Alienation, autonomy, and ideology
These are posts on Donald Trump and Trumpism from the blog Base and Superstructure. Trump took American politics by surprise. This provides us with a number of topics for further discussion. Some posts discuss whether Trump’s movement is fascist. Others critique the movement. Still others provide us with ways to combat against Trumpism and replace it with a class politics grounded in solidarity and the advancement of material interests. Even after Trump has left office, his movement is likely to continue as a component of American politics for years to come. These issues will be relevant for some time to come.
Journalist Oliver Eagleton begins a recent article in Jacobin by warning us against “sanewashing” Donald Trump. The idea? We shouldn’t attribute any deeper strategy or long-term plan to Trump, because that’s not how he thinks. Rather, short-term gain and perceived self-interest drive him.
Naturally, Eagleton goes on to disregard this warning. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’ll say a brief word here about the web Eagleton thinks the Trumpists are spinning.
In a short Current Affairs article titled “Don’t Expect Art to Save Us,” RS Benedict argues that artistic or cultural expression cannot meaningfully substitute for concrete political action.
It’s not a new claim. Nor, in my view, is it a very controversial claim, though, as with even most accurate claims, it draws its detractors.
However, I think we can learn a few lessons from the very first reason Benedict gives in favor of the claim.
As of late, I’ve been trying to steer clear of the ‘Great Fascism Debate.’ I’m referring, of course, to the question of whether Donald Trump is a fascist and Trumpism a fascist movement. I’ve written about the topics extensively. For a quick review, readers should check out my original 2018 post arguing for a nuanced ‘no’ answer, as well as two additional posts proposing a fuller account of Trumpism.
In short, Trumpism sucks. But it sucks in a non-fascist way.
However, I’m not here to rehash all that.
This time, we’ll take a look at a brief analysis by Matthew Karp over at New Left Review. Karp brings to the table some insights about what people miss about the second round of Trump.
Way back in 2018, not long after I began this blog, I posted about how Donald Trump – in the midst of his first presidency – fits into the established political order. I did so with the help of political scientist Stephen Skowronek. In the 1990s, he published the book The Politics Presidents Make to much acclaim.
Skowronek divided U.S. history into a series of political orders, with each president defined by their position with respect to the dominant order. Depending on political circumstances and their own politics, presidents use their power to create (reconstruct), defend and innovate (articulate), oppose (preempt), or fumble and destroy (disjoin) the dominant political order.
In the previous post, I read Trump as a disjunctive president. I thought he would mark the final death of the Reagan political order. Given his low popularity from 2016 to 2018, and his subsequent defeat in the 2020 election, I think that prediction turned out right.
But then he won in 2024 by about 2 million votes* (see note at bottom).
When a president fumbles the existing disorder and crashes and burns along with it, that isn’t supposed to happen! They’re supposed to be done with politics. Disjunctive presidents stand among our least popular in history.
So, what happened? How could Trump have come back from his disastrous 2020 result?
After Trump won the 2016 election, the mainstream media – and even many leftists! – promoted a certain falsehood. They claimed Trump won on the strength of a working-class voter base.
The reality was much different.
In fact, Trump’s base looked similar to the typical GOP base. It differed only in degree. Trump won on the strength of voters who combined a high income with a low education. Most of these voters were a part of what Marxists call the ‘petty bourgeois’ class, and many of them were just regular wealthy people. I covered this more extensively in a 2018 post and a later Medium article.
The ‘one weird trick’ Trump pulled led to all the confusion. It’s a specific rhetorical trick. In short, Trump speaks about one audience, but to another. He often expresses the hopes and fears of working-class people, but he targets wealthier voters with the message. The press conflates the subject audience with the target audience. Readers can review that argument here.
But we’re not here to talk about 2016 or 2020. Trump won again in 2024, and the mainstream media – and even many leftists! – make the same claim.
So, how about this time? Surely Trump attracted a working-class target base in 2024, right?
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