The Way Forward

Last edited Thu Jan 23, 2025, 01:14 PM - Edit history (1)

An awful lot of people don’t like either party.

Prior to 2016, I remember people making jokes about America being “under the Bush and Clinton dynasties.” That was when it seemed likely that Hillary would be facing Jeb! in the 2016 presidential election.

Well, Republican voters rebelled against their Establishment in the primaries by supporting Trump, who openly mocked the Bushes and talked about how stupid and horrible Dubya’s Presidency was—and a lot of Republican voters absolutely loved him for it. That and the fact that he was “not a politician”, at least not in the conventional sense. In this regard Trump’s complete lack of prior experience in government at any level was an asset.

After all, Republicans love nominating businessmen, like Dubya or Romney, and they love a celebrity, like Reagan. Trump is both businessman and celebrity, and he’s not afraid to be a contemptuous asshole to the people who Republicans hate. He’s a classic “populist” in that way.

Moreover, the seeming contradiction of a billionaire trust funder having the support of many working class voters isn’t so mysterious when you consider how this is America, the land of business hucksters and get-rich quick schemes and the Prosperity Gospel, etc. And the Trump family history in America—from Frederich and Elizabeth Christ Trump to Fred and then Donald—has demonstrated just how successful that kind of vulgar, predatory capitalism (buying up a lot of real estate, licensing the family name to be used by other developers, reality television, and of course, cheating the government out of untold amounts in tax revenue) can be in this country. Support Trump, and maybe, just maybe, you too will be very rich.

But that works for Trump and the Republican Party. Democrats are different. So while Bernie’s form of principled left-wing populism is popular among a significant chunk of the Democratic base, it clearly isn’t the level of support that can win the party’s nomination for president, at least if 2016 and 2020 are any guide. We’ll see if someone else (who’d have to be considerably younger than the octogenarian Sanders) will take up his baton and actually win the nomination in 2028.