Four years after the double electoral shock of first the Brexit referendum and then the election of Donald Trump as US president, little seems to have changed. You could even say: 29 years (!) After the first Black Sunday breakthrough of the then Vlaams Blok in Flanders – also in November, by the way – little seems to have changed. Once again, opinion polls hit the mark, again many voters of the populist or radical right only make themselves known well in the polling booth.
Trumpism, it is clear, remains a political factor.
Toch something has changed. The countless lies of the outgoing president have, of course, been criticized in the media, but for Trump’s potential electorate, there was a lot of attention compared to four years ago. Not an impoverished farmer in Wisconsin or worker in Michigan unless he was taken to the microphone. Overeating has peeled the soul of the so-called ‘losers of globalization’, as this group of short-skilled, impoverished workers is colloquially called.
It is believed that that group – the ‘deplorable‘by Hillary Clinton, so to speak – forms the evil foundation of the right-wing populist electorate. Their voice would be one of furious protest because the political elite – in Washington, but also in Brussels, Paris or Berlin – would have betrayed their interests on the altar of economic globalization.
The problem is: that analysis is wrong. Watch the exit polls from the presidential race. The only income bracket in which Trump outperforms Biden is the highest. Those who earn less, voted more often for Biden. Less skilled workers are equally divided between both candidates. Even four years ago, the theory of the ‘losers’ did not really apply, according to a large-scale survey by the Gallup polling agency. Trump voters then often had a short education, but also a relatively good job.
In the recent major victories of Vlaams Belang in Flanders – locally in 2018, nationally in 2019 – an attempt was also made to squeeze the right-wing radical voter into the loser frame. That too was difficult to reconcile with reality. In rural (West) Flanders, many middle class people also opted for the radical right. Their real economic ‘loss’ remains quite limited.
Broken pride
The myth of the ‘losers of globalization’ is a story that suits many progressives in particular. Because it can be used for your own agenda. After all, to meet the losers, it would help to pursue a more left-wing, more generous socio-economic policy. There is also a paternalistic side to the analysis. As if voters only vote populist because they don’t know any better.
But what if those voters know full well why they are voting the radical right? The profile of the Trump voter in the exit poll is not that of the impoverished wretch, but of the somewhat older, white, male, Christian conservative who more often lives in a smaller community. The loss he is experiencing is not so much economic. Rather, it is culturally identical. The anger is one of shattered national pride, from a nostalgia for a former, homogeneous country that never really existed. Classic politicians are accused of brushing those concerns under the rug. They think the same about ‘mainstream media’ or cultural trendsetters.
Politicians like Donald Trump tap into those emotions subtly and cunningly. When Trump fulminates against Chinese trade, the emphasis in his audience is not on ‘trade’ but on ‘Chinese’. With the same xenophobic undertone, he also attempted to repackage Covid-19 as’the China virus‘. In doing so, he misunderstood the seriousness of the health crisis. That may have cost him reelection.
This analysis is difficult because the identitarian fault line offers little room for rapprochement. Any conversation about it quickly becomes toxic. Because it must inevitably also be about fear or hatred of anything new and strange. About progress, but also about migration. And therefore also about racism. It will already be shouted that all voters of Trump or of the radical right will again be shaved into the same racist ridge here. However, that is not what it says.
But the elephant is in the room. A vast majority of Trump voters are averse to Black Lives Matter, believe that racism is not an issue and that black people should not whine about their rights, the exit polls show again. So you cannot say that the ethnic or cultural issue has no impact, or that it only plays a role in the extreme rough-working.
The Trump voters do not form a majority in the US, just as the VB members in Flanders or, say, the supporters of Le Pen in France or Wilders / Baudet in the Netherlands. But in all these areas the radical right is gradually becoming a structural political factor. The negative ‘away with us’ attitude towards Muslims, migrants or, say, the Sooty Pete, connects those voters much more than a low pension. So let’s call it that.
The question of how to deal with this is not so easy to answer. Talking to this type of voters is counterproductive, as the N-VA has found. For progressive parties, a choice arises: going against racism is the easy part. But what’s next? With the ‘woke’ fanfare in the lead, are you going to fight your own identitarian battles and leave this electorate aside? Or do you choose other priorities, on which the left can claim ownership? Both together are excluded.
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