Trump appealed to racism and bitterness about the Democrats’ failures on cost of living to attract some workers, but most are far from won over, writes James Supple
Donald Trump’s return to the presidency shows the sick state of the political institutions in the most powerful nation on Earth.
Trump is a creature of the far right, who will use his position to spread foul sexism, transphobia and racist abuse against immigrants.
Americans’ willingness to vote for him shows the depth of the rage at the political system—and the failure of the Democrats.
For decades, both major parties have stacked the system in favour of corporations and the rich—with workers’ wages held down and inequality skyrocketing.
The US is now one of the most unequal societies on the planet. The top 10 per cent control nearly 60 per cent of its wealth, compared to just 6 per cent for the bottom half of the population.
Uniquely among developed countries, life expectancy in the US has declined over the past decade, to sit five years shorter than comparable countries. Working class Americans have it even worse—those without college degrees were living eight and a half years less on average before the pandemic.
Poverty and despair are widespread. Drug overdose deaths from medications like fentanyl, fuelled by the big pharma’s profiteering, are out of control.
In 2021 they claimed the lives of 106,669 people, a rate of 32 per 100,000, three times the rate of most other countries.
Workers’ anger and the desire for change has been super-charged by the cost-of-living crisis, with prices up by 20 per cent in the last four years. In exit polls, almost half of voters said they were worse off than four years ago.
The number of people struggling to get by has grown. Around 40 per cent of adults say they are relying on credit card debt to meet basic expenses.
Kamala Harris and the Democrats did nothing but promise more of the same after holding the White House under President Joe Biden for the last four years.
Given multiple chances to explain what she would do differently to Biden, all she could come up with was that she would put a Republican in her cabinet.
Harris’s desire to pull in corporate money saw her adopt what the New York Times called a “Wall Street–approved economic pitch”, avoiding issues like the minimum wage or expanding healthcare that might have appealed to those doing it tough.
Instead she focused on trying to win over wealthy Republican voters concerned about Trump’s contempt for democracy and US institutions.
Biden and Harris’s backing for the genocide in Gaza also cost them support—particularly among Arab-Americans. It even allowed Trump to posture as a peace candidate.
One measure of the lack of enthusiasm about Harris was the drop in Democratic supporters bothering to vote at all, with 7.1 million fewer votes for the party overall compared to the last presidential election in 2020.
Trump scored an increase of 2.5 million votes on his previous total.
Trump sought to tap into the resentment and frustration with the system, denouncing the Democrats for destroying the country and promising “a golden age” that would “make America great again”.
At his rallies he repeated the accusation against Harris, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” and played on the memory of his four years in power as a time of lower inflation and a better economy.
And it worked—with 80 per cent of the voters who rated the economy as the most important issue going to Trump.
Votes
The result was not the down-to-the-wire outcome expected. Trump won comfortably, taking all the swing states and the popular vote, with 2.5 million more votes than Kamala Harris across the country.
There were swings towards Trump virtually across the board—from young voters, Black and Hispanic voters, and voters without college degrees.
Trump’s core support was still overwhelmingly white and more rural, as it always has been, with 80 per cent of Black voters remaining with the Democrats. But this was down from 90 per cent of Black voters in 2020.
The biggest gains for Trump, however, were among those at the bottom of society.
Trump won 50 per cent of voters earning less than $50,000, as 10 per cent of voters in that bracket abandoned the Democrats compared to four years ago.
At the other end of the scale, the Democrats won 51 per cent of voters in the income bracket of over $100,000, up from 43 per cent last time. This was the only income group that swung towards the Democrats.
Working class
Since the New Deal of the 1930s, the Democrats have styled themselves as the “party of the people”, winning the majority of working class and union votes by standing for change.
Now some are saying the working class has abandoned the party, won over by Trump’s anti-immigration and right-wing populist politics, with the Democrats becoming the party of the rich.
Trump’s vicious attacks on immigrants clearly had some appeal. He sought to channel anger at the rising cost of living and the way life is getting harder into blaming immigrants for taking jobs and destroying communities.
This racist scapegoating lets the real criminals—the billionaires whose wealth has soared through destroying jobs and squeezing more of working Americans—off the hook.
Trump is set to attempt to round up millions of immigrants for deportation, something that surely will destroy lives and tear apart communities.
But we shouldn’t write off working class Americans as stupid or irremediably racist.
Small shifts towards Trump were enough to win him the election. But working class voters remain almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans—Trump won 50 per cent of those earning less than $50,000 versus 48 per cent for Harris.
Many others are so disillusioned with the political system that they don’t vote at all. Almost 90 million Americans didn’t cast a vote—more than one-third of the eligible population.
Those who don’t vote are overwhelmingly working class and low-income people, previous studies have shown.
Even those who did vote for Trump sympathise with many left-wing causes. In Missouri, a solidly Republican state where Trump won 58.5 per cent of the vote, 58 per cent of voters also backed proposals on the ballot for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and guaranteed paid sick leave for workers.
Voters there also rejected the state’s near total abortion ban, creating a constitutional right to an abortion until foetal viability.
Alaska, which also voted for Trump, backed a similar measure for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and sick leave. Montana, Nevada and Arizona all also approved measures supporting abortion despite backing Trump. In Florida 57 per cent voted for abortion rights, just short of the required 60 per cent.
And while some embraced Trump’s racism, others were simply voting to punish the Democrats.
This means many of those who voted for Trump can be drawn into struggles against him and the billionaire class of which he is part.
Trump has no solution to the problems facing workers in the US. His administration is already stuffed with billionaires and Wall Street figures—from Elon Musk to hedge fund manager and proposed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and billionaire investment banker and proposed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
He wants to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans as well as reduce corporate tax rates. His plans for tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China won’t bring back the well-paid manufacturing jobs the US has lost.
A number of unionists likely supported Trump.
The Teamsters Union polled its members and found 58 per cent were voting for him. Yet these workers can be drawn into campaigns for wage rises and to tax the rich to fund public services and jobs.
Union members can also be won to defending undocumented workers, who have their own history of union struggles as farm workers, cleaners and elsewhere.
Trump’s victory has not produced the same shock it did the first time. But the consequences are likely to be even more dramatic than in 2016. Trump now is out for revenge against those who frustrated his efforts during his last term in office, and more determined to impose his will on Washington.
Trump’s racism will again encourage the growth of violent far-right groups, like the attempted insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol building in 2021.
He has threatened to begin the largest deportation of undocumented migrants in US history—after talking of deporting up to 20 million people during his campaign.
Despite posturing as a peace candidate who would end the war in Ukraine, Trump’s nationalistic American First policy also means confrontation against rivals such as Iran and China.
His plan for sanctions and tariffs could produce economic chaos.
His wholehearted support for Israel means Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thinks he can do whatever he wants.
Trump is swaggering and unpredictable.
During his last term, his push to bomb countries at will was repeatedly blocked by military officials in his administration—including his desire to bomb Mexico to destroy drug labs and to attack North Korea.
This time he is surrounding himself with Trump clones determined to take control of the bureaucracy and make sure he gets his way.
The US left has a huge challenge ahead to build resistance. The key to this is to break with any reliance on the Democrats and build opposition from below, through mass movements that fight Trump on the streets and in the workplaces.
