Did slowing growth and manufacturing job losses give rise to populist movements?
Core argument: U.S. GDP growth slowed from 3.5% in the 1990s to 2.3% in the 2000s, alongside middle-class wage stagnation, economic discontent that the Buchanan/Perot, Palin/Tea Party, and Trump movements capitalized on.
The evolution of Trumpism can be traced back to economic and political shifts starting with Buchanan/Perot in 1992/1996, through Palin/Tea Party in 2008/2010, culminating in Trump's rise. These movements capitalized on economic discontent, with GDP growth slowing from 3.5% in the 1990s to 2.3% in the 2000s, and wage stagnation affecting middle-class incomes. The Tea Party's emergence coincided with a 9.5% unemployment rate post-2008 financial crisis, highlighting economic anxiety. Trump's 2016 campaign further tapped into these sentiments, with a focus on trade deficits, which reached $500bn in 2015, and manufacturing job losses, which saw a decline of 5m jobs from 2000 to 2010. As Trumpism evolves, its economic implications remain significant, influencing policy debates on trade, taxation, and regulation, with potential impacts on GDP growth and labor markets.
Ed Comment:“…The line begins with conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan, who ran for president twice, in 1992 and 1996, as a renegade Republican with a message eerily like the one that Mr. Trump later used to take power. Mr. Buchanan declared that free trade was taking American manufacturing jobs and hollowing out its cities in the process. Immigrants were moving in to compete for the jobs that remained and driving down wages. Elites were benefiting while others were drowning, and worse, they were contemptuous of the values and way of life of ordinary Americans…..Mr. Buchanan’s rise also coincided with two important inflection points in American society. The first was the beginning of a steady decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs, the traditional launchpad into the middle class. Data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve show that manufacturing employment in the U.S. peaked in 1979…..Two other threads were laced throughout the evolution toward Trumpism. The first was fear of immigration. Traditional conservatives saw immigration as a net positive for the economy and society—a kind of ever-refreshing lifeblood for a melting-pot America. But the decline in manufacturing created deep economic anxiety among many in middle America. Middle America watched with alarm as the number of undocumented immigrants more than doubled in the 1990s, to an estimated 8.6 million, and then grew further to 12 million by 2007….That trend also fed what has long been an ugly element of American populism: a tendency to blame outsiders for problems.Though trade patterns and, above all, the rise of new technologies in the workplace were bigger blows to traditional employment, many Americans thought they were losing control of not only their economic future but the racial and cultural identity of the country.….The second thread was demographic change in the Republican Party. Blue-collar voters who felt alienated by the Democrats’ positions on social issues—same-sex marriage, abortion, gun control—were moving into the GOP…..They also had a new rocket fuel to propel their anger forward: the internet and social media…..In his announcement speech, Mr. Kasich talked about the need for empathy and compassion for suffering fellow citizens. Mr. Christie declared: “Americans are not angry. Americans are filled with anxiety.” Mr. Trump chose a different approach—one that emphasized and stoked anger. The message for his growing band of supporters was clear: You think that the system is shafting you and the elites don’t care, and you’re right…..As Trump supporters often say in conversation: Liberals don’t understand my values or my religion and look down their noses at me. Trump doesn’t do that…..Trump bashed the leaders of the Republican Party he was proposing to lead and declared, “People are tired of these nice people.”…..He showed early on his recognition that targeting the news media would be popular with his core antiestablishment voters…..He also learned that such rhetoric could win blanket coverage on cable news networks. Anger and the demonization of his foes became the staples of his upstart campaign…..Yet he also made his presidency almost entirely about himself personally rather than the broader movement he was trying to lead. That personalization prevented the Trump movement from sinking deep roots. As American Compass, an organization of young, conservative economic thinkers, concluded in a retrospective analysis: “Trumpism cannot be declared a ‘success’ or a ‘failure’ because it did not exist. The administration... lacked both overarching vision and an integrated policy agenda.”….Which doesn’t mean that the legitimate concerns that produced Mr. Trump’s rise are going away or that his substantive achievements will evaporate. He has helped to turn the GOP into more of a working-class party, helped to alter views of China’s economic policies and responded to a kind of national war-weariness. ….”