You don’t have to agree with him! You don’t even have to like him! He is your personal Molotov cocktail to throw right into the center of the bastards who did this to you!
[US film-maker, Michael Moore, predicting a Trump victory, characterises the mood in the economically devastated Mid West rust-belt States.]
It should have been in the bag. It was to have been a defining election: one where grumpy, bigoted Whites from Hicksville were to be defeated by a hugely diverse group of voters – Blacks and Hispanics linking arms with White liberals and other groups to secure the fabled outcome of a coalition of minorities making a majority. The last days of the campaign were awash with stories of record numbers of (particularly Hispanic) voters forming endless queues to vote early. In 2012, some 32.3 million votes had already been cast before polling day itself; in 2016 the comparable figure was 47.0 million. The Democrat election machine was said to have beaten the Republicans to a frazzle among these early voters.
All turned to dust. Hicksville prevailed, delivering a Republican President, Senate and House of Representatives. Crucial current and pending vacancies on the Supreme Court will now be filled with conservatives not liberals, which will have profound consequences in the United States for at least two decades.
If one accepted only half of the accusations made against Donald Trump, how on earth did he win? Despite Lady Gaga’s pivotal endorsement, Hillary Clinton was viewed by many as a deeply flawed presidential candidate. After years of watching their local industries close and jobs shifted overseas, with devastating consequences for their communities, people saw her as an advocate for even more free trade and globalization. She was the total personification of the political establishment that many felt had failed them miserably. Feed into all that the fact that she raised twice as much money for her campaign than Donald Trump raised for his, and that much of it came from hedge funders and corporations, and you create a poisonous cocktail for an electorate that was very angry. Trump triumphed as an outsider. He not only took on the Democrat establishment but the Republican one as well.
Votes are still being counted for the 2016 election but already Mr. Trump’s numbers are greater than Mitt Romney’s in 2012 and certain to be greater than George Bush’s in 2004; that Mrs. Clinton’s vote is likely to be smaller than Mr. Obama’s in 2012 but will still be greater than Mr. Trump’s; and that the vote for Other candidates is on course to be the largest since Ross Perot and others shared 10% of the vote in the 1996 Presidential election.
If we take as a definition of
swing States in the 2016 presidential election those that either changed allegiance compared with 2012 or were decided by 5% or less of the popular vote, then there were thirteen in the 2016 election. Of these, six (including Michigan) switched from Democrat to Republican. Florida did so despite the Republican vote share being virtually the same. The remaining five registered increased Republican shares. The best result for the Democrats among these States was Arizona where they narrowed a nine point Republican lead in 2012 to one of 3.5 points this time. However, Iowa was a disaster, with a 5.8 point Democrat lead four years ago turned into a 9.5% lead for the Republicans this year. If Donald Trump is confirmed as the victor in Michigan it will be by a margin of 0.3% of the popular vote; but that is precisely the same margin with which Mrs. Clinton won New Hampshire
Compared with Obama in 2012, Mrs. Clinton received less support among men, Whites, Blacks, Hispanics and especially trade unionists. Some 75% of all voters were either Protestant or Catholic and once again she received less support from both. Indeed, among Catholics a 2% Obama lead in 2012 became a 7% Trump lead in 2016.
This was the mother of all ugly baby contests. Edison Research, the company that provides the national exit poll in US Presidential elections, reported that in 2016 some 18% of voters held unfavourable opinions of both Clinton and Trump. That figure was double the number who were unfavourable to both candidates in 2012 and
nearly four times what we saw in the Bush-Kerry match-up of 2004. They observed that if voters with negative views of both candidates had divided equally between the two, then Hillary Clinton would have won. But what they discovered was that this group
broke strongly to Trump 49% to 29%. And in terms of who they were:
The ‘Neithers’ are more likely to be men (61%) and are more likely to be age 30-44 than in the younger or older age groups. They are 78% white, as compared to the total electorate which is 70%.
Are there any parallels with the UK’s June EU referendum result? I am usually sceptical about comparisons between political systems and cultures that are very different. However, I believe there is a common thread of anger at, and alienation from, the established political parties in both events. And why did most people think Clinton would win, just as here they thought Remain would be victorious? I pose the question as someone who believed both propositions.
Lord Michael Ashcroft spent some time in the US during the campaign, conducting focus group research in a number of key States. In his post-election analysis he observed:
…. as with Brexit, elements of the media seemed to be closer to the political class they cover than the people on whose behalf they are supposed to hold that class to account: reporting of things like early voting, Hispanic turnout and the Democrats’ supposedly superior ground game all fed their confirmation bias towards what they saw as the only conceivable result.
To many people in the UK and US, it seems they have no say in the shape and direction of their country and their national culture but are required to take dictation from self-appointed people who decide such matters; that there is no space, let alone voice, for them in the public square; that any expression of their views and concerns is shut down. When they are not censured they are lampooned. People who have never met them assume everything about what they believe and none of it complimentary. Such a view may seem (and, indeed, be) a travesty, but as my wise History lecturer once opined,
what is important in History is not what actually happened but what people think happened.
The increasingly rancid state of politics in the US and UK as well as elsewhere is in large measure the product of national economies failing to deliver prosperity to significant numbers of their citizens for too long. Combine that with the palpable contempt in which those citizens feel they are held and you end up with what? With Britain leaving the EU and President Trump.
Is there a way out of all this? Many suggestions are on offer. One requirement is vital, it seems to me, but overwhelming evidence over the years confirms that it is far too difficult for most people to deliver. Unless people stop insulting those they disagree with no national debate can take place; and without a national debate where everyone can express themselves (within the law) we will be left with what we have today – not a United Kingdom or a United States but warring factions facing each other off, waiting for the next opportunity to totally defeat the other side (and the defeat has to be total because the other side are not just ill-informed but evil). When did anyone change their mind in favour of someone who called them a fool, or an idiot, or worse? Life isn’t like that – and nor is politics.
It appears the hicks, the fools and the idiots have woken up to the fact that they have votes and that there are people more than willing to harness their anger and deepening sense of alienation. Unless the losers in the EU Referendum and US Presidential election similarly wake up and forego their default setting of contempt for those who happen to disagree with them, then Michael Moore’s prediction of political Molotov cocktails thrown at the establishment will not be limited to the USA.
David Cowling is Former Head of Political Research at the BBC and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Kings College.
Image: Gage Skidmore CC BY-NC-ND
