We could see Donald Trump in the White House—again
We’ve reached a point where a convicted felon, a conspiracist, a sexual predator, a fraudulent billionaire and a far right figurehead might well win a second presidential term. How have we got here? People are suffering and they’re desperate for things to get better.
With a lot of the left lining up behind Joe Biden and his business as usual politics, people turn to Trump as an alternative. But what is Trump’s appeal? A key tool in his armoury is playing hugely into nostalgia. His slogan—“Make America Great Again”—resonates with many who feel like the so-called “American Dream” has died.
But this dream was contradictory. It was a time of jobs and economic expansion, yet it was a nightmare for black people, women and LGBT+ people. Trump taps into those contradictions. He whips up racism into this nostalgia, creating a longing for a time when migration was lower and making people believe that only he can reverse the United States’s decline.
In turn, he harnesses a real feeling of resentment, of being left behind, forgotten and ridiculed. But he points the finger at migrants and “culture war” flashpoints like LGBT+ rights and the US’s racist history. And he creates a spectacle, with his electric mass rallies providing a feeling of belonging.
Annon, a retiree living in Portland, Oregon, spoke about the content of Trump’s vote. He told Socialist Worker, “I think a lot of his support is small business owners struggling under the system who feel squeezed, who feel disadvantaged and that the system’s unfair.”
Eric, a socialist activist in New York, agreed. “More and more CEOs are seeing that Trump can pull small business owners together,” he said. “Whether they agree with the anti-migrant stuff that Trump has activated, the rich see it can be useful, supporting him for his deregulation and decrease of taxes. But Trump does capture some poor and minorities that don’t see a credible alternative.
“That’s what gives him a winning coalition come the election.” Mike, a teacher in Michigan, added, “Trump appeals to believers in the American Dream who think capitalism can work for them if you work your way up. “He has a solid base, and with low voter turnout and lack of enthusiasm you can win an election with a third of the population.”
Millions of Americans are being left behind. This is despite Biden’s pronouncements like, “Our economy is literally the envy of the world.” Yet the US economy is one where many Americans are unhappy and anxious about the explosion of living costs in recent years.
Government assistance has faded, demand for foodbanks has surged, food insecurity sky-rocketed and homelessness is at a record high. Just a look at surveys of Americans backs up a picture of hardship. The number of Americans who have difficulty paying for basic household expenses has increased from 32 percent in 2020 to 39 percent in 2024.
That’s now 130 million people out of the total US population of 330 million. Of all US adults, 60 percent have seen their disposable income decline in the last year. And 58 percent live pay cheque to pay cheque. In comparison, 31 percent of British people say they do.
Annon said, “Inflation isn’t going up as fast as it was, but the prices aren’t coming down. When I go to a store I notice the prices are higher than a few years ago. Life isn’t getting easier. People don’t feel like they’ve benefited from Biden. It’s a little disturbing but under Trump it seemed to be getting better.” And there are huge long standing structural costs to US life that cause significant problems for working people.
Take healthcare. The absence of any systematic reform to the dysfunctional US healthcare system means that a crucial essential remains a huge expense for many Americans. Just over half of US adults say it’s hard to afford healthcare, with nearly two in five saying they put off or skipped treatment entirely because of cost. People without health insurance are often faced with a choice between bankruptcy and death.
The number of people struggling for food is soaring, reaching record highs in 2024. Charities point to high food prices, the gradual disappearance of pandemic-era aid and unaffordable housing. Nearly 44 million people are living in households where they struggle to get the food they need because they lack money and resources.
That includes 13 million children, the last report by the US Department of Agriculture found. And record levels of homelessness unsurprisingly come alongside high eviction rates and a crisis in affordable housing. The number of renters who spend more than 30 percent of income on rent and utilities was 22.4 million in 2022, another all-time high.
When it comes to childcare, parents are forking out tens of thousands of dollars a year. There’s poor quality jobs, weak trade unions, giant national and multinational dominating industries. Technological change and outsourcing has eroded many middle-income jobs, worsening inequality.
Mike said, “Biden has brought down inflation and grown the economy. “But these changes aren’t seen by the working class who are objectively worse off with pay not keeping up with inflation.” Eric echoed this, “People can’t afford the same things as when Biden’s presidency started.”
In response to hardship, people are ramping up credit card debt with more than a third of Americans saying they have more credit card debt than in emergency savings. In the last three months of 2023, credit card debt reached a 22 year high of over £1 trillion.
Currently 21 million Americans are behind on utility bill payments and 25 million are behind on credit card or personal loan payments. These are the highest numbers since the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Inequality has escalated out of control in the US since politicians introduced neoliberal policies in the 1980s.
The income of CEOs in the largest US firm rose by 1,460 percent between 1978 and 2021. Meanwhile the average worker’s pay grew during the same period by only 18.1 percent. To give a sense of the scale, as of 2021, the average CEO got 399 times more than the average worker.
The reality is that the US economy isn’t working for ordinary people.
The Democrats aren’t offering any meaningful solutions, instead they paper over the cracks. So it’s not surprising that people look to Trump as someone who falsely appears as “different”. Biden’s presidency has been marked by the state having a prominent role in directing investment in the form of tax incentives, direct subsidies and tariffs to encourage production.
But ultimately Biden’s steering of the economy has operated within a narrow groove of what’s acceptable to the capitalist class. Biden has passed bills like the American Rescue Plan in 2021, which sent out £1,100 in stimulus cheques to most Americans. It also expanded unemployment insurance, child credit and rental assistance. But it was temporary—a pop-up safety net—with provisions expiring at the end of the pandemic and leaving the deep inequalities unchanged.
Then there was the Infrastructure of Jobs Act in 2021 that allocated £1 trillion for transportation and infrastructure projects. After that was Biden’s flagship Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which included major investments in green energy, including £300 billion in climate spending. But most of it was in tax credits and subsidies to big businesses to incentivise private investment in clean energy and green manufacturing.
As Mike argued, “Biden’s economic policy was corporate handouts— not direct investment but what essentially amounted to tax breaks for corporations to boost their profits.” The Biden administration is one that lavishes spending on favoured sectors of business but fails to move the needle in the interests of the working class. This is due to its policies being aimed at shoring up the stability of US capitalism and towards the interests of the bosses and the rich. A central motivation of Biden’s policies is the US’s increasing imperialist rivalry with China.
The US state is trying to take a more active role in bankrolling its capitalists to compete. Eric explained, “Working people don’t feel Biden’s policies. They hear about big sums of money. But in truth a lot of money just went to corporations.
“And Biden poses his policies as protecting US business against Chinese business, which makes working people feel like his policies aren’t made for them.” There’s huge class anger in US society. But Biden can’t point it towards the real enemy, the capitalist class, as this is who he represents.
Trump is succeeding in part because the left is failing. It’s lining up behind the centrist Democrats. When Bernie Sanders and left Democrats such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez back Biden, it helps Trump to falsely pose as the “anti-establishment” force.
Eric noted, “Sanders said Biden is one of the most progressive candidates we’ve seen with a record of real accomplishment. AOC has become one of Biden’s most effective supporters in saying we have to go along with him. But it doesn’t line up with what people experience. This ties figures of the left to the failed Democratic Party. It’s disastrous because Biden is a personification of the status quo.
“Despite Trump’s contradictions, he appears to push something different. The more the left defends Biden the more it opens up channels to the right.” Eric said that “Biden adopted all of Trump’s policies when it came to border migration. In practice, he’s been as bad as Trump on migration.”
Mike added, “If there was a clearer sense of Democrats offering an alternative to the status quo, we wouldn’t be here. They never appeal to the working class on class politics but instead on issues of gender or race.
“It’s part of a lack of class politics by Democrats that allow it to be filled by people like Trump. People are angry. There’s a lot to be angry about.” Mike is clear that Trump is deflecting anger onto migrants and dividing the working class. Anyone who came out with class anger could win, but Biden is dampening down on that and the left is helping him too,” he explained.
The left should be using the Palestine movement, the Black Lives Movement, the abortion rights movement and opposition under Trump to build a political force outside of the Democrats. It shouldn’t conform to its limited politics. Failing to provide a credible alternative that channels anger towards the bosses and the rich allows Trump to utilise workers’ disillusionment for himself.
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