Donald Trump’s recent electoral victory represents a triumph of common people over their political elites. Trump received his highest percentage of support from among non-college educated men and women. In other words, the working class.By contrast, Kamala Harris received majority support from college educated men and women. There is a clear class difference between the support received by each candidate.This political awakening among members of the working class is commonly called “populism.” It was already identified as a movement associated with Donald Trump in the 2016 election. As a result, in 2018 the topic of Toronto’s respected Munk Debates was “The Rise of Populism” pitting the well-known writer David Frum (who is originally from Canada,) against Stephen K. Bannon. Bannon had played a key role in Trump’s 2016 election campaign and was briefly a top official in his administration.In 2019 the debate was subsequently published in book form as The Rise of Populism: The Munk Debates.Bannon’s contribution to this slim volume provides a brief but authoritative explanation of the populist phenomenon. He sums up the issue succinctly: “this is about the little guy versus the elites.”Every year, the World Economic Forum holds its meetings in Davos, Switzerland. The WEF is essentially comprised of the World’s political and economic elites. The purpose of the meetings is to discuss important global issues, with the hope that the discussions will have an impact on subsequent government policy.It is primarily these people that Bannon sees as the populists’ opponents. He refers to them as the “Party of Davos” who he contrasts with the “deplorables,” that is, the regular people Hillary Clinton dismissed as being beneath her. The Party of Davos consists of “the scientific, managerial, engineering, financial, cultural elite who run the world.” They “have left a financial wasteland, and have decoupled from the middle class and the working class throughout the world.”.In contrast to the interests of that international elite, the populists favour regular working people. As Bannon summarizes, “The Trump movement has three things: economic nationalism, an ‘America First’ national security policy, and deconstruction of the administrative state.”Economic nationalism is key for the welfare of most citizens. And as this debate took place in 2018, President Trump’s economic policies were benefiting large segments of the American population.Bannon pointed out that “Trump’s economic nationalism doesn’t care about your race, your religion, your ethnicity, your colour — It doesn’t matter your gender, your sexual preference. Trump’s economic nationalism only cares if you’re a citizen. Look at the results: lowest black unemployment in history; lowest Hispanic unemployment in thirty years; wages rising across the board; manufacturing jobs coming back.”It was this kind of economic emphasis that put Trump in the White House in 2016. He campaigned on policies that would benefit the average citizen over the political and economic elites.In Bannon’s view, that’s why Trump received so much middle class and working class support: It was because “he talked about trade. He talked about this radical idea of free trade — particularly when you’re going against a totalitarian mercantilist society like China. He talked about the deindustrialization of our country; he talked about where people’s lives are; he talked about what mattered. That’s why he won. That’s why he won the Republican primary, and that’s why he beat Hillary Clinton. Our whole thing was to compare and contrast. You, Trump, are the tribune of the people, and she is the guardian of a corrupt and incompetent elite — a permanent political class.”Of course, the populists are frequently labelled with nasty terms. Sometimes it seems they are called every name in the book. As recently as last month, U.S. General John Kelly falsely alleged that Trump was a fascist and Vice President Harris publicly agreed.But this is all complete nonsense, to put it politely.Bannon sets the record straight: “We’re actually anti-fascist. Fascism worships the state and wants state capitalism to merge with the overweening state. We want to break that up. One of the basic tenets of this is that companies are too big and too powerful: the tech companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the media companies. This consolidation has made them too powerful with a compliant government, and that’s where crony capitalism comes from, and that’s where corruption comes from.”In reality, then, Trump and his people are the true anti-fascists.The Party of Davos has suffered a major political setback as a result of Trump’s recent election. The American working class and middle class can now expect their interests to be put ahead of the global elites. The challenges faced by President Trump will be huge, but there is still good reason to be optimistic for the future.
