I talked some about Bernie Sanders' campaign the other week, now I'd like to get into some of the deeper going ons within the anti-establishment flavors of the Trump and Cruz campaigns.
As a general rule, I think both Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are symbols for historical pendulum swings brought about by long-term Western trends that have been coming to a head over the last eight years.
Donald Trump and the "Alt-Right" movement
There's been a ton written and said about Donald Trump, what he's tapping into, and what he's after but I think a lot of it has ignored the perspectives of the people who are actually supporting him.
I have a suspicion that much of Trump's candidacy and platform is only partially about what he personally thinks or believes is best and partially what he knows will fill the demand gap created by the rise of the Alt-Right movement and it's lack of major political leaders or voices.
Trump's campaign is being described largely as "populism" which at this point might as well be a euphemism for "appeals to lower middle-class to lower-class white Americans."
This is unquestionably a large percentage of where his support comes from, although he's also doing fairly well for a Republican amongst black Americans, as many of the people in this demographic have been drawn to Trump and his "Make America Great Again!" message. America's economic and cultural decline has been felt most strongly amongst the nation's middle class who are seeing home, health, and educational costs rising while increased immigration, free trade policies that have moved manufacturing overseas, and the expectation that women now work has severely diminished their take home pay.
In the past, if a family's parents worked hard they could secure major advantages for their kids and allow them to take off and change the socio-economic status of the family for future generations, but now it's become very hard for younger Americans to achieve a middle class lifestyle.
What's more, the economy no longer produces an abundance of jobs with solidly middle-class incomes and millions of Americans are having to take on massive student loan debt to have access to the kinds of jobs that used to be plentiful and approachable thanks to the strength of the American manufacturing industry.
So it's getting harder to break through to the "American dream" and the path is more dangerous and loaded with debt, which makes long term growth much more difficult. Indeed, stats now indicate that the bottom 40% of Americans hold negative total assets. That means they owe more in debt than they have.
Trump is promising to champion America and bring back manufacturing and local businesses by pushing for protectionist economic policies and an end to massive immigration that brings in foreign workers to drive down the price of labor, increase the challenge of maintaining an American middle class, and creates a more diverse and divided society. All of that can be described as "populism."
But the "Alt-Right" movement is a response both to the above factors and some other concerns. Those on the Alt-Right undoubtedly have concerns about whether the American government is actually working to improve the lots of Americans but they also have concerns about the decline of Western values.
One of the major strategies of Obama that he used to get elected and then re-elected was to play "identity politics" where he looked to make pitches to advance the causes of specific demographics over and against the "oppressive" rich, white traditionalist Americans that were allegedly holding them back. In the midst of that push, Obama pushed the democratic party away from serving the interests of lower middle class white Americans by championing the causes of violent black criminals within the inner city when they clashed with police, pushing for open borders and legalization and enfranchisement for illegally-present Mexicans, and pushing for free trade agreements that move manufacturing jobs to other countries.
The Alt-Right movement is white Westerners realizing that the way to get ahead in the post-Obama world is to also play identity politics and push for a political party that will protect their own interests and advance their causes. Many of these folks are going to support Trump because they feel he's the only option who actually speaks for them.
Some of the intellectual strength of the movement, which you rarely hear about on the news in the midst of Trump's own simplistic rhetoric and the angry characterizations of his movement from his rivals, comes from Gen-X or millennial men who feel that America has left them behind or even cast them as the villain while looking to champion the interests of everyone else.
If you are a young, white male in America you likely have a ton of student debt, might not be married or have any kids yet, and likely aren't terribly far along in your career. You are unquestionably insecure in your identity as an adult male and frustrated with your apparent lot in life.
Yet you frequently hear that you are the reason that minority groups or women don't have access to the American dream and that their interests need to be put above yours. This demographic thus feels pretty disenfranchised and angry right now.
Trump is a just a strong personality that is tapping into that sentiment, which was already very strong and exists amongst a fairly diverse spectrum (lower middle class Americans and millennial males who feel left behind), and giving it a seat at the table amongst the Republican party.
The proposals of the Alt-Right movement are for a nationalist approach that champions and invests in traditional western values and traditional western peoples. There is a certain degree to which the Alt-Right movement does actually, as it is commonly accused, push for national socialism. A state which is defined by a single nation or ethnic identity and values system that looks to become a co-op for that group to work together to advance their interests in the world.
When you think of national socialism today, you think of the tremendous evils perpetrated by Adolf Hitler's 3rd reich, but the idea of a nation-state built around protecting the interests of an ethnic nation isn't really an evil thing in and of itself.
The problem is that championing a particular ethnicity in a diverse society tends to have the effect of fostering even worse division and potentially for the more dominant group to feel justified in perpetrating violence and oppression on the other group.
Minority groups and movements like the #BlackLivesMatter deal often accuse white Americans of systemic oppression but there's nothing going on today remotely like what could be possible if greater division and resentment were to be fostered either by increasing strength and resentment in the Alt-Right movement or by further disenfranchisement of white Americans.
This leads to the obvious question: If America doesn't allow space for nationalist sentiment in the political process will that result in the Alt-Right movement getting thrown into the dustbin of history? Or will it result in the movement becoming stronger and more extreme, at which point the evils of radical nationalism could become a reality?
I suspect it's the latter and while I don't endorse or support Donald Trump, who again I think is just a savvy businessman and opportunist who's using his strong personality to assume the leadership vacuum at the head of the Alt-Right movement, I think it's important that this group isn't further marginalized and deprived of a voice.
Ted Cruz and the conservative push back
You'll find that liberals are often very poor at considering consequences in their evaluations of what proper policy should be. They are motivated primarily out of a sense of justice and will tend to get pulled around by their heart strings and what sounds like the right thing rather than more careful considerations of the unintended consequences of various actions and measures.
As a result, they are often totally oblivious to the fact that war is a two-way street. Every time you try a tactic out on an opponent that is effective, you are effectively teaching them how to fight back. Each tactic that is utilized by one side should always include the consideration of, "are we comfortable with the fact that they may start doing this to us in return?"
Ted Cruz winning the GOP nomination and subsequently the general election would be Republicans utilizing lessons learned from losing to Democrats in the last two elections.
Barack Obama started his career as a community organizer and lawyer, learned how to make himself an appealing figure to fellow black Americans (he was already appealing to white liberals since he grew up amongst them, won a senate seat and made an effective speech at a Democratic national convention, and then failed to do anything particularly offensive or noteworthy to hurt his positive standing in the party.
Then he ran for president, won office twice through divide and conquer political strategies and identity politics, and has been by far the most liberal president that America has ever had.
So what did conservatives learn? Ted Cruz learned that the key is make a big mark as a first term senator, to build a coalition of people that will turn out and vote, play divide and conquer with identity politics, and then have the freedom to enact a principled (or divisive and radical, depending on how you look at it) agenda as president.
He's been more avert about his political leanings than Obama, but he's also tapping into frustration across multiple demographics who feel that their values and interests have been trampled upon, marginalized, or ignored under Obama because they didn't fit into his winning coalition. Appealing to the Alt-Right movement and lower middle class voters who used to be democrats (or Reagan Democrats) is a big part of his plan.
I'm not sure how long America can survive power going back and forth between people who are committed to representing limited chunks of the electorate at the expense of voters on the other side, but I suspect that we'll see the pendulum swing at least once to the right before we either find some kind of national compromise or else start to break apart.
The biggest question moving forward in our country is whether we can build a new national identity that can encompass the values and interests of our increasingly diverse people, or whether the United States will fail to remain united.
If they do fail to be united, let's hope that none of the major political movements are preaching the justification of violence against opposing groups and do what we can to be aware of that possibility and stem the tide.
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