. If these voters are be gin ning to sound fa mil i ar, they should: War ren s MARS of the 1970s are the Don ald Trump sup port ers of today. Since at least the late 1960s, these voters have peri od ic ally co alesced to be come a force in pres id en tial polit ics, just as they did this past sum mer. In 1968 and 1972, they were at the heart of George Wal lace s pres id en tial cam paigns; in 1992 and 1996, many of them backed H. Ross Perot or Pat Buchanan. Over the years, some of their is sues have changed il leg al im mig ra tion has re placed ex pli citly ra cist ap peals and many of these voters now have ju ni or-col lege de grees and are as likely to hold white-col lar as blue-col lar jobs. But the ba sic MARS world view that War ren out lined has re mained sur pris ingly in tact from the 1970s through the present. In ex plain ing Trump s as cent, most polit ic al ana lysts have ig nored the role of this dis tinct ideo logy. In stead, they have ten ded to at trib ute his suc cess to his per son al style. In Au gust, for in stance, The New York Times con cluded that Trump s co ali tion was con struc ted around per son al ity, not sub stance. Polling ex pert Nate Sil ver has in sisted that Trump s ap peal, in con trast to that of Bernie Sanders, is not re lated to the policies he es pouses. Trump, he writes, is largely cam paign ing on the force of his per son al ity. This ex plan a tion isn t en tirely wrong: Trump s per son al ity his out spoken ness, his dis dain for polit ic al-cor rect ness, his show man ship, his repu ta tion as a bil lion aire deal-maker has cer tainly con trib uted to his polit ic al suc cess. In deed, a force ful per son al ity a ver it able man on a white horse is what Don ald War ren found MARS to be look ing for. But it would be a mis take to as sume that Trump s sup port ers are drawn to him simply be cause of his per son al ity or be cause, like Ben Car son and Carly Fior ina, he is a polit ic al out sider. What has truly sus tained Trump thus far is that he does, in fact, ar tic u late a co her ent set of ideo lo gic al po s i tions, even if those po s i tions are not ex actly con ser vat ive or lib er al. The key to fig ur ing out the Trump phe nomen on why it arose now and where it might be headed next lies in un der stand ing this world view. Page 2 of 11

3 AMER IC AN POP U LISTS have long con foun ded the di vi sion between left and right. Left pop u lists like Wil li am Jen nings Bry an and Huey Long sought to cham pi on the people against Wall Street or big busi ness; right pop u lists like Pitch fork Ben Till man and Ger ald L. K. Smith at tacked wealthy elites but fo cused their ire equally or more so on minor it ies and im mig rants. Yet all these pop u lists had something in com mon: They saw them selves as de fend ing the middle class against its en emies. Perot was closer to the left-wing tra di tion of pop u lism: He de nounced the Gen er al Mo tors ex ec ut ives he had battled and the re volving-door lob by ists in Wash ing ton who rep res en ted for eign firms. Wal lace and Buchanan leaned more to the right; but just as Perot wasn t really a lib er al, they didn t eas ily fit as con ser vat ives. Wal lace fought in teg ra tion, but he also com plained that the present tax laws were writ ten to pro tect the Rock e fellers, the Fords, the Carne gies, and the Mel lons. Buchanan de fen ded Middle Amer ica against at ro cit ies com mit ted by an in va sion from the south of il leg al ali ens ; yet he also foresaw a battle between the hired men of the Money Power who long ago aban doned as quaint but use less old ideas of na tion hood and pop u lists, pat ri ots, and na tion al ists who want no part of [Clin ton ad min is tra tion Treas ury Sec ret ary] Robert Ru bin s world. Trump is squarely with in the Wal lace-buchanan tra di tion. Speak ing on be half of the si lent ma jor ity, he blames un doc u mented im mig rants for urb an vi ol ence ( A lot of the gangs that you see in Bal timore and in St. Louis and in Fer guson and Chica go, you know they re il leg al im mig rants ) and for driv ing down wages and rais ing wel fare costs. But he has also ac cused hedge-fund spec u lat ors of get ting away with murder on their tax bills, while the middle class is be ing decim ated by taxes; and he has chided in sur ance com pan ies for get ting rich off of the Af ford able Care Act. It isn t just pop u lism that un der girds the MARS world view, however; an oth er key com pon ent is na tion al ism. Wal lace saw him self as de fend ing Amer ica against its en emies at the United Na tions. He op posed most for eign aid. He presen ted him self as a man who would lead Amer ica to new great ness and would stand up for Amer ica. Perot and Buchanan, who ran for of fice after Amer ica s trade sur plus had turned in to a grow ing de fi cit, ad voc ated na tion al ist eco nom ic po s i tions that dis tin guished them from most Re pub lic an politi cians and from new Demo crats like Bill Clin ton. Perot warned that the North Amer ic an Free Trade Agree ment was cre at ing a gi ant suck ing sound that would draw jobs away from the United States; Buchanan charged that NAF TA and the Gen er al Agree ment on Tar iffs and Trade were de signed for the be ne fit of the mul tina tion al cor por a tions and the fin an cial elite. Page 3 of 11

4 Trump has gone even fur ther on trade. He has prom ised to rene go ti ate or junk NAF TA and to slap a pun it ive tax on Chinese im ports. In his an nounce ment speech, he pledged to bring back our jobs from China, from Mex ico, from Ja pan, from so many places. I ll bring back our jobs, and I ll bring back our money. Right now, think of this: We owe China $1.3 tril lion. We owe Ja pan more than that. So they come in, they take our jobs, they take our money, and then they loan us back the money, and we pay them in in terest, and then the dol lar goes up so their deal s even bet ter. He also ar gued, in his 2011 book, for get ting tough on those who out source jobs over seas and re ward com pan ies who stay loy al to Amer ica. If an Amer ic an com pany out sources its work, they get hit with a 20 per cent tax. And he has prom ised to end cor por ate tax in ver sions, whereby a com pany moves its of fi cial headquar ters to a tax haven in or der to avoid U.S. taxes. Re cently, I asked Buchanan wheth er he thought Trump s pop u lism and eco nom ic na tion al ism were in line with what he and Perot had ad voc ated. Trump is a bil lion aire, but he gets it, Buchanan told me. It s a very pop u list ap peal and it works. The fi nal ma jor ele ment of the Wal lace-perot-buchanan-trump world view has to do with lead er ship and gov ern ment and like oth er parts of their agenda, it s com plic ated. All four, like many con ser vat ive politi cians of the past 50 years, harshly cri ti cized Wash ing ton. Wal lace charged that the fed er al gov ern ment was run by pointy-headed bur eau crats who can t park a bi cycle straight. Buchanan called for dis mant ling four Cab in et de part ments. Perot pop ular ized the term grid lock in de scrib ing Wash ing ton polit ics. Echo ing his pre de cessors, Trump has de nounced the total grid lock in side the Belt way. Our lead ers are stu pid, our politi cians are stu pid, he said dur ing the first de bate, adding later that even ing: We have people in Wash ing ton who don t know what they are do ing. But in subtle and not so subtle ways, these four men have also en dorsed a more power ful ex ec ut ive at the top. Wal lace, who had thor oughly dom in ated Alabama s polit ics, was seen by crit ics as a po ten tial dic tat or. Buchanan, who had served Richard Nix on through Wa ter gate, touted the leg acy of his former boss. Perot called for plebis cites to de term ine key eco nom ic policies which would have had the ef fect of es tab lish ing a dir ect re la tion ship between the people and the pres id ent, thereby by passing Con gress. For his part, Trump en vis ages the pres id ent act ing as the deal-maker in chief. In a 1982 es say, Mes sage from MARS, Sam Fran cis, who would later ad vise Buchanan dur ing his cam paigns, called this out look Caesar ism ; it is also re min is cent of Lat in Amer ic an pop u lists like Juan Per on. Presidential candidate George C Wallace ( ) reaches out for the hands of his supporters at the Texas State convention of his American Party, Dallas, Texas, September 17, PHOTOQUEST Page 4 of 11

5 In deed, none of these can did ates ne ces sar ily op posed big gov ern ment. Wal lace was the can did ate of right-wing ra cists, but he also wanted to in crease So cial Se cur ity be ne fits and make the tax sys tem more pro gress ive. Perot was ob sessed with de fi cits and debt, but he wanted to bal ance the budget by rais ing taxes on the rich. He also favored a pub lic-private part ner ship to en sure uni ver sal ac cess to health care. Buchanan and Trump re jec ted calls to privat ize or elim in ate So cial Se cur ity and Medi care. We ve got So cial Se cur ity that s go ing to be des troyed if some body like me doesn t bring money in to the coun try, Trump said in his an nounce ment speech. All these oth er people want to cut the hell out of it. I m not go ing to cut it at all; I m go ing to bring money in, and we re go ing to save it. Trump also prom ises to fix aging bridges and air ports. I want to re build our in fra struc ture, he says. In view of Trump s stands on gov ern ment and eco nom ics, his Re pub lic an crit ics have charged that he is not really a con ser vat ive. In Na tion al Re view, Jo nah Gold berg wrote that no move ment that em braces Trump can call it self con ser vat ive. That s prob ably true; and it was also true of Trump s pre de cessors as MARS stand ard-bear ers. This image can only be used with the John Judis story that originally ran in the 10/3/2015 issue of National Journal magazine. Reform Party Pres. candidate Ross Perot w. running mate Pat Choate (2R) surrounded by supporters w. PEROT FOR PRESIDENT posters in bkgrd. SHELLY KATZ/GETTY IMAGES IN 1968, WAL LACE, run ning on the Amer ic an In de pend ent Party tick et, won five South ern states and 46 elect or al votes; in early Oc to ber 1968, he was still get ting as high as 20 per cent of votes na tion ally. Run ning as a Demo crat in 1972, he won primar ies in six states, in clud ing blue-col lar Michigan and Mary land and was poised to hold the bal ance of power in the con ven tion un til he was shot and forced to stop cam paign ing in May. In the spring of 1992, Perot an nounced he was run ning as an in de pend ent, and by early June, he was lead ing both Pres id ent George H. W. Bush and Demo crat ic chal lenger Bill Clin ton in the polls with 38 per cent. Un der at tack from in vest ig at ive journ al ists and op pos i tion re search ers, Perot pulled out of the race in Ju ly, but then reentered on Oc to ber 1. He even tu ally got 19 per cent of the vote the best show ing for a third-party can did ate since Buchanan ran a protest cam paign in the Re pub lic an primary in 1992 and got 38 per cent of the vote against Bush in New Hamp shire. In 1996, he ran a more ser i ous cam paign and shocked even tu al nom in ee Bob Dole by tak ing the Louisi ana and Alaska caucuses, and then the New Hamp shire primary. This sum mer, Trump, of course, astoun ded polit ic al ob serv ers, in clud ing me, by out polling his Re pub lic an rivals. Who are the voters who fueled these cam paigns? If you take ac count of changes over the years to the edu ca tion al level and oc cu pa tion al pro file of the Amer ic an work force, there is a straight line between the MARS who flocked to Wal lace and those who have backed Perot, Buchanan, and Trump. In 1968, Wal lace s greatest Page 5 of 11

6 sup port was among white, male, middle-in come, and lower-middle-in come work ers and small farm ers who had not gone to col lege. In Septem ber 1968, at a time when over a fourth of Amer ic an work ers be longed to uni ons, an in tern al AFL-CIO sur vey found that Wal lace was backed by a third of uni on voters. In 1972, Wal lace also re ceived strong sup port from blue-col lar private-sec tor uni ons in states like Michigan. In the 1992 elec tion, Perot did best among middle-in come voters and those with some col lege, as op posed to those with only a high school edu ca tion or those with col lege de grees that is, the very voters who were mostly likely to be feel ing squeezed from both above and be low. In the 1996 New Hamp shire Re pub lic an primary, Buchanan did best among ex actly the same voters. Demo graph ic ally, Trump seems to be at tract ing the 2015 equi val ent of these voters. In na tion al polls of Re pub lic ans, and polls of Iowa caucus go ers, Trump s sup port is sig ni fic antly stronger among those who do not have col lege de grees and earn less than $100,000. In a Quin nipi ac na tion al poll re leased on Septem ber 24, Trump does bet ter among voters without col lege de grees; and most tellingly, voters without col lege de grees are much more in clined than voters with col lege de grees to think he cares about the needs and prob lems of people like you. By con trast, voters with col lege de grees are much more likely than those without col lege de grees to be lieve that the three oth er can did ates named in the sur vey ques tion Jeb Bush, Carly Fior ina, and Ben Car son em path ize with them. (Most of those voters without de grees prob ably did at tend some col lege. Ma jor polls of ten don t re cord sep ar ately the small num ber of Re pub lic ans who haven t at ten ded col lege at all.) The es sen tial world view of these Middle Amer ic an Rad ic als was cap tured in a 1993 post-elec tion sur vey by Stan ley Green berg, which found that Perot s sup port ers were more likely than Clin ton s or Bush s to be lieve that it s the middle class, not the poor who really get a raw deal today and that people who work for a liv ing and don t make a lot of noise nev er seem to get a break. They agreed with Clin ton voters that cor por a tions don t strike a fair bal ance between mak ing profits and serving the pub lic, but they also agreed with Bush voters that too many of the poor are try ing to get something for noth ing and that we have gone too far in push ing equal rights for dif fer ent groups in this coun try. There has been no sim il ar polling of Trump s sup port ers, so all one can rely on are crowd re ac tions and in ter views. Re cently, I at ten ded two Trump ral lies: one at a high school aud it or i um in Hamp ton Falls, New Hamp shire, where the line to get in stretched all along the side of the build ing and in to the park ing lot, as if it were the first night of a box-of fice block buster; the oth er at the 20,000-seat Amer ic an Air lines Cen ter in Dal las. The Dal las rally too was packed; it was filled with rauc ous sup port ers wear ing red Trump T-shirts and Make Amer ica Great Again caps. The crowd was over whelm ingly white and roughly equally male and fe male. Even though the rally was held at 6:00, right after work on a week day, I coun ted ex actly Page 6 of 11

7 two men in the audi ence who were wear ing suits and ties and one of them, whom I in ter viewed, had come to ac com pany his aging moth er, a Trump back er, and was him self lean ing to ward Jeb Bush. At both ral lies, Trump s rail ing against il leg al im mig ra tion got ap plause. But so did his at tacks on Chinese cur rency ma nip u la tion and cor por ate ex ec ut ives who ship jobs over seas. Al most all of the ap prox im ately 30 people I in ter viewed at these events men tioned Trump s op pos i tion to il leg al im mig ra tion, his de fi ance of polit ic al-cor rect ness, and the strong lead er ship they ex pec ted him to bring to the pres id ency. Yet al most every one also cited his eco nom ic na tion al ist stands. He is about get ting jobs back. I have two kids that can t find jobs. The jobs are go ing to Mex ico, one wo man in New Hamp shire told me. Said a young Trump sup port er in Dal las, who was also a uni on mem ber, I don t like the idea of tax dol lars be ing used to ship jobs out to Lat in Amer ica or East ern Europe. (The pre vi ous month, an of fi cial of a large in ter na tion al uni on had told me that if his uni on held a ref er en dum on who to en dorse for pres id ent, Trump would prob ably win.) An oth er young Trump sup port er in Dal las chided me for ask ing ques tions that seemed de signed to pi geon hole him polit ic ally. You are mak ing as sump tions about left and right, he said. The me dia puts us in one or the oth er. It s not a good way to define people. At the Dal las rally, I was sup posed to meet up with a tea-party act iv ist whom I had in ter viewed for an art icle two years ago, but we nev er found each oth er. So I cor res pon ded with him af ter ward about why he was back ing Trump. Asked about Trump s eco nom ic na tion al ism, he wrote back: I do not have any prob lems nor does my wife with any of Trump s na tion al ist po s i tions. We are all for them. It is long past time that we get our fair share from the Chinese, Ja pan ese, Mex ic ans, and oth ers. I also asked him about Trump s pledge to pro tect So cial Se cur ity and Medi care. His reply? I do not want Trump to mess with So cial Se cur ity oth er than to put a pro pos al in front of Con gress on how to fix it and Medi care for the long run. There is, as it turns out, con sid er able over lap between the tea-party world view and Middle Amer ic an Rad ic al ism. (Here, I would dis tin guish between loc al tea-party groups, which line up with the MARS out look, and na tion al busi ness front or gan iz a tions that took on the tea-party mantle, which do not.) In June 2014, for in stance, tea-party act iv ists in great er Rich mond led the fight to de pose House Ma jor ity Lead er Eric Can tor. Tea-party can did ate Dav id Brat charged Can tor not only with sup port ing am nesty for il leg al im mig rants but with back ing the crooks up on Wall Street. Today, not sur pris ingly, Trump leads among self-iden ti fied tea-parti ers. In an early Septem ber CNN / ORC poll, Trump was backed by 41 per cent of re spond ents who said they sup por ted the tea party double that of the next choice. Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan speaks at a rally at the Tennessee State House in Nashville, Tennessee. Buchanan is campaigning across Tennessee, trying to win the state's primary 12 March. LUKE FRAZZA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES Page 7 of 11

8 TO SEE WHERE all of this may be headed, it s help ful to con sider why bursts of Middle Amer ic an Rad ic al ism oc cur at cer tain mo ments. Sev er al con di tions have, in the past, proved cru cial. One is a wide spread sense of na tion al de cline. That was cer tainly the case in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the United States was mired in Vi et nam; in the early 1990s, when the United States faced a pro trac ted eco nom ic slow down; and again from 2008 to the present. When the sense of doom has lif ted, as it did when the Clin ton boom began in the spring of 1996, the MARS vot ing bloc has gradu ally weakened. The second con di tion is pro nounced dis trust of the lead er ship in Wash ing ton. Wal lace s MARS were angry about the fed er al in ter ces sion in race re la tions. In the early 1990s, many con ser vat ive voters felt be trayed that Bush had broken his prom ise not to raise taxes, while oth ers were en raged by the ad min is tra tion s seem ing in dif fer ence to the re ces sion and the grow ing clout of for eign lob by ists in Wash ing ton. That sense of dis trust com pletely lif ted after Septem ber 11, 2001, when Amer ic ans saw the na tion al gov ern ment as their pro tect or. But it has re turned dur ing the Obama years: Middle Amer ic an Rad ic als saw Obama s re cov ery pro gram and his health care plan as a sop to Wall Street and the poor which the middle class would have to pay for. Un til this sum mer, Middle Amer ic an Rad ic als lacked a lead er someone to play the cata lyz ing role that Wal lace and Perot had played dec ades ago and they were furi ous at the Re pub lic an con gres sion al lead er ship, which they had helped bring in to power in 2010 and again in 2014, for fail ing to re verse Obama s policies. (One Trump sup port er at the Dal las rally de scribed House Speak er John Boehner and Sen ate Ma jor ity Lead er Mitch Mc Con nell to me as a bunch of trait ors. ) Then along came Trump the lead er the MARS move ment had been miss ing. Supporters of US Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump hold up a sign during a Tea Party rally against the international nuclear agreement with Iran outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC on September 9, ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES But can he suc ceed where Wal lace, Perot, and Buchanan fell short? Can a MARS can did ate ac tu ally win the White House? One hes it ates at this point to of fer any pre dic tions, but my sus pi cion is that Trump will fail like the oth ers. There is, of course, his volat ile per sona, which seems likely to cause self-in flic ted wounds (just as Perot s did in 1992). But the big ger lim it ing factor for Trump is that there are only a cer tain num ber of MARS in the coun try: They con sti tute maybe 20 per cent of the over all elect or ate and 30 to 35 per cent of Re pub lic ans. That was enough to al low Trump to lead a crowded GOP field. But as the field nar rows, he will have dif fi culty main tain ing his lead un less he can ex pand his ap peal bey ond the MARS. And it will be hard to do that without threat en ing his base of sup port. It there fore seems un likely that we will end up with a MARS pres id ent in 2016 or bey ond es pe cially since their per cent age of the elect or ate is con tinu ing to shrink. Still, that doesn t mean MARS will ne ces sar ily fail to have a polit ic al im pact. After Page 8 of 11

9 all, tea-party act iv ists a group Har vard so ci olo gist Theda Skoc pol es tim ated at 250,000 dur ing Obama s first term have had a de cis ive in flu ence on the bal ance of power in the House of Rep res ent at ives since The size of the MARS role go ing for ward will ul ti mately de pend on wheth er Amer ic ans be lieve their na tion is in de cline and wheth er they think the politi cians in Wash ing ton are cap able of, or even in ter ested in, re vers ing that de cline. Ron ald Re agan dis pelled fears of de cline and was thus able to ab sorb many former Wal lace sym path izers with in the GOP. Fol low ing Bill Clin ton s re pu di ation by voters in Novem ber 1994, he moved to the polit ic al cen ter and was able to lim it (though by no means elim in ate) the ef fect of middle-class rad ic al ism. Both Re agan and Clin ton be nefited, however, from a grow ing eco nomy and ap par ent suc cesses over seas. Will the next ad min is tra tion en joy the same good for tune? With the world eco nomy still in the doldrums, an on go ing crisis in the Middle East, and a po lar ized and para lyzed Wash ing ton, I doubt it. What s most likely is that Middle Amer ic an Rad ic al ism will keep sim mer ing, un til it finds a new cham pi on and boils over once again. Page 9 of 11