Saturday, November 11, 2017

The Disease Behind The Anxiety


This week marked the anniversary of Donald Trump's election. The British recently passed the first anniversary of Brexit. Jonathan Freedland writes that, on both sides of the Atlantic, progressives are flummoxed:

While American progressives lament their fellow citizens’ decision to make Donald Trump president a year ago this week, their British counterparts have spent the same period gnashing their teeth over Brexit. When the two groups meet, they exchange apologies: “Don’t blame me,” they tell each other, “I voted the other way.”

They are appalled by the way things turned out and they are mystified why the supporters of both phenomena have not changed their minds:

The US president’s poll ratings are awful, lower than for any predecessor ever at this stage. But his base remains intact: 35% or so are resolutely sticking with him no matter what. Nearly all those who voted for him a year ago tell pollsters they would vote for him again. In the same way, support for leave has barely dipped since the EU referendum. True, for the third month in a row those who think the leave decision was wrong narrowly outnumber those who think it was right. But still, support for Brexit remains firm.

Both camps claim that economic anxiety is at the root of what happened. But Freedland argues that the cause runs much deeper than that:

A revealing report in Politico this week talked to the voters who flocked to Trump a year ago. Most agreed that he’d fulfilled none of his promises – but they didn’t care. He wasn’t going to reopen the mines, bring back the old factory jobs or address the opioid crisis killing their young – they could see that now. Nevertheless, they were with him 100%. Why? As Politico reported: “His supporters here, it turns out, are energised by his bombast and his animus more than any actual accomplishments.”
They like the fact that he is constantly lashing out at the people they hate: the elites, the liberal media and, above all, people of colour. They understand what Trump was getting at when he went after those black players in the NFL who refused to stand for the national anthem. One Trump-loving couple said they had always believed NFL stood for “Niggers for Life”.

And, in Britain, immigration -- which many people take to mean the admission of people whose skin colour and whose customs are not like ours -- fuels the fires of British racism:

Here too, though, economic anxiety is not the whole story. Identity, immigration, loss, nostalgia, a sense of reduced status, and alienation from the country taking shape around them – all these played their part as well.

It will take more than an improved economy to cure the disease which infects both nations.

Image: The BBC

6 comments:

Lorne said...

As we can see under Trump, Owen, demagoguery works its usual 'magic.' Some never tire of the old tricks and illusions.

Owen Gray said...

There are always those who know how to appeal to our basest instincts, Lorne. We have produced quite a few of them recently.

Anonymous said...

You're right. As things are currently structured, almost all improvements in the economy will go to 0.1% of the population.

The disease is neoliberalism and one of its main symptoms is growing income inequality. Empirical data show that social problems are worse in societies with bigger income differences. These include physical and mental illness, violence, low education scores, lower levels of trust and weaker community life, poorer child well-being, more drug abuse, lower social mobility and higher rates of imprisonment and teenage births. The low levels of trust lead directly to the sort of political polarization Freedland talks about.

The disease cure is well-known and was proven effective in the mid-20th century. It requires confiscatory marginal tax rates (over 80%) on high incomes, estate taxes to prevent the creation of family dynasties, the separation of commercial and investment banking, and the breakup of monopolies and oligopolies among other measures.

Unfortunately, we're likely beyond the point where the disease is curable without a major calamity such as a world war.

Cap

Owen Gray said...

We know what the disease is, Cap. And we know the cure. But we refuse to learn from history.

Steve said...

a big part of the disease is the lack of a cure offered by the alternatives

Owen Gray said...

I agree that things are complicated, Steve. You're never going to be able to put an an end to racism. But not trying to do something is admitting defeat.