The Get Even President

     Donald J. Trump is the Get Even President.  He has emerged as the champion of Americans who feel that they have been gravely wronged and who seek retaliation against their enemies, real and imagined.  Trump’s behavior reflects the mood of his base: confrontational, indignant, impatient, defiant, abrasive, and unapologetic.  Not far beneath the surface exist layers of pain, fear, and anger.
     Who are the people who support Trump?  The Trump coalition consists primarily of six groups, among which there are many overlaps.
     The first consists of highly partisan and “yellow dog” Republicans.  Their faith in the GOP is largely based on family political tradition, regional political preferences, the ideals of individualism and free enterprise, and vested interests.  They include Republicans who remain enamored with Ronald Reagan and adhere to the conservative principles of Robert Taft and Barry Goldwater.  They generally fear and loathe Democrats, who threaten them through government regulations, taxes, and social reforms.  Many Republicans continue to hold great disdain for Bill Clinton and his unseemly personal conduct as President; they also greatly distrust Bill Clinton’s wife, or “crooked Hillary” as Trump calls her.
     The second group is the American déclassé that I discussed in my blog posting of June 1, 2017.  These include people from the middle and working classes who suffered from the Great Recession of 2008 and never fully recovered.  Many lost their jobs, savings, homes, and their comfortable lifestyles and they want them back, now!  They feel victimized by various evil-doers in a corrupt system (“drain the swamp”) and exploitive illegal immigrants (“build the wall.”).  They are very angry, and in particular damn President Barack Obama.  Anything connected to him (such as Obamacare, environmental restrictions, global climate change, trade agreements, and post-2008 banking and financial regulations) must be reversed.
     The third group is Baby Boomers who are now approaching retirement and who still have vivid memories of the 1960s.  They recall the violence of the Civil Rights movement (especially the urban race riots) and the war in Vietnam, both in the jungles of Southeast Asia and in the streets of the U.S.  They resent the perceived shunning of Vietnam veterans as though they were war criminals.  They want a strong military that will be allowed to win foreign engagements.  They in particular want to “make American great again,” or a return to a world order in which countries defer to the U.S.
     Americans who have a persistent fear of criminals and terrorists make the fourth group.  They abhor street shootings and random acts of violence.  They remain traumatized by the Al Qaeda attacks upon New York City and Washington, DC, on 9/11 of 2001.  They generally supported American retaliation in Afghanistan and the unilateral, preemptive invasion of Iraq.  In contrast, they bemoaned the seemingly irresolute policies of the Obama administration in the Middle East.  They defend domestic gun rights and distrust Muslims (“the travel ban”).  They cheer a strong leader who will end criminal violence and foreign-generated acts of terrorism one way or another.
     The fifth group are members of the social conservative movement, especially those who embrace traditionalist social and religious views.  They are defenders of their own religious freedoms.  They may not always condone Trump’s language, but they support him as a national leader who will curtail abortions, gay marriages, and the mandated coverage of contraceptives in Obamacare.  Most importantly, they support Trump’s appointment of conservatives to federal courts, like Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.

     Finally, the sixth group consists of Trump’s fans who love his books, reality TV shows, speeches, and tweets.  They are awed by his great wealth and CEO style.  They see Trump as spectacular political entertainment.
     Will these groups find satisfaction?  And will they be better off in the long run?

© 2017 Stephen M. Millett (All rights reserved)     

The American Déclassé

     Toward the end of the 19^th century, the French introduced the word déclassé to describe people who had fallen in social status.  The déclassé might include aristocrats who lost their titles or their estates for one reason or another.  They might also be middle class who lost their businesses, white-collar employment, savings, and homes.  They were reduced to the tattered trappings but no longer the substance of their former comfortable lifestyles.  They felt victimized and marginalized and often blamed others for their own misfortunes.
     Many Germans experienced a middle class déclassé in the 1920s due to hyper-inflation that wiped out long-term savings.  Then they suffered further from the Great Depression and deflation.  Financial reverses along with personal loses and the humiliating defeat in World War I caused many German déclassé to turn to hyper-nationalism, including German racial superiority as expressed by the Nazis.
     Now the United States has its own déclassé.  They were used to middle class standards of living until the Great Recession of 2007.  Some were upper- and middle-middle class who were overextended in debt, particularly inflated home mortgages.  When the financial and real estate bubble burst, many lost their houses, which were their principal assets as well as their homes.  Others lost their businesses and investments, too.  Meanwhile, white collar workers lost their jobs to process innovations and business cost reductions.  After decades of wages and benefits that lifted so many factory workers from the working to the middle class, millions of industrial jobs were eliminated by factory automation, offshore production, and layoffs by companies faced with reduced demand for their goods and services.  For many, the upward spiral of the American Dream had suddenly reversed its course downward.
     Particularly devastated was the new working poor, broadly defined, of people who could not find any jobs, or took jobs that paid significantly less than their previous jobs, or went into retirement without pensions and adequate savings.  They found themselves on the wrong end of the growing income-wealth-education gap in the U.S.  Having once enjoyed a middle-class standard of living, they now had to struggle to just make ends meet.  If they still bought the things they were used to, they went more heavily into debt.  Many became very bitter about their losses and retreated into social isolation and alcohol and drug abuse.  Some turned outward and blamed various other people, including Wall Street fund managers and bankers, the one-percenters, the Federal government that seemed pleased to help the chronically poor but not the working poor, and illegal immigrants who allegedly exploited public assistance programs.  In addition there was a growing fear of public violence and acts of foreign-generated terrorism.
     Some of the American déclassé personified their anger in President Barack Obama and railed against the well-educated and well-paid elites who appeared to dominate the Democratic Party.  They hated when the President lectured them about large corporation bailouts (but none for the “little guys”), mandatory healthcare insurance (which for some people resulted in unwanted coverage with unwanted premiums and new taxes), race relations, and global climate change.  What about good jobs with good pay?  What about people who were not working but getting public handouts?  What about illegal immigrants from Mexico?  What about Muslim terrorists shooting and bombing innocent Americans?
     Then came the elections of 2016…. 

© 2017 Stephen M. Millett (All rights reserved)