The nominal candidate (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
New Hampshire, then, was far from Donald Trump’s difficult second album. If anything, it was another performance of his Greatest Hits. His path to the White House is firmly in sight; Nikki Haley’s primary challenge, by contrast, has been rendered all but nominal.
After Trump scored his first thumping victory in the Iowa caucuses, widespread concern about his looming presidency resurrected the idea of a “national divorce”, if not full-on civil war. Yesterday’s triumph will have only aggravated this anxiety. The problem, however, is that it’s largely being expressed in a misguided manner.
There are certainly ominous parallels with the original US Civil War, as the historian Michael Auslin has recently noted. Much as the march towards the conflict between the Union and the Confederacy took decades to build up to actual military conflict, this year’s election represents the culmination of a protracted process, characterised by delegitimising national elections, demonising political opponents, and an unprecedented use of legal tactics to subvert voter preferences.
But the original Civil War had clear geographic boundaries, the issue of slavery largely determining the two opposing sides. And, as horrific and destructive as the military conflict was, it ultimately did achieve resolution. Ultimately, one side emerged victorious, and there were tentative Reconstruction-era campaigns to rebuild the nation in a more just fashion. The post-Lincoln Republicans, for instance, used state capitalism and tariffs to build up the national market for Northeastern manufacturing. The South had a bumpier ride, suffering from the regional disparity produced by Jim Crow, but even this was eventually alleviated by the New Deal.
Today, by contrast, there is little in the way of policy designed to heal America’s considerable political fractures. And with the probable repeat of a divisive Biden-Trump contest, the likely outcome, regardless of who wins, will be a festering, social civil war that will further fracture unity and perpetuate political dysfunction. The common denominator in today’s “Civil War Redux” is not geography — it is a battle that transcends the idea of a north-south divide. After all, some of the most odious and dangerous militias, hate groups and far-Right instigators have been found in northern states, such as New York, rust belt states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, or further north in Montana or Idaho. Likewise, one sees vestiges of incipient progressivism in various parts of the old Confederacy.
Today’s divide is also marked by the presence of resentment-filled (largely) white working-class men with few prospects in predominantly white rural areas, who have been told that something has been taken away from them, and that they are less valuable than other citizens. Typical of this view was Hillary Clinton, who complained that she shouldn’t have lost the 2016 election because she won the counties that constitute two-thirds of the nation’s GDP, as if these “deplorables” didn’t merit the same kind of voting privileges by virtue of their substandard economic status. This was not just Clinton’s view, but reflected a prevailing disdain of much of the Democratic Party, a disdain which in turn exacerbated the sense of grievance of the Trump supporters.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeThis was a diatribe disguised as an article, a carnival barker masquerading as a ‘journalist’. No soap, mister.
“No water for him!”
The Democrats are already suppressing voters and fixing elections, by denying the people of New Hampshire and Florida the chance to choose their preferred candidate.
Instead, they have decided to fix the results.
Same old. Same old.
Biden polled 8% in the New Hampshire primary in 2020!! It’s only because the Democrat Party pushed aside Bernie, Warren, etc by pushing Biden to the front in South Carolina. Thank Senator Clyburn for that. Also thank Clyburn for Kamala Harris the designated and preferred pick that it be a ‘black woman’. That the Democrat party bows to the 13% of the population that is black says lots. And what says even more is that polling shows that at least 25% of blacks are now considering voting for Trump, when the Democrats traditionally got 90% of the black vote or even more. Democrat policies aren’t even working for blacks nowadays. There’s some really interesting ‘shifting’ going on.
If the Democrats are so good at fixing elections, why didn’t they fix the last House election? After all, they are now in a minority in the House.
Really?!! You just made that up.
sad to say he didn’t.
I think people forget what Trump is. He’s a Celebrity Insult comedian that dabbled in real estate on the side. The guy is objectively hilarious. Even John Oliver acknowledge it in 2016. During the Bush Era the left brutally and effectively parodied Bush as a stupid and incompetent country club Republican. Look at Bush’s approval rating plummet as time went on. Jon Stewart probably singlehandedly crushed the Republican Establishment. Btw- Good on him.
After Bush, the Republicans had no chance winning by running an Establishment candidate. Yet Republicans responded by running the next two election cycles with buttoned-up Establishment candidates. They were never even competitive against the energetic progressive Obama.
Trump produced energy because he acknowledged how Conservatives and especially rural Conservatives were treated by the Media and its Comedy lineup. The Trump Presidency is not possible without progressive mockery. Trump is a product of left wing satire incessantly belittling Conservatives as stupid and unenlightened.
The Left’s comedy apparatus appears incapable of tampering down their disdain for uneducated rural voters. Every time a so-called progressive chuckles out loud about Trump’s ability to get the “low education” vote they are showing their true colors. So called “low education” Trump voters know what Progressives actually think of them. They’re not stupid. They see the insults.
It shouldn’t be that surprising that Conservatives selected an insult comedian to respond to a Left wing establishment that revels in insulting them.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the educated elite were not so stupid. Low educated voters see the elite tearing everything down and not building up anything.
That’s what really gets me. If the soy-latte Laptop Class were actually bright, I wouldn’t mind so much. But most of them are mindless idiots. Their only qualification is that at age 18, they had college funds, middle class parents and a disdain for physical labour.
You’re displaying flaming inverted snobbery.
Credentialed or degreed is not the same as intelligent, as these people demonstrate almost daily.
Indeed. I had no academic qualifications and an IQ of 136.
I spent my life managing a collection of “credentialed, laptop class” people to make a successful business, enabling this “uneducated voter” to retire 10 years ago at 56 – while those “educated voters” keep slaving away to this day. I hope they are enjoying their superiority, from paycheck to paycheck.
At the age of 50 I became slightly fed up with the sneers, and did a masters level qualification while working. It was easy, and taught me absolutely nothing of any use at all.
I guess we all make of our lives what we do.
Back in the 80s and 90’s I did two engineering degrees then after working a bit I went back to school and did an MBA and a JD. I consider myself both educated and intelligent. The difference is that I studied practical subjects and I did it before the universities had gone completely woke. Now you couldn’t even learn anything in engineering because math is called racist. I’m very educated and of course a big Trump supporter. I’d have to be an idiot not to support him.
Haha. I don’t think they’re stupid. I think they’re just intellectually lazy and entitled. The Comic Elite got comfortable portraying themselves as the Vanguard of the Oppressed. They clearly felt ordained as being on the Right Side of History. They claim to stand for the marginalized yet relentlessly punch down at the rural poor. They can’t process why the Oppressed/Oppressor dynamic sprung a leak. The leak is Collectivism itself. The idea that “Experts” can ascertain if an individual has “privilege” simply by looking at group identity traits was doomed to eventually fail.
What irritates the Comic Elite the most is that the rural poor will not accept the State with its “credentialed experts” and media spokespeople as their prophets. This is intolerable to them. Why won’t these people just trust the Social Science of Progressivism?!
There’s a huge difference between educated and intelligent.
And also a huge difference between career politicians and voters…I’m sure I’m not the only one who doesn’t thrive inside someone’s pocket.
But it’s usually the intelligent who get educated.
Is time spent within academic establishments actually education? A gentleman knows Latin and Scholar and Gentleman knows Latin and Greek. The days when Primie Ministers had double firsts in Classics and Maths are long gone. The days when all academics are scholars, is long gone.
Shakespeare ,Marlborough, Nelson, Captain Cook RN, Wellington the creators of the Industrial Revolution- G Stephenson was illiterate until the age of 18 years, J Austen, GK Elliot, Brontes, Dickens, W Churchill, E Gaskell, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Fry, most of Engineers of 19th century- Bazalgette fro example George Orwell, Camm, Mitchell, Chadwick , de Havilland and B Wallis and never went to univerity; are they neither educated or intelligent?
As Orwell pointed out, Left Wing Middle Class Intellectuals live in a world of ideas, divorced from a physical reality. When people prefer ideology to the physical World, problems occur. Wisdom, or perhaps better, sagacity, can only be aquired by learning from experience. No time spent in academic establishments can make up for physical reality.
What tosh. No surprise to see this is the top voted comment. This website should think of renaming itself to “Unhinged”.
Did you come here to cry?
Such a well reasoned and eloquent argument. Must be a Harvard grad.
Nope. Never attended any Ivy League university. Queen’s in Canada
That comment was addressed to Jules Anjim, not your good self
Your article is an opportunity missed.
“It depends upon the context”
(And whom they copied it from…)
I’ve been so disappointed after paying to participate in what I assumed would be rational debate. It’s no better than all the left-leaning online places to which Unherd is supposed to be superior. You get massively downvoted for going against the majority opinion and just receive a barrage of weak responses.
You get a lot of downvotes, yeah, and a lot of suspended posts. On the other hand you sometimes learn something from the other debaters, and you get the opportunity to sharpen your arguments. Hang in, there. If all the non-MAGA leave, it really will become an echo chamber.
The suspended posts are what surprised me when this is meant to be a safe space for free speakers.
I agree on the suspended posts. On the up/downvotes, though, that is simply the weight of opinion on this site. I’m sometimes on the right side of that opinion (e.g. Covid) and sometimes on the wrong side (e.g. the ongoing wars in UA and Israel, or British military aggression in general…). Frankly I couldn’t care less. Even Champagne Socialist is a voice, of sorts. And what would the Covid debates be without Rasmus? Boring, I tell you. Boring…
I think it’s rather rude to just downvote without posting an explanation as to why.
The problem with CS is he NEVER makes an argument. Calling people names is not debate.
At least he truthfully represents the mindset he professes to represent (by not engaging with deplorables and their ideas and insulting them instead).
Certain word combinations just trigger an algorithm-based suspension. Not sure which/why, I think anything that could be ‘racist’ or ‘swearing’ does. Btw I’m not sure how many ‘Unherd Readers’ are on here, is it only you or is that some kind of generic title (or tag, or whatever it’s called)? Also btw, maybe just semantics but not sure ‘safe space’ and ‘free speech’ are compatible.
I actually dropped my subscription because of it. Resigned later.
Can you please point out what part of the post above, that got down votes, constitutes “rational debate”?
Exactly.
Does calling people unhinged qualify as a rational debate? I’m fine with a fact-based discussion, but that’s not what Jules brought.
I assume he was downvoted because he didn’t make an argument. He just called something tosh without explaining why. These are actually the worst comments.
You get down voted if readers think your argument is weak and up voted if they think it has merit.
How else could votes work?
The only time I down vote someone is when they are rude.
Not so. You get downvoted if people disagree with you.
I agree that’s the main reason but also strength of argument, only very good posts get loads of upvotes. Not sure why ppl are hung up about votes though, it’s not a poularity contest, aren’t written responses more interesting?
I do not care too much (if getting downvoted hurt me I would long ago have retreated, crying). But I really wish they would get their banning system sorted out, and stop more or less routinely blanking out posts that got too downvoted.
I think that downvotes should be discontinued. Firstly they water down the up votes and secondly we do not know why the comment was disagreed with. Without this info the downvote is useless.
I think they should both exist and count separately in parallel. That way it’s possible to see a controversial idea from an uninteresting one.
That gets my upvote.
Maybe they should show down votes and up votes.
discontinue ‘down votes’
If you have a valid critique, why don’t you make it. I write to get feedback. If I’m wrong about something, I would like to adjust my perspective.
Unherd is hardly a bastion of “Right Wing Extremists.” Maybe it just feels like it right now because the Left went too far and the public conversation is getting re-centered in a rightward direction?
Unherd comment section is ok in general with a clear rightwing bias yet also with truly insightful commentary – I hope it doesn’t go the way of the Spectator though which is beyond hope at this point.
You shouldn’t be discouraged by downvotes. I’m usually out of step with the majority opinion here, but I like to have my beliefs stress tested. And I’ve changed a few of my opinions since becoming a subscriber. I just wish the app worked properly on iOS.
Dont forget far right.
I think lots of people enjoy your comments and respect your opinion, even if they disagree.
I agree that left wing contempt feeds into Trump’s popularity. However the 2016 election was lost because the Dems ALSO put forward a buttoned up establishment candidate in the form of Clinton. Trump’s election was as much a rejection of the ‘more of the same’ option that was Hilary as anything else. If Bernie had run they may well have won.
And Hilary called half of the population ‘The Deplorables’! Little surprise she lost!
Biden piled on with calling them the ‘MAGAs’ – nothing like disparaging half the electorate – a great way to get people to come to your camp.
I think it’s ultra MAGA now.
”I think it’s ultra MAGA now.”
You’re damn strait it is – that or watch the nation burn wile Biden fiddles…
It’s just short for “Make America Great Again’ which is what the MAGAs chant. Just as Enoch Powell said “Let’s make Britain great again” and Hitler said “Let’s make Germany great again”.
Yuk!
Quite
One positive thing I’ll say about Trump is that he never seems to punch below his weight. I’ve never heard him disparage people who don’t vote for him. He has no problem pushing the buttons of those who have a platform to push back, e.g., politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, actors, but I don’t recall any instance when he claimed Hillary or Biden voters were stupid or “deplorable” or “scum of the earth” and so on. Perhaps I’m wrong and just never came across something he’s said about non-Trump voters.
Good point!
It’s hard to believe, but Bernie, and Elizabeth, too, are even a bigger fraud than the Clintons. I was in college in the mid-60’s; the Army in the late 60’s-early 70’s. The Demo-rats are really in it for the money. So are the Republicans, but they don’t drool in public. I never thought I would be nostalgic for the 80’s. The lies became de rigueur from 92′ on and the Obamas rode the race-baiting gravy train that still chugs along (notice how all the national black candidates are mixed race or from non-slave history (unless they owned them)). Trump says many right things, but his style offends the suburban/urban liberal class. I live in the Chicago area and people here vote on the basis of race, race, race, gender, and wishful-thinking while the bodies pile up. I live in the suburbs. The people in the city elected a mayor who is a tool of the Chicago Teachers Union whose main achievement is being a substitute 4th grade teacher. For some insane reason (mostly not reading the fine print in US history) the D’s have convinced many that “they” are the party of “freedom,” as if they give a damn other than lip-service about the so-called lower classes. This is all backwards. The Republican Party should say, “Thank you, Donald, for holding down the fort, but we’ll tell the truth now and risk losing some power.” They won’t. The border should be the main issue, but it won’t be because no one has the stones. My landless peasant grandparents came to the US in 1900 and paid their $25 each to get through Ellis Island, never learned to speak English, and never asked the government for a dime.
Yes, it’s simple really, isn’t it? The more unearned and unjustified wealth those on one side of the class divide acquire at the expense of those on the other, the more disdainful and arrogant they become and the harder they try to pretend that their motives are somehow altruistic.
Interestingly, one of the comments made about De Santis is that while an excellent executive he was bereft of humor.
I think it is called ‘charisma’.
That thing about him putting lifts in his boots counted against him too.
….and personality.
The intellectual snobbery that we see on both sides of ‘the pond’ is staggering.
Jon Stewart did some show not long ago called the problem with White people. His comedy hasn’t aged well and looking back he may have been part of the problem all along. Mocking deplorables seems to have been his thing.
I saw it. Very disappointing. I thought he might be able to talk some sense into the Left. It appears only Bill Maher has the courage to do that.
Yeah, and he’s onboard with the trans insanity. What a w***e he turned out to be. Ditto Neil Degrasse Tyson.
Yes, all those “low education” voters, rubes and deplorables who send their sons and daughters to die in wars over the years to protect Jon Stewart’s right to be a complete ass.
Bush was an arms and oil dealer spokesperson.
Trump is a Patriot.
Not so. The Patriot is a guided missile. 😉
Blah blah blah, the author hates Trump, does not feel the need to mention any policy issues, and glosses over a lot of history. Are we just going to conveniently forget that for most of the twentieth century the biggest opponents of increased immigration were Democrat leaning labor unions or pretend the violent summer of 2020 didn’t happen or pretend that Biden’s flaws are not always excused away by a fawning press or..? I’m sorry but this article is meandering and is ill suited by its broad sweeping generalizations.
Under the Clinton regime the Democrats ditched their connection with organised Labour in favour of doing the bidding of Wall Street. NAFTA and China in the WTO were the immediate consequences, 2008 the delayed effect. They have only themselves to blame.
It’s more than that. Democrats were once the workers’ party; now it’s the party of academic theorists pushing increasingly bizarre cultural theories. A workers’ party could promote rights for gays and integration for minorities. What Democrats are getting today is trans supremacy culture and calls for “reparations.”
So what happened to the old toolbox Democrats now that the Party That Used To Build Stuff has become the Party That Won’t Issue Permits? They became Reagan Democrats, and now they have ossified into MAGA.
I agree…the old labels like Left and Right are no longer useful tools to analyse contemporary political activity.
I think David Goodhart’s ‘Any-wheres’ (also ‘No-wheres’) v ‘Some-wheres’ idea is far more useful today.
It explains the desertion of ‘natural’ Democrats far more convincingly, just as it explains the phenomenon of the Red Wall in the UK and the disintegration of the Far Left in France, as well as the rise of the ‘Far Right; almost everywhere.
This is one of the weakest articles I’ve ever read on Unherd; it contains not a single new or challenging idea.
Weak? After the first couple of paragraphs I thought I was reading The Atlantic or Vanity Fair.
My guess is he looks out of his University office window onto the pedestal a statue of George Washington once occupied, now carrying a rainbow flag instead……
I agree. The only upside was its brevity. Devoid of insight or even a viewpoint.
Thank you MATT! I felt my blood slowly boiling with each paragraph of knee-jerk, hipster (Bard college anyone?) left wing scold. Though he gave few weak-kneed nods to the idea that Democrats may have been responsible for riling up these detestable “white men” (who, by his definition are racist xenophobes) they were transparent and silly.
A serious man could have set forth balanced ideas to explain the spiritual divide between the elites and the rest (here and in much of the world), But lately, the scolds on Unherd seem to salivate at the idea of a civil war caused by the deplorables – the left is already hinting that they will foment mayhem if Trump is elected. Same old same old.
”Yes, Soros, and now his son, are divisive figures in their way, but they do add to the conversation, and so are a worthwhile addition to the political process”.
But Trump……
Yes, and lest we forget those liberal news dictators trying to voice over, BADLY, lol, Trumps speeches with their own drivel…
They can hardly be called speeches, just the same old self-promotion.
One must first listen to his message to comment.
I understand you gut reaction, but the author’s point (which is only their opinion) seems to be that Democrats and Republicans have both failed to moderate their constituents’ differences. President Trump’s leadership style is not exactly to unite Americans behind common ideals, but to lean into the differences of opinion. Policies aside, we should consider whether it is sustainable to cast political opponents as enemies, given historical precedence. I believe that is the author’s point.
If our position is strong and right, we should be able to defend it before critiquing those who have different positions.
-Johnathan Orosz, South Dakota
Trump is to: Make America Great Again. Biden is to destroy it. The writer fails to mention that part.
You must’ve read a different article than I did. The author did everything in his (not so subtle and not so successful) power to paint Trump voters as dangerous, and people who agree with him (elites and their hangers on) as possibly needing to be a bit more circumspect before calling Trump voters deplorable, threats to democracy, racist etc.
You have characterized the author’s point as asking if it is “sustainable” to consider those with different opinions the enemy. That would have been a useful article- this one slouched way to the left and went out of its way to criticize “white men” who can’t afford Bard College’s tuition as being irrational and wrong-headed.
Bard University! About like pre revolution France getting a Palace spokesperson to explain the growing resentment among the population.
I cannot imaging a writer so misunderstands the zeitgeist outside his ivory University weirdness.
”After all, some of the most odious and dangerous militias, hate groups and far-Right instigators”
And just who are these mythical creatures? Were they burning and looting CVS Drugstores? Dressed in outrageous Drag and insisting they read porn to young children?
Nope.
That was just the usual thug rabble that the left pressers can’t see thru their TDS colored glasses.
Another russian conspiracy, lolol
His hatred of Trump is demonstrated in the way he calls Republicans, not as Republicans but as ‘Trump supporters’ or MAGA supporters not Republicans as though they are something separate.
No criticism of Biden, of whom the press negate to point out the clear cognitive decline. Eighty now and running for another 4 years, as John McEnroe famously said “you cannot be serious”
It’s one of the most bigoted and ignorant bits of rubbish I’ve read in a while.
I honestly appreciate Unherd for publishing this garbage. It’s important to see how Democrat foot soldiers rationalize their contempt for the GOP, Trump and MAGA.
I am so sick and tired of talking heads warning us about a civil war. If you’re going to indulge in such fantasies, at least explain how it unfolds. It’s so intellectually lazy and trite.
If they could predict how wars will unfold they’d be better off trading the oil markets than writing rubbish for ingrates online.
The mention of civil war is part of the Psy Op the establishment is using to grease the wheels of America’s collapse. By further stoking the fires of ideological divide, the establishment wants U.S. fighting among ourselves. Then all the undocumented illegals can finish U.S. off. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
You have to admit they’ve done a good job of getting us to fight among ourselves. We now have a cohort that is hostile to free speech, was ready to punish vaccine skeptics by having them lose their jobs for non-compliance, and thinks rationing food and electricity are great ideas.
Obama’s huge, massive, contribution was total race division. He stoked the race problems like Mozart wrote symphonies – like a Maestro. His puppet Biden has carried it on to the amazing zenith it is at now. That is All they do – destroy.
We are already in one. It’s cold at this point…
There’s a clue in the summoning into being of “odious and dangerous militias, hate groups and far-Right instigators…”
Witness the hysteria about Jan 6 vs the ‘mostly peaceful’ 2020 BLM riots. And the predicted ‘threat of “white supremacist terror attacks” on the US homeland’ (see 2022 article in The Last American Vagabond by Whitney Webb linked below).
If they ‘predict’ them, you’ll get them.
https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/ukraine-new-al-qaeda/
I think Trump will win the general election by a landslide both in popular and electoral college votes. And this will unify the American people like Reagan ‘84. Woke RIP!
I remember Reagan. He was a great President. I wish there were someone like him in the running nowadays.
He granted amnesty to 6 million people. So naturally more came in and they want it now too. That negates a lot of good that he did.
I don’t recall it as being as many as 6 million, but the presence of those people in the US probably led to a lot of economic growth (and achieving economic growth is one of the main functions of government).
No it’s not.
Anyway, Reagan won the Cold War. That counts for a lot.
Great sense of humour
Great Presidents tend to be those who won wars (Washington, Lincoln, FDR). Reagan won the cold war without any shooting. That makes him “great” in my book.
There is a slight whiff of déjà vu about all this!
Do you recall how ‘Spitting Image’ used to revile Reagan, yet he turned out to be the ‘best friend’ we ever had?
Exactly!
I couldn’t think of two people more different than Trump and Reagan. The latter was a truly great man.
Rubbish.
Use of phony propaganda memes like ’hateful right wing’ to refer to the citizen patriots who support the Jan 6 hostages is treason. Anyone spouting this bullshit will pay and we can find you.
You sure do sound both right-wing and hateful. Do you think he was talking about you?
Either this guy is a troll or the irony is very strong with him…
probably the only way he can earn a living.
“Citizen patriots.” Rubbish. May Tarrio serve every day of those 22 years.
Yikes. Chill dude.
Comments like “who have been told that something has been taken away from them” and “MAGA Republicans who truly believe that America’s increasingly diverse and multicultural society is a personal attack on them” make this article useless. Whatever insights the author may have, he ultimately shares Hilary’s attitude about ‘deplorables’. How can he convince anyone, or even fight them effectively, if he cannot even understand their grievances? If he wants anyone to do some ‘genuine soul-searching’, he needs to start with himself.
The best piece I ever watched on Trumpism was a German documentary made shortly after 2016. The guy actually went to swing districts and met with Trump voters. And he listened. He just let them talk and listened.
I only wish the Dem Establishment had watched that documentary.
Hi Graham, I’d be interested in watching that. What was it called?
I love your optimism that if only the Dem Establishment stopped to reflect for a minute they would see the error of their views on Trump voters! I would love that to be true. But please.
I don’t know how much of the news you read, but this Executive allowing millions of single military-age men to cross last year over a wide open border, ignoring the destruction of our inner cities from unchecked crime, and blatantly setting up rigged mail-in voting schemes for 2020, you really think the Dems intend to win popularity with rural Americans?
The shoe is on the other foot. Somehow conservatives must reach college-educated Americans, liberals and independents, and get them to start questioning what on earth is the goal of Biden policy, if not destruction of our social order.
My usual question: Can you link to some proof that the mail in-voting was actually rigged and making a difference to the result (as opposed to being in principle a bit more fragile)?
And if you don’t think Trump’s goal is a dictatorship and the end of democracy, please read Project 2025:The Presidential Transformation Project on Wikipedia.
Project 2025 seems quite centrist
Breitbard is, or at least used to be, a great way to hear those voices.
Dems won’t listen because THEY think THEIR ideas are best for ALL of us. Do as we say, NOT as we do.
God Save us from ourselves!
As annoying as hearing MAGAs chanting “We the people” like they speak for all of us!!
Do the Dem Establishment speak German?
I thought I liked the article, but I do see your point!
Trust what you think.
If I had known that the author was reading the comments I would have been a little more polite. He does have some insightful points about both sides promoting / failing to stop polarization, and his comment “[Trump’s] travails, legal or otherwise, have become his supporters’ travails” is spot on. But his inability or refusal to understand why a lot of people feel they are the losers of the progressive trends in society makes his analysis suspect. What else does he not understand? Or is it so important for him to signal his own wokeness that he is incapable of making an argument to the non-woke?
However much the idea is derided by individual commenters, they nonetheless seem to be acting out their own civil war on these pages.
“They”?As in us versus them?
I know… let’s blame Trump for the years of progressive division that started years ago. Let’s blame “some of the most odious and dangerous militias, hate groups and far-Right instigators” and turn a blind eye to the progressive riots and lawlessness in Democrat controlled cities. Let’s not mention the mental state of Biden.
It’s not much of a game plan, but I think we got away with it.
{sarcasm}
It is truly amazing how, on one hand, the man is described as a complete idiot, yet on the other hand, he is genius enough to completely change America in just 4 short years in office. Biden has been in public office for over 50, yet no mention of his culpability.
“resentment-filled (largely) white working-class men…..
MAGA Republicans who truly believe that America’s increasingly diverse and multicultural society is a personal attack on them. ”
It’s typical how common and acceptable such nasty attacks are against those “evil white men”, but what if you shine a spotlight against the other side – Demrat supporting urban blacks and suburban college “educated” upper class white women?
We know what working class men want – jobs, nation, law enforcement, border control, constitution. Hasn’t in fact changed much over the decades due to their “resentment” or whatever.
But the other side, blacks and liberal women, is actually the one that’s fueled by resentment, bigotry, while being utterly useless and voting for harmful ideologies.
Blacks for instance, will vote 90% for the party of KKK and slavery, the party that’s has governed their cities for decades and utterly destroyed thode places despite enormous funding, or invite mass illegal immigrant labour that competes with them for lower skilled jobs. All fine, as long as the Demrats spout racist anti white rhetoric and treat blacks like infants.
But the other leg of this group, upper class suburban white women, are worse. They have no excuse of poverty or lack of education. Contribute little to society, other than doing useless non STEM degrees and sit in bs jobs in govt, higher “education” and admin.
And they are the drivers for most of the nonsense, hate filled rubbish.
DEI, restrictions on free speech, “white supremacy”, labelling masculinity as “toxic”, infantile abortion arguments that rely on straw manning, bemoaning fake “r**e culture in campuses while covering up genuine issues in Detroit or Rotherham….
Everything, down to the latest trans fiasco, is down to them, the views and political parties they support.
Whole of course, it’s still the working class white men who die in wars, run power plants, fix the plumbing.
Didn’t you forget the weekend seminars on ‘White Fragility’ ?
What do you mean, Samir presents them
The unconscious snobbery and class hatred that pollutes this article would be funny if it weren’t so scary. These people really don’t have a clue why they are so hated, do they?
No they really don’t
I don’t think you can lump all blacks together – at all. Working class blacks have a lot more in common with working class whites than latte swilling, progressive ideologues.
That’s the funny bit though, and very true as you pointed out – blacks would be better off siding with working class whites and with Trump’s policies.
The problem is they don’t vote that way – though things are gradually changing – and that’s one of the biggest triumphs of the “progressive” faction, who are the real racists in today’s world.
“Working class blacks have a lot more in common with working class whites than latte swilling, progressive ideologues.”
And yet, like Jews, they still vote Democrat. SMH.
Bang! You hit the nail dead center on the head. My wife is one of them. I love her, but…
The two current Democrat talking points doing the rounds are 1. Trump will destroy democracy and 2. the US might have a civil war. This is the second ‘civil war’ article on unherd for instance.
The Trump supporter commentary is generally laughing at this, seeing the Democrats as the anti-democrat party (lawfare, censorship, hoaxes, smears) as most still believe the Democrats cheated in some way in 2020.
However, I see earnest Democrat commentary still convinced the myriad of political news hoaxes are true, that 2020 was 100% true and fair, and so the only reason for protesting the 2020 election was to overthrow democracy. This is the group being targeted by the talking points. The worry is the aim is to deliberately stoke up such a lot of fear and terror that perhaps any action becomes possible for someone tightly wrapped up in supporting one side.
The destruction of democracy and civil war? At the moment all the Democrat pundits can offer is pearl clutching.
All the Republican pundits have to do is make the case that the Democrats are more likely to destroy democracy and start a civil war – and they could point to government actions on Biden’s watch to bolster their case.
Democrats, by and large, don’t see or understand anything from the Republican side. Everything is filtered through a compliant media, so to them the Democrats are the good guys facing this terrible Trump threat. For example this month’s The Atlantic is leading massively on the anti-democracy/civil war talking points.
I agree with you. But I would also ask, do you see or understand anything from the Democrat side? Like in real life, in person, not on the interweb or television.
I try to keep up with opinions on all sides, in real, in the media, and online, to try to understand where differences of judgement and viewpoint come from. My starting position is that people are smart enough, and are making their best guesses and they probably know something I don’t, so what is missing, or what are they judging differently, that explain different conclusions?
That’s a good question, and a source frustration isn’t it? Lol. You think maybe it’s a nature vs nurture thing. Like we all have instincts to cooperate and follow each other for survival. That is, we are designed to be influenced by one another. I think. But then on the nurture side it makes a difference who we grow up with and who we are around. That forms how we judge what is presented to us, maybe even subconsciously. I think. And instincually, at least for me, we want to get along people amd leave them and me room to change. So, it’s a tough nut to crack, to be independent-minded. Refeshing chatting with a kindred spirit.
I had a pastor who always said to be open-minded not empty-headed. Always makes me smile.
-Johnathan (haven’t figured out how to change name from UnHerd Reader)
There is so much more to it than what the author offers.
I’m hardly a working class stiff who has had bad luck. I had a priviliged upbringing by any standard, have a degree in economics a am an executive in IT. But I will vote for Trump because the elites that run the show need their power broken. They need to be humiliated and brought down to earth.
Right now, Trump is what there is to work with.
We need a new group of elites – one that is actually competent, that makes decisions based on science and reason. The elites we have today may be educated, but they are not intelligent. They have abandoned the Enlightenment that got us here.
“We need a new group of elites – one that is actually competent, that makes decisions based on science and reason.”
No, we need a free market, where the best ideas win, not some group of “elites” making decisions for us.
How the hell is Trump and his billionaire backers not part of the Elite? It’s absurd that the draft dodging silver spooned billionaire manages to portray himself as fighting for the people.
Trump may be rich, but he’s not part of the elite – the ruling elite anyway. And he’s certainly not backed by billionaires. The billionaires threw their money behind Haley. No other candidate has relied on small donations more than Trump. That and the unending free advertising he gets from his opponents in the regime media. The Kennedy’s were a very rich, privileged family, but they were perceived as fighting for the little guy.
Because they were! And there’s a difference between “old” money and the nouveau riche that is the Trump family. They are hardly philanthropists.
Ok, let me explain. But before I do, I would point out that most major revolutionaries have been the disaffected offspring of aristocracy. They have the time and the money.
But to answer your immediate question.
The republican establishment hates Trump.
The democrats hate Trump.
Wall Street and Silicon Valley hate Trump.
The media hate Trump.
Pretty much the entirety of the American elite HATE Trump.
A whole lot of average, blue collar, middle class, voters HATE the republican and democrat establishments, hate the media and hate Wall Street and hat big tech.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Well said.
if this is what you really believe (as opposed to posturing), then I think you need to get back and study up on things a little (stop relying on MSM).
Exactly! And as a victim, no less.
Isn’t it obvious that the phrase “multicultural society” is an oxymoron? You can have a multicultural country or a multiracial society but you can’t have a multicultural society. The words clash. If need proof visit any of our large cities.
Good point.
Colbert etc made Trump, nobody likes a snob, a sneering one. Also seriously unfunny!,
What happened in American politics was that an underserved market (resentful mostly downmarket white voters) was identified that neither “party establishment” was serving. This created a “market opportunity” for a politician who was able to access it (essentially a populist resentment opportunity), despite the system making that very hard to do.
Trump was able to capitalize on the market opportunity because he was able to sidestep the vetting and donor funding process largely due to his own personal fame and (to a much lesser degree) money, such that the normal levers for keeping someone like him out of the electoral process were ineffective. And unlike the Democrats, the Republicans do not have a “poison pill” type structure at the convention stage where an insurgent can be derailed by party insiders. And so Trump was able to capitalize on identifying an underserved market that no other politician was serving, and give it what it wanted to hear by becoming its “id”, in effect, the voice of its resentment at being excluded from the “national conversation” by the powers of DC.
To characterize this as a “true divide” is a bit misleading, however. It will be extremely hard, if not impossible, for any other politician to replicate what Trump has done in terms of accessing this electorate the way he has on a national level. The vetting process still applies to everyone else, after all, and finding other “outsiders” who are self-famous and self-funded and can sidestep the entire vetting/funding process is highly unlikely. And, Trump’s continued “success” on the Republican side has resulted in an even greater concentration of the establishment under the Democrats standard than was already trending under Obama. Any “divide” between the people who control the economy, the academy, the press, the education system, etc, on the one hand, and the displaced downscale whites, on the other, is a very lopsided one, and one which has little staying power apart from a notable “tribune” to champion the “little guy’s” resentments, which is what Trump has done.
More or less, when Trump goes, most of Trumpism goes with him, and the backlash against the resentful downscale white guys will know almost no limits.
Hasn’t this backlash been ongoing for sometime?
Although I agree that Trump is a unique figure in contemporary US politics, the beauty of the (political) market is that demand will not go unsupplied. When he finally moves on, there will be plenty of aspiring politicians who will try to take the mantle of Trumpism. Vivek bring the most obvious first example.
Without question there will be. I mean DeSantis was this as well.
But Trumpism doesn’t really work very well without Trump. It’s specifically his manner, his incarnation of resentment, his middle finger, that makes him attractive to his base. A smart, technocratically capable person with the same policies doesn’t have the same appeal.
,,,,and neither does a guy with lifts in his boots.
“Try to take” being the operative term. There is nobody like Trump, although there is no shortage of pretenders and wannabes.
Similar impulses keep surfacing, eg Tea Party. De Santis and other politicians have Trump-like policies and can be successful in their own right (eg De Santis in Florida). I mostly agree with the first half of your post.
If the Democrats want to stop Trump then they need to put up a far more competent candidate than Biden and they definitely need a decent running mate for that candidate.
You just triggered Kamala.
If you are going to have a civil war it implies armed parties. The military may or may not side with one or the other warring parties but most of the rank and file tend to be Republican. Again a lot of civilians who have weapons are more likely to be rural and Republican. The Dems tend to shout a lot but I know who I’d back.
Very little new or original in this piece. Mr. Auerback has devoted his career to investment banking, not necessarily the best background for insightful political analysis. I wonder why Unherd chose him for publication.
Everyone who makes a buck thinks they’re a genius.
Not bad on the history, although it was more Johnson’s Great Society than FDR’s New Deals that greatly reduced social disparities. Thereafter, however, increasingly neo liberal US governments abandoned American work and workers.
Would be good to see a sequel taking off from the remarks in the last paragraph about that abandonment.
Johnson’s Great New Society was a bust. After spending billions and even trillions of dollars on ‘social welfare’ – the poverty rate then and now remains at 17 to 19 percent. Why do you think The black community is demanding more ‘reparations’. LBJ gave them a fish but not rods so that they could catch fish themselves.
Societal ills, by most parameters, has gotten worse not better.
Some reasonable premises here, a lot of us in The South believe we need radical, political change. You made several veiled, trashy references to Trump and mentioned right wing hate groups, yet neglected to mention national thieves like Biden and Menendez and violent groups like Antifa and BLM. America needs the connected to stop thieving, period! And that entails getting different control of the tax burden. Donald is but a hard-nosed messenger of what is coimg. (and yes, it will be very violent). Suggest you rid your writings of bias.
“… the MAGA Republicans who truly believe that America’s increasingly diverse and multicultural society is a personal attack on them.”
When the constant anti-White/Male rhetoric is neither condemned by those in power nor contained by legislation (e.g. ‘hate speech’ laws, etc.) then what alternative conclusions are MAGA’s expected to draw?
The ultimate irony when those in power are old white men almost exclusively. They want to retain their power through any method, including disparaging those like them who haven’t yet attained such power. On both sides, its all about sowing division, which makes a strong point for parties supporting each other and their ruling class more than anybody or anything that isn’t a part of it.
I get the irony in the context in which you refer to “old white men” in power. The numbers of women bosses in every area of UK political, corporate and public life is staggering.
What anti-white-male rhetoric?
According to the author. “White men have been told that something has been taken from” – how looney is that statement? I think white men are feeling their loses viscerally especially in the pocket.
Also the author states that “Trump is avoiding ‘social expenditures” – another head scratcher. Republicans philosophically aren’t keen on ‘hand outs’. They still believe in the marketplace and economics and to that end Trump placed tariffs on China in an effort to encourage domestic manufacturing. He also cut taxes.
And his mention of more ‘local clashes’ versus a North/ South divide. Daily news bears this out, but even more fascinating is the meltdowns in deep blue cities when their own policies slap them in the face. Urban blacks are outraged by the expenditure of money on illegals when they for so long have been requesting funding, not to mention the disruption illegal immigration is causing to their communities. It’s a real ‘eat your politics’ moment.
There is a scene in Blazing Saddles where the Sherriff, surrounded by a crowd of hostile townspeople, puts his gun to his own head and say “nobody move or the…… gets it” at which point the townspeople back down.
Isn’t that what the Democrats, their supporters, their acolytes in the MSM and the author are trying to pull here – let us have our way or we will destroy the country. And isn’t this pretty much what they did with BLM
“the MAGA Republicans who truly believe that America’s increasingly diverse and multicultural society is a personal attack on them” Nope. For decades the Left has curated division as a political tool, weaponizing and exaggerating the relatively small amount of group animus in the country. In reality, people live and work with each other with very little trouble.
The Left created the Civil War? They created segregation and Jim Crow? Who knew.
Well the Democrats did
I don’t like Trump, but this article is lost. If trump is a carnival barker, you are the courts jester. Have you noticed the endless wars by any chance? How about the bull shit pandemic that saw 50% of small business owned by black people closed, or the millions of poor people killed by lockdown measures, or the unscientific masking measures. Maybe you didn’t notice because you sit on a laptop all day, and lockdowns validated your way of life. Get real.
The American establishment is doing the same thing as our British establishment.
The electorate keep voting against what we tell them they should have. It’s not our fault, say the establishment, it’s theirs. So, we must get a new electorate, we’ll import one.
Bit of a one eyed article. The main reason that Mr Trump will get elected is That Mr Biden has been a disaster economically and socially.
That is the curious thing about the left leaning – it never occurs to them that their views could be wrong.
How has Biden been an economic and social disaster? Economic and jobs growth under Biden has been better than under Trump.
You must be joking. To claim all the jobs that rebounded after covid lockdown is a complete lie, if not criminally malicious.
“Criminally malicious”?! So sue Glyn.
The biggest problem is that we now know that all the people in power and their associated bureaucracies lie and continue to lie with impunity. I wish I knew what the answer was. Does anybody really know the state of the US economy, anymore.
This is a valid point. Math matters right? The economy is good pretty strong right now and trending upwards.
Exactly.
Actually Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by 2.9 million votes nationally. In any other country in the world she would have become president. It’s only the distortions of the electoral college system that allowed the loser, Trump, to be declared the winner.
And that’s what we have in Canada – a Prime Minister who only needs the support of voters in the largest cities. He doesn’t even bother to appeal to the vast swathes of people outside these cities. The electoral college forces elected representatives to look beyond the densely populated, geographically tiny enclaves, and appeal to voters in smaller communities..
Maybe so but it proves there might be a God and evil was cast out.
I don’t know if I’d refer to it as “distortions” but yes, it’s an uncomfortable fact.
Exactly.
some of the most odious and dangerous militias, hate groups and far-Right instigators have been found in northern states, such as New York, rust belt states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, or further north in Montana or Idaho.
“Some” like who and what have they done? Have they carried out mayhem to the level of the BLM/Antifa crowd?
We can see its manifestation in the MAGA Republicans who truly believe that America’s increasingly diverse and multicultural society is a personal attack on them.
This line captures the animating spirit of “When your only tool is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail” very well. It’s the standard boilerplate accusation against anyone who thinks the border should not be wide open and that identity politics is a great way to destroy a nation. By all means, ignore the ‘MAGA Republicans’ who are black, hispanic, gay, or something other than the phantom white supremacist the left sees under every bed and around every corner.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but it works a lot better when that opinion is informed by fact rather than emotion. Only in the final paragraph does the author get around to what made Trump possible in the first place, but aside from this website and a few others, few people read that far.
How do you know that?
More recycled Democrat talking points from an author who has clearly never done any legwork in actually researching the types of folks who support Trump. Hint: they come from all spectrums of life, geography and class. Take a few moments to listen to the clip from Dean and his response after he made the effort to speak with folks at a Trump rally. His eyes were cleared, yours could be too…
What clip are you referring to?
https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1749885473328164910?s=20
Thumbs up – thank you
The divide is between people who believe in God, Family and truth and those who love death, murder, perversions and lies. It has been so since Genesis 3: 15 and 16.
why dont intelligeant people know when its time to throw the towel in???
Not only is today’s divide marked by “the presence of resentment-filled (largely) white working-class men with few prospects in predominantly white rural areas,” it is also marked by the presence of guilt-filled (largely) white upper-middle-class women in predominantly urban areas who sense there is something to gain by judging other less righteous citizens.
Not so much of an “Open Mind” methinks.
The irony of the commenters! including me…
The ability to pay an online opinion based magazine is the epitome of elitism!
They could probably decide the President merely by choice of car. Pickups vs Teslas.
Reading some of these articles and some comments, I get the impression that those without higher education are not considered as fit to vote – ‘deplorables’ – until numbers from ethnics, students and 16 year olds are needed to swing the balance. The left and elitists’ hypocrisy is staggering.
I can see USA State secession as an obvious eventuality due to Democrat dishonesty, like the European ~exit trends. I can see disentanglement leading to fisticuffs and, like the drift away from California, something Russia and China are watching closely, unaware such thoughts are festering at home.
Marshall is way out of touch.
Based on this piece you would think all Trump support is about the economic insecurity of blue collar America due to the wonderful mass influx of potential new proprietors of cool new restaurants and hookah bars.
The Right may have lost the Culture Wars but there are still many on the defeated side that will vote for the candidate that says, and has in the past, tried to preserve American culture & identity, in part by slowing the flow of illegal immigrants, whose very first act in coming here is to break our laws. Quaint notion that – following the law.
Now that all the sanctuary city Democrats are finding out the cost of their virtue signaling, the Trump position is even more popular.
I personally have never actually voted for Trump but instead voted against the Stalinist Democrat opponent. Unfortunately, that appears to be my only option again this fall.
this article is hilarious. Our author admits that “the policymaking elite have concluded that it is they who have been failed — by the people” and seems to be aware that this is bad…but only after suggesting that rural white voters “have been told that something has been taken away from them” as though this were completely unjustified…and that much of the frustration that comes out of Trump Country only exists because Josh Hawley and JD Vance have given the rubes “Permission” to be angry. The guy can’t decide whether to lay blame at the feet of the establishment or chalk all dissatisfaction with elites up to a misinformed and misguided populace. Sad!
Sounds like the dems want to go back to the original demos of Greece, where you had to be of a certain status and wealth to vote.
The rest of the population, including women in those days, were not considered developed enough to make decisions on things that would affect the community or country.
Welcome to the new neofeudalism. God help us all.
Whatever you think of Trump, at least he is not reducing the majority of the population to sub humans, as the dems seem to think. Except of course for their favourite pet groups.
Marshall helping team TRUMP power ahead with his pathetic outpourings
This author seems inappropriate for this publication. I shouldn’t be able to guess a journalist’s party affiliation from an article on the cultural zeitgeist. Much less have it yelled in my face with a bullhorn.
For goodness sake – how can anyone, particularly Americans, object to tightening up (closing as far as possible) the US/Mexico border i.e. stopping the world and his wife (and children) ambling in just because they feel like it? How can anyone have any truck with the Democrats’ idiotic ‘progressive’ agenda i.e. (inter alia) merging the differences between the sexes and muddling common sense with artificial words like ‘gender’? How can anyone, particularly if you’re pro-business or British, not want a US-UK trade deal? And how can anyone (I’m getting tired of this refrain) support Biden’s ridiculous (ruinous) ‘green’ agenda? How can anyone (last time) not want Trump as the next POTUS, especially if the alternative is the shambolic, shuffling senile Biden?
I live in the United States. There are no vast groups of people on the liberal or conservative side who are so incensed at the present state of affairs they would undertake some sort of secession or revolution.
Instead, there are some thousands of malcontents and agitators who have their hysterics magnified by a media looking for people to tune in, or click on, their breathless stories of extremists (usually nut case reactionaries) who are trying to bring down the government. The few thousands of witless progressive agitators, on the other hand, who are in no danger of suffering the consequences of their riots and demonstrations, serve as a counterpoint. Neither represents more than a fraction of the country’s population. I’d be amazed if both groups together totaled more than 500,000. The useful idiots who tag along, or show up for demonstrations supporting one, or the other, have no intention of joining in on violence of any kind.
Americans today are being lied to by both sides of the political spectrum for each groups’ own purposes. Regrettably, none of these purposes have anything at all to do with helping the citizens of the United States of America to form a more perfect union.
But, make no mistake, the 320 million +/- who live, work, and raise families here will not support insurrection. To think otherwise is merely to show one is drinking the Koolaid served up by greedy minions of oligarchs who profit from fear.
Well said, and I hope, true.
America is so obviously and Hideously
Divided and a long time in the Making
The fractures now so obvious with both camps digging in , Digging their Trenches ,Stacking the sand bags and got their steel helmets firmly strapped on
The only possible answer to this most terrible of situations
And to solve this problem can only be found one way and one way only
And unfortunately for Americans that shall only come out from The Barrel of a Gun
And Americans own Millions of such guns
What you sow is what thou shall reap
This article is laughably simplistic and superficial, Does UNHERD maintains any journalistic standards at all? How could the editors let this get published? One would think that it was written for schoolchildren. Trump bad. Wbite men very bad. American voters stupid. Election scary.
Please try in the future to print articles written by adults.
Unherd would do better if they decided on a topic with a brief summary and then had the commenter comment! We spend far too much of our time reading papers that are rubbish.
The Democrats enable Trump as the perfect foil for their revolution, which he does nothing to stop. Go back and look at the CNN tapes (he was coached) for proof. The rest of us just turn away in despair.
So as it turns out, identity politics turns very ugly, very quickly, and discriminating against one group to assist another turns out to be, in the end, discrimination.
Working class white men have in fact been neglected by both parties for decades, exhibit A being the boys’ education crisis.
Telling men without pricey college degrees that they’re both unintelligent and the beneficiaries of unearned privileges, which they can’t see or experience, but that they must somehow surrender, isn’t a popular notion. Quelle suprise.
Continual race riots in 2020, draconian COVID shutdowns, the demonization of policemen and predictable rise in crime, the promotion of unusual lifestyles to school children, and above all historically high inflation don’t play well in Peoria, either.
Perhaps treating people as individuals, and rewarding them on their merits, is the way to go instead.
Another self-deluding regurgitation of fake analysis that continues to blame the victims of left wing politics. The left simply can’t understand their unpopularity because they don’t want to. It would mean telling the truth about themselves. So, in defense they will double down on those same politics and keep wondering why this country is in so much trouble. It’s pathetic, but more, it’s downright dangerous. They will leave their opponents without civil recourse. Is that their intention?
Interesting article, but you can’t get away with “vestiges of incipient progressivism”, I’m afraid.
“…rather than consider their failures toward the American people, who continue to turn to a carnival barker for relief, the policymaking elite have concluded that it is they who have been failed — by the people.”
This seems to be prevalent across many liberal democracies. Here in UK, it was clearly seen in the elite’s response to Brexit, but there are plenty of other pertinent examples from around the world.
Trump would never have succeeded as a political entity in his 2016 bid for the presidency had not the liberal media cynically and deliberately enabled his ascent. He was baptized by “the press” with billions worth of free publicity. The Left looked at the slate of Republicans who had thrown their hats in the ring and decided to ignore all of them except Trump. The most potent poison for a politician’s ambitions is to be ignored by the press. So candidates, like Marco Rubio–who media correctly feared would clobber Clinton–received a fraction of the attention lavished upon Trump. They anointed Trump because they mistakenly believed he was so ludicrous that he would both tar the image of conservatives in general and be a straw man for Hillary. It backfired, of course, at great cost to the country.
Yet the left persists with dark schemes to subvert the democratic process. Among their methods: Democratic financial backing of the primary-level candidacies of lunatic-fringe Republicans in swing states against moderate/centrist Republicans. Yes, Democratic organizations contribute money to the worst lot of the Republicans in primary elections. By so doing Democratic candidates, who are too far to the left to prevail against moderate Republican opponents, are leveraged by Democrats significantly influencing who their Republican opponent will be. The net effect is that, in the general elections, the voters lose opportunity to vote for moderate/centrist Republicans.
Oh gawd. This article is a great example of what is wrong with commentary from the centre-left. If only Trump spent more tax money on “job creation”… as if governments have the ability to create real economically rational jobs by just spending the hapless taxpayer’s money… then this increasing divide can be bridged.
No. I hate to break this to you but not only is that laughable economically, this is as much a culture war as it is about economics. Marshall Auerback’s article reminds of the clueless center-left articles about Brexit, which also failed to understand this is not (mostly) about economics.
Key sentence from Auerback’s piece:
“But rather than consider their failures toward the American people, who continue to turn to a carnival barker for relief, the policymaking elite have concluded that it is they who have been failed — by the people.”
Elite failures toward the American people are enormous and now glaring. Cities are now filled with homeless camps and vagrants sleeping in doorways of vacant buildings where businesses have failed and been forced out.
It is extremely expensive to live in the United States. What is the reason for the high cost of housing?
Does the establishment’s immigration policy actually make any sense in today’s world? Does the establishment’s “invade and invite” agenda actually help Americans or the country become more successful with increased prosperity for widespread numbers of people? Is immigration improving the quality of life in the U.S. (or Europe)?
Immigration and wars are the priority of the elites and ruling class, but they are NOT the priority of the vast number of people. The Democratic Party’s educated, upper middle class voters refuse to acknowledge these problems because to do so, they would need to switch parties, which is culturally unacceptable to them.
The author fails to mention the demonization of whites, males via DEI/CRT that causes resentment, the nose-up moral superority against those who support Trump, the economic failures of Biden, the wide-open southern border etc.
Just to add to the flood of comments here – Auerback’s brief comparison to the Civil War is historically dishonest.
The South struggled economically in large part due to currency collapse during the war and then relatively punitive economic and political changes pushed on it from the victorious north.
I am not making a claim about whether these reasons were morally correct or not, but “regional disparity produced by Jim Crow” that the author claims as the cause of economic woes is simply wrong.
Another big reason is that Southern export markets dried up eg British textile mills found new sources of cotton or (eg Yorkshire) switched to woollens.
Yes, the way he glibly glides over the many issues of the Reconstruction era and declares everything to have been magically resolved by the arrival of the New Deal is particularly irritating.
Sounds like the author is just describing democracy.
This article is far far below the Unherd standard of respectable debate and analysis. It does however enable us to see all the comments (of whatever persuasion) which are, for the most part far more astute and wise than many of the articles.
There is hardly a variety of comments here.
Comments can be wise and instructive.
Yes, they can be but not with this lot. AJ mac where are you when we need you!!
Wow, talk about one-sided-ness! Once again, another liberal being liberal with his/her/they/etc insults to those who support Trump. Like our inept, unable, weak present president, all the leftists can do is throw woke and call anyone who differs from THEIR opinions (oh heaven forbid! It’s America, isn’t it?) Magans or other names…
Sticks and stones…
Trump isn’t a savior, just someone ‘quien sabe y tiene cojones’ to stand up for the rest of us, even if he isn’t always a diplomat, although I think he’s is trying to do better.
And I am NOT a republican, WAS a demoncrat until 2020 and became a loud, proud Independent(sorry, Nikki, you are NOT my choice).
As a new retiree, I know those woke would like to get rid of folks my age…good luck, Daddy just turned 94, and I’m planning to be around, and annoying, for a long, long time, God-Willing. GO Trump!!!
Oops, lol, I used that G-Word, too!!!
“Standing up for the rest of us”. You, not me. And not even you if truth be told.
The divide I see in America is between those who grow food, deliver it, fix the plumbing, builders, electricians (MAGA) and those who think milk and beef are magically created in their grocery store (democrat college educated.) Look at America maps in red and blue. Red dominates with blue cities as points.
No question who will win any work stoppage by the MAGA people. Blue city residents can raise their beef and pork on the fire escape.
Trump and Biden have much in common—an abiding desire to you use deficit spending to enrich themselves and their cronies. The revolution will be by the small group of us who still want virtuous, constitutional, republican government.
Despite himself, the author can’t seem to hide his disdain for Trump voters. He tries very hard. He attempts to sound a sympathetic tone. He makes various apologies for ‘those poor benighted people’ and what he sees as rhrir problematic attitudes. However, but like every other urban globalist liberal, he cannot seem to escape his own ideological background or open his mind enough to…I dunno, maybe respect their different beliefs and perspectives. His disdain for Trump voters bleeds forth in the condescending tone and globalist assumptions and thinks Trump voters are too stupid and uneducated to notice. They are not.
The people only turned to a carnival barker because he gave them the one thing the establishment didn’t… respect. He listened, sympathized, and gave them a voice, or at least got closer tjan anyone else and upset the establishment apple cart. There were many many people who voted for Trump for no other reason than to piss off Washington insiders.
This author is at least not completely clueless. He finally gets around to the real problem in the final paragraph. Trump should have prompted a very serious soul searching and a course correction. So should Sanders two almost victories on the other side. Instead of respecting and listening to the will of the people though, they seemed to ignore it. Some of the policies of the Biden administration suggest they actually did take some messages to heart but it isn’t enough. The dismissive attitude. The condescension. The blatant worship of wealth creation and efficiency at any cost. The accusations of racism and xenophobia. All of it needs to go and it needs to go quickly. If the elites refuse to treat the people as equals they will learn the lesson that the French aristocrats of the 1780s learned. It’s easy to take the riches of aristocrats when nobody is willing to listen to them, mansions burn as well as novels, and noble blood, wealth, and education do not confer immunity to bullets or blades. We are all equal in our mortality.
“But rather than consider their failures toward the American people, who continue to turn to a carnival barker for relief, the policy making elite have concluded that it is they who have been failed — by the people”.
Reminds me of the poem by Bertholt Brecht:
The Solution
UAW just endorsed Biden. And independents won’t vote for Trump, certainly if he is convicted in one of his innumerable court cases
The *leadership* of the United Auto Workers endorsed Biden, but if you polled rank and file I strongly suspect you’d get different results. Especially with Biden’s EV policies that would result in far fewer jobs for the UAW’s rank and file. Biden has a big problem with working class men.
Were the ‘woke’ vs ‘deplorables’ divide geographical, it would be easier to think about some form of secession. Or, more likely, a new form of radical federalism that let each side exercise its social norms. [Discussed in detail by Francis Buckley here: https://www.amazon.com/American-Secession-Looming-National-Breakup/dp/1641770805/ ]
Unfortunately, there are plenty of ‘Reds’ [how did that inversion of meaning ever get started?] in ‘Blue’ states, and vice versa. In an ideal world, there would be mass voluntary population transfers. In the world we live in, we’re more likely, should America descend into civil war, to see Yugoslav-style involuntary population transfers. They will certainly contain an ethnic component, but will be ‘political cleaning’, not ‘ethnic cleaning’.
Although preparing for this possibility would be good conservative prudence, the fact is that conservatives are just as prone to ‘normalcy bias’ [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias ] as everyone else, and so most of them will be caught by surprise if an national breakup begins to happen.
There are things we should be doing to get ready for this eventuality, but most of us aren’t doing them.
And what do you do with Classical Liberal Independents like me. Where do we report…
No, Lincoln was smatter and better than me so I will stick with his example and keep the country together as far as I am concerned…
Genuine secession, whether it succeeded or not, would be a monumental tragedy. But it may happen, despite your or my wishes. And … a ‘united’ United States that had become thoroughly controlled by the Left — using ‘lawfare’ to destroy patriotic/conservative organizations, as they’re now doing to VDARE [ https://vdare.com/articles/what-vdare-com-needs-now-is-a-miracle-peter-and-lydia-brimelow-on-nyag-letitia-james-lawfare ] — would also be a tragedy. We may have to choose between the lesser of two tragedies.
As for Lincoln … imagine an alternative history in which the South began to successfully spread slavery to the territories and was on course to become dominant in both the Senate and the House, with the eventual — achievable — goal of making slavery legal everywhere in the Union. What would Lincoln have done then?
And as a Classical Liberal — which I read as ‘almost a Libertarian’ — you will be interested in this:
https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/abolitionists-right-secession
An astute and insightful piece on the state of the USA as the presidential election approaches.
Kudos to Unherd for continuing to publish such cogent, clear-headed analyses in spite of the swivel-eyed ranting of the btl commentariat which they tend to provoke.
The Author is apparently blind to considering and respecting any views other than his own. The sneering tone used against Trump supporters (” “eg hate groups and far-Right instigators”) to describer folk with a different point of view tells us the Author is not very clever- but highly narrow of view.
Putin is looking at Europe and the USA and its obsession with Gay, Trans, Cancel Culture, and its destruction of tradition and history- and he is thinking my Western enemies will never be weaker.
Does the Kremlin have a major immigration problem ? Nope
Of course the Kremlin doesn’t have an immigration problem! Who on earth would want to migrate to a dump like Russia!
Yes, this is certainly the only group, the largest group, and the most influential group to have been weaponised by being ‘told’ that they are less valuable victims… /s
How has this patronising nonsense not died out yet?
The author wrote, “Today’s divide is also marked by the presence of resentment-filled (largely) white working-class men with few prospects in predominantly white rural areas, who have been told that something has been taken away from them, and that they are less valuable than other citizens.”
As an ostensible critic of the “disdainful” Democratic Party did he not see how fitting that description was of the Democratic base of black and Hispanic voters? To wit:
Today’s divide is also marked by the presence of resentment-filled (largely) black men and women with few prospects in predominantly urban areas, who have been told over and over that something has been taken away from them, and that they are seen as less valuable than other (white) citizens.
Why are whites always viewed as the antagonists to social equanimity by liberals? Has any other racial group in the history of the world ever surrendered their majority status so easily? Don’t they deserve praise from racial egalitarians?