Donald Trump and the Future of the Left

Recent events in America have shocked the world. The inauguration last week of Donald Trump was a significant in world history: world politics has been turned upside-down and people are looking for answers. Yet for the Left this also presents an opportunity to highlight an alternative to the current system. The election of a sexist, and some would say, racist businessman has left many people thinking - How? Why? Yet the immediate post-election analyses was rather timid and poor. The general sociological tone, the rush to check the educational standards in states that voted Trump. Sure these do say Something: but not as much as people want. Not everyone who voted Republican endorsed his position. Instead he gained support from all across the diverse makeup of America. So what’s going on? This did not happen over night, one way to view this is as a result of the financial crises of 2008, in which, the role of the market within the public sphere played along with the loss of occupational identity meant that you no longer have an unionised society. Instead you have individuals looking for an alternative identity in the face of the emergence of post-industrial society. Here Trump appeared to offer a new sense of collective identity – a patriotism founded on the idea of belonging. Yet this notion was false because it substituted practical cohesion (workmates) for a temperamental form of cohesion (the man on the TV can lead us). This shift was not caused by anyone, but the Left’s failure to respond to it did hamper their chances at winning the election. Furthermore, one way to see the 2016 American Election is through the term the ‘politics of fear’ a point which encapsulates both the similarities and differences of the two candidates. For Trump, fear was central to why he won, with his campaign targeted fears over migration, Islam and economic insecurity. These anxieties were used by him to win over the majority. With Clinton, fear played a more complicated role. Back in 07-8 Obama drew on the idea of hope to persuade American people to vote for him, offering a liberal vision of America. For Clinton, fear was one based on that the progressive dream of liberal America was in crises. Thus the arrogance of her campaign was that the idea that the fear of Trump would be enough to win. However uniting Clinton and Trump’s two campaigns was the way the fear of the future reflected an agreement that the western model of politics was in crises. Whilst attempts have been made to link between Brexit and the rise of Trump, arguments concerning the breakdown of normal politics do not quite capture the issue at hand. An alternative explanation for both events, but particular Trump’s victory, lies in the fundamental crises occurring within liberalism itself. This crises concerns the very way politics and wider social relations are conducted, and how they appear to be failing to meet contemporary expectation of what is possible. What is emerging out of this is a post-liberal account of civil society, in which it’s very structures and rules are being called into question. An example of this is the call to make Nigel Farage UK Ambassador to America. Overlooking the immediate concerns raised so far, the idea calls into question the nature of interstate diplomacy, replacing institutional cooperation with personal ties, undermining the very idea of the neutrality of the structures of government. The problem is that liberalism has no response to this. If it go along with the Ambassador Farage idea, it will undermine the functioning of the liberal democratic state: if not it will appear to reject the apparent democratic will of the people. Compounding this crises of ‘liberal v democracy’ is the liberal appeal to ideas of ’engagement’ and ‘grassroots’ politics as a panacea for this existential crises. So how should the left respond? In the U.K. current ideas for creating a post-liberal left in the British Labour Party have come in the form of ‘Blue Labour’, and looked to the right and ’borrowed’ the rhetoric of national identity and patriotism. So far the results have been pretty poor at best, with members sounding like UKIP ideologues. Yes the Left does need to face up to the realities of industrial decline and the issue of job insecurity, but not by rejecting tolerance and fairness (Two ideas which liberalism has been overwhelmingly successful in articulating). In doing so, the Left have to realise there is already an alternative to the current argument for post-liberalism, it’s called social democracy – and it is highly successful. By fully embracing the social democratic agenda of public services, tolerance and community, the left in the UK and US can meet the genuine concerns over free market globalisation, without resorting to exploiting the vicious politics of immigration. It can create a far more cohesive society, defending and promoting real solidarity through strengthening trade union cooperation with private enterprise. It can acutely engage with people by treating them not just as economic agent, but as social actors. In 2016, post-liberalism is here to stay, the left’s answer must be to accept and embrace the new feature of western politics and use it to underline the values of social democracy.