A landslide victory for Donald Trump and the Republican Party on Tuesday night will lead to major changes in important policy areas, from immigration to Ukraine. However, the significance of the election goes beyond these specific topics and represents a decisive rejection of liberalism by American voters, as well as the specific way in which the notion of a "free society" has developed since the 1980s.
When Trump was first elected in 2016, it was easy to think that the event was an exception. Then he ran against a weak opponent who did not take him seriously, and in any case, Trump did not win a majority of the national vote. When Joe Biden won the White House four years later, it seemed as if things were back to normal after a disastrous presidency.
After Tuesday's vote, it now appears that Biden's presidency was an anomaly and that Trump is ushering in a new era in American politics, and perhaps for the world as a whole. Americans voted fully aware of who Trump is and what he represents. Not only did he win a majority of the popular vote and is projected to take every swing state, but Republicans have retaken the Senate and are likely to hold the House. Given their existing dominance of the Supreme Court, they are now well on their way to controlling all major branches of government.
But what is behind this new phase of American history?
Classical liberalism is a doctrine based on respect for the equal dignity of individuals through the rule of law that protects their rights and through constitutional mechanisms that limit the power of the state to interfere with those rights. However, over the past half century, this basic impulse has undergone two major deformations. The first was the rise of "neoliberalism," an economic doctrine that glorified markets and reduced the ability of governments to protect those affected by economic change. The world, on average, became much richer, while the working class lost jobs and opportunities. Power has shifted away from the places that were the carriers of the industrial revolution, shifting towards Asia and other parts of the developing world.
Another deformation was the rise of identity politics, or what some call "woke liberalism," in which progressive concern for the working class was replaced by the targeted protection of a narrower set of marginalized groups: racial minorities, immigrants, sexual minorities, and the like. State power was increasingly used not in the service of impartial justice, but to promote specific social goals for those groups.
Meanwhile, labor markets have adapted to the information economy. In a world where most workers sat behind computers instead of lifting heavy objects in factories, women gained a more equal footing. This changed power relations within families and led to a perception of constant celebration of women's achievements.
The rise of these distorted understandings of liberalism prompted a major shift in the social basis of political power. The working class felt that left-wing political parties no longer defended their interests and began to vote for right-wing parties. Thus, the Democrats in the US lost touch with their working class base and became a party dominated by educated urban professionals. The working class turned to the Republicans. In Europe, Communist Party voters in France and Italy switched sides to Marine Le Pen and Giorgio Meloni.
All of these groups were unhappy with a free trade system that decimated their livelihoods even as it created a new class of super-rich, and they were also unhappy with progressive parties that seemed to care more about foreigners and the environment than their own plight.
Class affiliation is more important than race and ethnicity
These major sociological changes were also reflected in the election patterns on Tuesday. The Republican victory was based on the white working-class vote, but Trump managed to attract significantly more African-American and Hispanic working-class voters compared to the 2020 election. This is especially true for men in these groups. For them, class was more important than race or ethnicity. There is no particular reason why, for example, a working-class Latino would be particularly attracted to "wolf liberalism" that supports recently arrived illegal immigrants and focuses on the interests of women.
It's also clear that the vast majority of working-class voters simply weren't interested in the threat to the liberal order, both at home and abroad, that Donald Trump specifically represents.
Donald Trump not only wants to undo neoliberalism and "wolf liberalism," but also poses a serious threat to classical liberalism. This threat is visible in many policies. Trump's new presidential term will not in the least resemble his first term. The real question at this point is not the malignity of his intentions, but his ability to carry out his threats. Many voters simply do not take his words seriously, while mainstream Republicans argue that America's system of checks and balances will prevent him from doing his worst. That's a mistake: His intentions should be taken very seriously.
Trump is a self-proclaimed protectionist, who claims that "tariffs" is the most beautiful word in the English language. He proposed tariffs of 10 or 20 percent on all goods manufactured abroad, whether by allies or enemies, and did not require the consent of Congress.
As many economists have pointed out, this level of protectionism will have extremely negative consequences for inflation, productivity and employment. It will seriously disrupt supply chains, prompting domestic manufacturers to seek exemptions from these high levies. This, in turn, opens up space for high levels of corruption and favoritism, as companies rush to win the favor of the president. Tariffs at this level also provoke massive countermeasures from other countries, leading to a situation where trade (and therefore income) collapses. Perhaps Trump will back down in the face of this, but he could also react like former Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, falsifying data from a statistical agency to hide bad news.
Many voters simply do not take his words seriously, while mainstream Republicans argue that America's system of checks and balances will prevent him from doing his worst. That's a mistake: His intentions should be taken very seriously
On immigration, Trump no longer wants to just close the border. He wants to deport as many as 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country. Administratively, this is a huge task that requires years of investment in the infrastructure needed to carry it out - detention centers, immigration enforcement agents, courts and other resources.
Such a policy would have devastating consequences for numerous industries that rely on immigrant labor, especially construction and agriculture. It would also be monumentally morally challenging, as parents would be separated from their citizen children, setting the stage for civil strife, since many of the illegal immigrants live in "blue" states that will do everything they can to prevent Trump from implement this policy.
As for the rule of law, Trump has been focused throughout this campaign solely on avenging the wrongs he believes he has suffered from his critics. He has vowed to use the justice system to deal with everyone from Liz Cheney and Joe Biden to former US Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley and Barack Obama. He wants to silence media critics by revoking their licenses or imposing fines.
It is uncertain whether Trump will have the power to do any of this. The judicial system was one of the most resistant obstacles to his excesses during his first term. However, Republicans have consistently worked to inject sympathetic judges into the system, such as Judge Eileen Cannon in Florida, who dismissed a powerful class-action lawsuit against him.
Ukraine is by far the biggest loser
Some of the most important changes will occur in foreign policy and in the nature of the international order. Ukraine is by far the biggest loser. Its military resistance to Russia was weakening even before the election, and Trump can force it to compromise on Russia's terms by withholding weapons, as the Republican House of Representatives did for six months last winter. Trump has privately threatened to withdraw from NATO, but even if he doesn't, he could seriously weaken the alliance by violating its Article 5 mutual defense guarantee. There are no European leaders who can replace America as the leader of the Alliance, so its future ability to stand up to Russia and China seriously questioned. On the contrary, Trump's victory will inspire other European populists, such as the Alternative for Germany and the National Assembly in France.
US allies and friends in East Asia are in no better position. Although Trump has often criticized China, he also greatly admires Xi Jinping for his strong-willed qualities, and may be willing to strike a deal with him on Taiwan. Trump seems innately opposed to the use of military force and susceptible to manipulation, but one exception might be the Middle East, where he is likely to wholeheartedly support Benjamin Netanyahu's wars against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
There are strong reasons to believe that Trump will be much more effective in pursuing this agenda than he was during his first term. He and the Republicans realized that implementing policy was entirely a matter of personnel. When he was first elected in 2016, he did not come to power surrounded by a team of policy advisers, but instead had to rely on the Republican establishment.
There are no European leaders who can replace America as the leader of NATO, so its future ability to stand up to Russia and China is seriously questioned
In many cases, they blocked, rejected or slowed down his orders. At the end of his term, he issued an executive order creating a new “Schedule F” that would strip job protections from all federal workers and allow him to fire any bureaucrat he wanted. Reviving Schedule F is at the heart of plans for Trump's second term, and conservatives have been diligently compiling lists of potential officials whose main qualification is personal loyalty to Trump. Because of this, he is more likely to carry out his plans this time.
Critics, including Kamala Harris, accused Trump of being a fascist before the election. It was wrong in the sense that he did not intend to establish a totalitarian regime in the US. Instead, there would be a gradual decay of liberal institutions, similar to what happened in Hungary after Viktor Orbán's return to power in 2010.
This decay has already begun, and Trump has done significant damage. It deepened the already great divisions in society and turned the US from a high-trust society to a low-trust society. He demonized the government and weakened the belief that it represented the collective interests of Americans. He poisoned political rhetoric and gave permission for open expressions of bigotry and misogyny. And he convinced most Republicans that his predecessor was an illegitimate president who stole the 2020 election.
The scope of the Republican victory, which stretches from the presidency to the Senate and possibly the House of Representatives, will be interpreted as a strong political mandate that confirms these ideas and allows Trump to act as he wishes. We can only hope that some of the remaining institutional safeguards will remain in place when he takes over. However, things may have to get a lot worse before they get better.
The article was published in the "Financial Times"
Prepared by: A.Š., NB
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