Nine decades ago, the United States played a decisive role in defeating fascism in World War II. The cost of victory was tremendous: nearly 1.1 million soldiers killed or injured. The entire country was mobilized around achieving success, and no effort was spared to accomplish it. Without question, it was one of our finest moments as a nation.
On November 5, Americans did the opposite. Instead of opposing fascism, they elected a fascist to the White House. True, most Trump voters don’t acknowledge him as a fascist, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is one. He is bona fide fascist—racist, antidemocratic, authoritarian, and an instrumental liar. (See my earlier article in The Berkshire Edge about the ways in which Trump qualifies as a fascist.) As the campaign wore on, Trump’s fascism became more transparent and strident. It culminated on October 27 at a rally in Madison Square Garden, where the only thing missing was Nazi banners hanging from the rafters.
Given the history of World War II and our country’s strong democratic values and traditions, how is it possible that nearly 77 million Americans turned their backs on our history and elected Trump as our 47th president?
Since November 6, many pundits and commentators have provided answers. In no particular order, here are some of the more compelling ones: Biden waited too long to drop out; Harris was too closely identified with Biden’s unpopular policies; Americans are too racist and sexist to vote for a Black woman president; the white working class is ignorant and steeped in feelings of aggrieved entitlement; and right-wing media swamped voters with their lies and fearmongering.
Each of these reasons contributed to Trump’s victory. But even taken together, they don’t account for it, because they omit the most basic and important factor of all.
The root cause of Trump’s victory was the combination of the structural failings of our economic system and the jolting spike in prices during the last few years. The former laid a foundation of widespread, roiling discontent, while the latter added to it in striking fashion.
It is no exaggeration at all to say that Trump’s victory was anchored in the failings of American capitalism. We have only to look at a handful of statistics to see how true this is.
Based on the 2022 census, there are almost 38 million people in the United States who are living in poverty. That number comes from calculating households of four people whose annual combined income is less than $27,750. The definition is so restrictive as to be ludicrous, but that is what it was at the time.
Fortunately, there is a gauge that goes much further in measuring impoverishment in our country. It is known by its acronym ALICE, which stands for Asset Limited Income Constraint Employed. Households that fall into this category are above the official poverty level but are unable to afford all their basic needs. Hence, they have to choose between what to buy and what to forgo.
Adding the 2022 census and ALICE figures together, we find that more than 54 million American households out of a total of 129 million are struggling on the most basic level to survive; this is 42 percent (nearly half) of the nation.
This jaw-dropping number reveals two things: first, how deeply flawed American capitalism is, and second, how great a pool of discontented citizens, including poor and low-income white people, Trump could tap into. Trump played on their social fears, as all fascists do, but most of all he resonated with their economic frustrations. They were rightly angry and fed up, and above all they wanted to elect someone who would improve their material lives. In Trump, they saw such a person—though they are sorely mistaken about what he will do for them.
The hardship of the lower classes doesn’t stop there. It runs right through the middle class. Needless to say, it is very different because their living conditions are incomparably better. They have decent homes, ample food, good cars, and so on. But what appears on the surface to be a good life hides an acute affordability crisis, a subject that has been widely discussed in recent years. The cost today of nearly everything—including housing, food, daycare, healthcare, college tuition, and taxes—is so high that very large numbers of middle-class individuals and families are struggling mightily to keep up with their expenses. There are many expressions of this, but the best picture of all is a recent survey conducted by the National True Cost of Living Coalition. An eye-popping 65 percent of its middle-class responders said they were struggling financially and didn’t expect any improvement for the rest of their lives.
As the above numbers and facts show, both the lower and middle classes were desperate for change when they went to the polls on November 5. Biden and Harris had tried to convince people that the economy was strong by pointing to such things as the low unemployment rate and the booming stock market. But voters didn’t buy it because their own experiences contradicted it. Every time they had to write a hefty rent check or pay an inflated grocery bill, they knew that the economy was working against them.
Perhaps, given the economic landscape, it was impossible for the Democrats to win the election. But Harris certainly didn’t help her cause. Against the hardship so many Americans felt, she mostly offered band-aids rather than truly transformational economic programs such as Medicare for All and free universal daycare. She proclaimed a new way forward, but to too many Americans it sounded like the same path that had landed them in a ditch.
Sartre reminds us that “we have the wars we deserve.” It sounds harsh to me that Americans deserve a fascist president, because most of those who voted for Trump did so out of desperation, and they certainly didn’t create the conditions that engulfed them. But on the other hand, Trump never hid his repugnant values, and it was a fair election.
The next four years will be bad for American democracy. The only question is: how bad? We can only hope that, in the end, the vast majority of those who voted for Trump will realize they made a grievous mistake and will never again vote for a fascist, no matter how desperate they may be.
