The Problem Bigger Than Trump

I’veargued for awhile in articles and books that the problem we face isn’t Trump. The problem and threat to our freedoms is the deeper, older movement that currently takes Trump as its figurehead.

The election result demonstrates that. If Trump was the problem, then the incessant mention of his many failings and absurdities would have led to a decline in his support. Trump is pathetic, delusional, and corrupt, and those traits would eliminate support for a leader, but Trump isn’t a leader. Trump is a figurehead. Nothing said about Trump changes the movement because the movement is not about Trump.

Easier said than done, but the doing of it is necessary. We have to show people the alternative.

Trump is the current focal point and spokesman of the right-wing American nationalist movement. There’s nothing new about Trump or in anything he’s ever said (well, except that “grab ‘em by the pussy” line). Trump’s divisive rhetoric rehashes the anti-immigrant and faux moral outrage propaganda that’s dominated American politics since the nation’s founding.

All right-wing movements seek to restore traditional power structures that restrict power to a small group, creating a two-tiered society of haves and have-nots. American nationalism’s right-wing ideology has two main components. One is the idea that America is exceptional and superior to other countries. The other is the idea that America’s exceptionalism can be maintained only by a two-tiered society concentrating power in white male Protestants; thus, giving power to nonwhite male Protestants corrupts the purity of America. When you understand these components of the American right wing’s ideology, everything they say and do makes more sense.

Trump didn’t invent American nationalism… Attacking Trump leaves America’s underlying right wing unscathed. Instead, address the causes. Ask why some Americans want a two-tiered society and why they think that makes America exceptional. Ask why those Americans want to keep power away from whole classes of other Americans.

Asking those questions gets to the core of the problem. Doing so will reveal why some Americans want Trump as their figurehead, why they don’t care about his crimes and boorish behavior, and why they believe his lies rather than the truth about him. They support Trump because he says he hates the same people they hate, and they believe he will relegate those people to being the have-nots in America’s two-tiered society…

Defending freedom andequality for all Americans requires that we oppose the ideology of the American right wing. The Democratic Party’s strategy of attacking Trump and reaching out to moderate Republicans didn’t work, as if it ever could have. A better strategy is getting back to basics and dealing with people and their need for meaning.

We should talk about people voting against their own self-interest when they vote for right-wing politicians. But instead of talking down to them as being ignorant, we need to show how they can find meaning in the other America.

MAGA people support Trump because he says he hates the same people they hate. Other people will side with the right-wing agenda because they find something in it with which they can identify. We can’t expect to talk with or affect the MAGA followers, but we can offer the rest of the country an alternative to the American right wing…

Politics is about power, and the American right wing wants the America that concentrates power into a two-tiered society favoring one group over others. The wealthy, who benefit the most from that America, sell their right-wing agenda by offering people a sense of meaning even though they aren’t tangibly benefiting from the right-wing agenda.

A smarter opposition to the right wing is to offer people the alternative of the America of opportunity and freedom. Not just talk about that other America, build it, show to people that we’re serious by doing it. Easier said than done, but the doing of it is necessary. We have to show people the alternative. We should talk about the Project 2025 agenda of an America that concentrates power in the rich elites. We also need to talk about the other America that circulates power among the people.

We should talk about people voting against their own self-interest when they vote for right-wing politicians. But instead of talking down to them as being ignorant, we need to show how they can find meaning in the other America. When Project 2025 starts screwing over people, we need to have a better alternative agenda ready for them. It won’t help to tell them we told them so. If we remain tepid, or worse, hostile, they will stick with the right wing.

We need to solve a problem much deeper than Trump. We need to stand against that larger American right-wing agenda, but more importantly, work to help everyone else.

(Writer is a professor of philosophy at Elmhurst University, Illinois, US; https://www.commondreams.org/)