In the 1990s, the United States changed its political economy. It was not quite as dramatic a shift as the regime changes that took place across Eurasia, but it had profound consequences for the realignment of voting patterns in America.
During that decade, the U.S. economy accelerated its shift from manufacturing -- along with the well-paying blue-collar jobs that sector had once generated -- to an ever more dominant service economy. In terms of employment, manufacturing jobs dropped from 18 million in 1990 to 12 million in 2014, while wages for such jobs tumbled as well. Over that same period, the health-care and social assistance sector alone grew from 9.1 million to more than 18 million jobs. At one end of that service economy were the 1% in financial services making stratospheric sums, particularly as compensation packages soared from the mid-1990s on. On the other end were the people who had to add shifts at McDonald's or Walmart to their full-time jobs or monetize their spare time by driving for Uber just to make what they or their parents once earned with one job at the local factory.
America was not alone in undergoing this shift. Thanks to technological innovations like computers and robotics, greater access to cheap labor in places like Mexico and China, the rise of the Internet, and the deregulation of the financial world, the global economy was being similarly transformed. Blue-collar workers no longer played as vital a role in any advanced economy.
In the U.S., put bluntly, the imagination of America A no longer needed the muscle of America B.
At one time in its history, government programs narrowed the gap between economic winners and losers through taxes and the entitlement programs they supported. But "small government" fever -- which had remarkably little to do with actually reducing the size of government -- swept the United States in the 1980s, first in the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan and then in the "reinvent government" faction of the Democratic Party. In the 1990s, they would collaborate across the aisle to slash assistance to low-income people. The resulting political (and economic) realignment created some notorious ironies, including the fact that Richard Nixon, with his wage-and-price controls and environmental policies, was a far more liberal president in the early 1970s than the Democratic Party standard bearer of the 1990s, Bill Clinton.
Because of this realignment, an entire group of Americans no longer could count on support from either the Republican or the Democratic Party. They lost good jobs during the economic expansion of the Clinton years, and did not benefit significantly from the tax cuts of the George W. Bush era. Instead, by the Obama years, they were working longer hours and taking home less money. In the meantime, a new liberal-conservative consensus was emerging. Both yuppie liberals and 1% conservatives, at odds over so many political and cultural matters, had agreed to abandon America B.
Falling behind economically and feeling betrayed by politicians on both sides of the aisle, America B might have moved to the left if the United States had a strong socialist tradition. In the 2016 primary campaign, many of the economically anxious did, in fact, support Bernie Sanders, particularly the younger offspring of America A fearful of being deported to America B. Unlike Europe B, however, America B has always been more about rugged individualism than class solidarity. Its denizens would rather buy a lottery ticket and pray for a big payout than rely on a handout from Washington (Medicare and Social Security aside). Donald Trump, politically speaking, is their Powerball ticket.
Above all, the inhabitants of America B are angry. They're disgusted with politics as usual in Washington and the hypocritical, sanctimonious political elite that goes with it. They're incensed by how the wealthy have effectively seceded from American society with their gated estates and offshore accounts. And they've focused their resentment on those they see as having taken their jobs: immigrants, people of color, women. They're so desperate for someone who "tells it like it is" that they'll look the other way when it comes to Donald Trump's inextricable links to the very elite who did so much to widen the gap between the two Americas in the first place.
Left Behind
As the Democratic Party emerges from a bruising primary, it is trying to emphasize both the importance of unity and the urgency of the upcoming elections. Indeed, pundits are calling 2016 "perhaps the most important presidential vote in our lifetime" (Bill O'Reilly) and "one of the most pivotal moments of our time" (Sean Wilentz).
But if Poland is any indication, the presidential election this year will not be the critical one. Although Donald Trump may speak for America B, he is a weak candidate. His negatives are high, he has an unenviable record to run on, and his tendency to shoot from the hip will eventually cause innumerable self-inflicted wounds. Even if he does manage to win in November, he'll still face a divided Republican Party, an unremittingly hostile Democratic Party, and a political-economic elite inside the Beltway and on Wall Street who will push back against his unworkable and unpalatable proposals.
That's the situation that the Law and Justice Party faced in 2005 in Poland, when it first managed to squeak into power. The Polish parliament was divided and was not able to implement the party's populist agenda. Two years later, the liberal opposition returned to power, where it remained for eight more years.
But when PiS won again last year, conditions had changed. It finally had a comfortable parliamentary majority with which to power through its Tea-Party-like transformation of Poland. Moreover, it was riding high on a Euroskeptic, anti-immigrant wave that had practically inundated the continent.
America B has a fondness for Donald Trump and his almost childlike audacity. (Gosh, kids say the darndest things!) Right now, his fans are attached to an individual, rather than a platform or a party. Many of his supporters don't even care whether Trump means what he says or not. If he loses, he will fade away and leave nothing behind, politically speaking.
The real change will come when a more sophisticated politician, with an authentic political machine, sets out to woo America B. Perhaps the Democratic Party will decide to return to its more populist, mid-century roots. Perhaps the Republican Party will abandon its commitment to entitlement programs for the 1%.
More likely, a much more ominous political force will emerge from the shadows. If and when that new, neo-fascist party fields its charismatic presidential candidate, that will be the most important election of our lives.
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