Trump: Ratings and resentment

It is a measure of how divided the US has become that rarely in its history has one seen a president being the object of so much adulation among his supporters and of such intense dislike among his opponents.

The divisions were not provoked by Trump; they were already there as were many other problems which he exploited to come to power.

There is far too much focus on Trump's character and persona. But he is much more than his persona. The reality is Trump is not a single-issue phenomenon. As a phenomenon, he is at the centre of a complex set of issues that have been developing in the US and globally in recent decades.

They include a decline in the quality of democracy in advanced democracies, especially in America, and the excesses of capitalism and globalisation that had led to the rise of a globalist elite who cared more about their own wealth than about economic and social justice, or even about the national interest.

Democracy had come to be dominated by an unholy alliance between globalist-led capitalism, money, partisan media, politics, lobbies and special interests. It is a well-kept secret that other than the AIPAC the most successful lobby in the US Congress is the banking lobby. The magnitude of its impact was reflected in the horrific scale of the 2008 financial crisis.

The crisis was attributed to the banking deregulation passed by the US Congress during the Clinton years that helped bankers make billions at the expense of small homeowners who were given loans they did not qualify for, leading to massive foreclosures.

Democracy had become all about the pursuit of political power. This compromised democracy helped politicians get elected without doing much public service. Instead of listening to people and hearing about their grievances, leadership was busy fighting wars abroad. The wars, incited by electoral politics and the economic and class interests of the elite, and the influence of the military-industrial complex, cost trillions of dollars causing not only huge war casualties but also thousands of disabled war veterans who came to harbour intense revulsion against the elite.

By extension, the anti-elite sentiment eroded trust in the government, institutions and the educated class and its knowledge including that of medical sciences. That partly explained the anti-vaccine movement.

People felt that politicians and politics had failed them, a belief Trump exploited by offering himself as an alternative. It enhanced his image as a non-politician and by extension sunk Hillary’s who was successfully demonised by his supporters as part of the elite-based system.

Trump exploited not only the anti-elite sentiment but also public insecurities, prompted by the threat of terrorism that began with 9/11, as well as globalisation-led social discontent and income inequality affecting the lower classes. Not to mention their fear of potential instability and job losses from the flood of refugees, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, especially due to the virtually open borders in the south.

There has also been another factor. Class consciousness had reached the Western shores — first in Europe and then in the US where the white and the uneducated among the lower classes felt victimised and excluded at the hands of forces they did not understand prompting them to look for scapegoats. This caused xenophobia, especially Muslim phobia, inciting a sentiment of whites only at home and America first abroad.

And then there was the cultural shock to the traditional American values provoked by the Democrats with their shift to the left on social issues like abortion, gender equality and LGBTQ, and their talk of gun control.

A major contributor in fomenting all this negativity in much of America has been the new revolutionary media that has commercialised the dissemination of information. This media began decades ago with 24/7 cable TV but has since expanded exponentially with the arrival of the internet and social media progressively undermining the credibility of information.

Social media has personalised the spread of information, further degrading its authenticity. You could say anything on social media, and with most people, it would pass as truth or some form of it. On top of that, it would also spread like wildfire. The credibility of the information has come to depend not so much on fact-based evidence but on the influence, appeal or emotional hold of the source of the information — be it a person, a group or a cult.

The mainstream media, particularly print, has attempted to play a positive role — however limited — as a source of trustworthy news despite its commercial interests. However, its voice has been increasingly overshadowed by ratings-driven electronic media, especially highly politicised and propagandist outlets like Fox News.

Fox discovered that damaged democracy, in which the media itself had been complicit to a point, offered a great opportunity. The grievances and exclusions it had created were grist to the media. Fox developed the prototype news network that played on people’s anxieties, fears, grievances and insecurities. As society became polarised, grievances multiplied.

With a tenuous link to the truth and enormous emotional appeal, Fox News was a perfect network for political propaganda and demagoguery. Trump and Fox came to have a symbiotic relationship. Trump would not have been given a 24/7 platform by any respectable mainstream media, a platform he did not need anyway, first because of Twitter (now X) and now Truth Social.

Trump could hold his base in emotional bondage by telling them things that were plainly untrue and which the mainstream media would have neither believed nor allowed to be disseminated. The reality is that if there had been no Fox News and social media Trump would never have been elected. Whether as a businessman or a politician, Trump’s strength has been in controlling the message and holding the audience. And social media provided that.

It was not just economic anxieties — driven by global and domestic forces — or security threats from terrorism allegedly linked to the Muslim world that Trump successfully exploited. He also tapped into the cultural alienation of Americans, nostalgia for an idealised white identity, and a yearning for a strongman. These issues predated Trump; he did not create them. Instead, they provided him with 'dragons to slay' in his pursuit of power — one he ultimately wielded for his own benefit and that of other billionaires.

The super-rich have rallied behind Trump, united by their shared passion for small government — which essentially translates to minimal regulation, low taxes, and a weak rule of law. Their ultimate goal is unfettered freedom to accumulate wealth. Billionaires see Trump as the spearhead of an assault on institutions, watchdog agencies, and law enforcement.

While Trump’s primary motive is to erode accountability and the rule of law to solidify his authoritarian grip, other billionaires stand to benefit as well, gaining the freedom to amass wealth and engage in wrongdoing without fear of government oversight. This marks the return of America’s Gilded Age.

Trump has a solid base of half of the US, which he has captivated in exchange for his help to address their economic, cultural, ethnic and security-related grievances. They want him to fight the big government, the Democrats, ‘the radical left’, the so-called 'radical Islam', refugees, immigrants and foreign powers who are taking advantage of the US.

That is why Trump appears to be on a warpath every day, operating on so many fronts. If he fails to fix the economy, his base will still support him for any number of other reasons.

Essentially, there is a method in what Trump is doing. As a media and marketing genius, he will continue to play the media and control the message to never appear to have failed. This will not be true.

But for his base, anything Trump says is true by definition. How does it affect the future of America? Too early to tell but the signs are not good.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer's own and don't necessarily reflect Geo.tv's editorial policy.

The writer, a former ambassador, is adjunct professor at Georgetown University and visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore.

Originally published in The News