Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes

“I’ve been poor my whole life, like a disease passing from generation to generation. But not my boys, not anymore.”[i]– Toby Howard, Hell of High Water

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”[ii]– Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club  

“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.”[iii]– Aristotle, Politics

In his 2017 inaugural address, Trump made powerful appeals to the ‘forgotten people’ of America. He proclaimed “The forgotten men and women of this country will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is listening to you now. You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.”[iv] There is no forgotten populace. There are millions who have been tossed aside and are lost, seeking purpose, and meaning. The Democratic party has not only turned its back on workers, but it has also more importantly turned its back and lost the ability to reach out to those displaced from the globalized economy that has seen manual labor outsourced and careers in the US requiring higher levels of education. Several analysts were disgusted by his inaugural address, seeing it as divisive and appealing only to the plights of the white working class. Michiko Kakutani offers one such critique, and she comments that “It recalled the polarizing, red-meat stump speeches that he served up to rallies last year; the nihilistic passages in his books in which he describes the world as “a horrible place” where “lions kill for food, but people kill for sport”[v] For many, the world is a horrible place. Where Trump expressed that in the US there two realities, one occupied by elites, and other by the forgotten, he was resonating with Americans who wake up every day to a world that is the way Kakutani regards with disbelief. There is a nihilistic turn in American politics that Trump perfectly captures in his inaugural address.

Trump’s inaugural address is also critiqued for its underlying message that he alone represents the forgotten people. Harold Meyerson writes “What’s wrong with Trump’s formulation isn’t the set-up but the pay-off: I am your voice. Like his declaration that he “alone” can fix our ills, the idea that we are voiceless and should let him be our speaker doesn’t give much of a political role to anyone but him.”[vi] For people who are desperate, ceding political authority to Trump is a means of enacting change. Though it did not work out in their favor, people’s desperation continues to boost Trump and is still powerful enough to propel him back into the White House in 2024. The lost people he is speaking to would disagree with Meyerson’s critique, and feel that finally, in Trump they have a voice in politics. Trump still presents rhetorically as a populist, as he claims to be a voice for the voiceless. As Jan Werner -Muller points out, “Populists do not just criticize elites; they also claim that they and only they represent the true people.”[vii] Though in Trump’s case the ‘true people’ are those who have been tossed aside by globalization, not necessarily the white working class or Christian evangelicals. The impeachments, Russiagate, and the repeated sabotaging efforts of the security state only bolster Trump’s main message. Instead of being destroyed, he is made a martyr.

Appeals to the forgotten people did not begin with Steven Bannon and Trump. As Jefferson Cowie notes, FDR gave a famous “Forgotten Man Speech” via radio address in 1932, and he emphasized class conflict in the US.[viii] In this speech, FDR expressed sentiments like Trump in 2016-17, though he ended up enacting policy living up to his ambitious promises, notably the New Deal. FDR makes a parallel to Napoleon’s loss in Waterloo being the result of forgetting his infantry, and he said that the incumbent at the time, Herbert Hoover, “has either forgotten or it does not want to remember the infantry of our economic army.”[ix] He blames the Hoover administration for not doing enough to help the working class, who became invisible to elites in Washington, and FDR recognized, like Trump did, that there were deep issues impacting large swathes of the US population and these must be addressed, though Trump was being opportunist and often did not turn his declaratory policy into operational policy.[x] Powerfully he said that “A real economic cure must go to the killing of the bacteria in the system rather than to the treatment of external symptoms.”[xi] This, said decades ago, resonates now more than ever. After Bill Clinton’s dismantling of the remnants of the New Deal banking regulations, George Bush’s entry into wasteful and pointless wars, and Barrack Obama’s abject failure to fulfill his soaring promises of immense change, the forgotten remained invisible and let themselves be known through the election of Trump. This is especially evident in the number of counties that flipped from voting for Obama twice to voting for Trump in 2016.[xii] When Trump concluded his final statement in the third presidential debate with Hilary Clinton by saying: “We cannot take four more years of Barack Obama, and that’s what you get when you get her.”, he was being more resonant than he knew.[xiii] Just as FDR decried the failure of the Hoover administration to tend to the forgotten people, Trump critiqued his predecessors, made easy for him by Clinton’s close ties to policies such as NAFTA and TPP and the Iraq War. He railed against the outsourcing of labor and the benefits to Washington elites at the expense of the working class in America. Millions of people have been displaced by outsourcing and the rapid change in workplace technology.

It made sense for FDR to appeal to the working class, as there were to be jobs in factories and productive industry for decades from then. This has changed radically. Can people be working class if they are not working and have no prospects for work in an environment that requires higher and higher levels of education and status? The people we are talking about are lost, not forgotten. They are a displaced class, not a working class. This is not to compare Trump and FDR and their messages themselves, as that would be preposterous, but the focus here is on the base being appealed to. The voters FDR appealed to were working class and job prospects existed, whereas Trump appealed to voters displaced from work and alienated from the entire economy. This is a notable difference between FDR and Trump’s appeals, aside from the follow through or lack thereof on Trump’s part, it is the nature of dislocation in the struggling populations. What is often deemed the working class and the forgotten people is a misreading. To reference these voters as lost and displaced is not to insult them in anyway. It is only to try and better explain their plight and level of suffering, and the inability of Washington elites to reach out and even talk to them. The connections with these voters that Trump was able to make should be regarded as lessons, not simply examples of white rage or yearning for paternalism. Trump refers to these people as forgotten, so does, for example, Victor Davis Hanson, and other supporters of Trump, chanting that they are the forgotten people, invisible to Washington elites. This is partially true, as the Washington elite has tossed these people aside. The neoliberal globalist system has no use for them.

Automation and other technological advancements in workplaces will accelerate unemployment in the West. What will these people do? The left would propose ideas like sending everyone to college, perhaps encouraging those out of work to take up poetry or painting, and the right would propose ideas like reinstituting God in people’s lives. Culture war issues distract from long entrenched divisions that exist through class, not political or ideological status. It is no wonder that a man devoid of any ideology or consistent politics was able to successfully harness the rage and resentment of the displaced class, a class not defined by politics or ideology. Trump cut through this, and his conservative act was kept up only to justify his running as a Republican. At his core, Trump is not a conservative or a Republican, neither is most of his base, or at the very least the main connector between him and his base is not conservatism, it is displacement and dislocation. Andrew Sullivan, who loathes Trump, critiques his movement noting that populism is not conservatism, and of course like many others he saw the Capitol riot as proof that Trump is exactly what he thought he was.[xiv] He is right that populism is not conservatism, however, Trump is evidently not trying to be a conservative. He was what he needed to be to gain and then to retain power, and that was whatever his Republican base and more importantly, the conservative intelligentsia, desired. What he tapped into transcends ideological lines. Thus, analysis and responses must do the same to learn from the decay in which a narcissistic clown like Trump was able to rise to the presidency.

The right and the left seem to actively avoid discussion of the displaced class. Much of what is behind figures like Trump is their search for meaning. There is an idealist vision behind his movement, as Christian De Cock et. al. discusses, the current populist moment is an opportunity for a positive change, and the chaos of the Trump presidency “offers us the potential to see in our given reality something other than what simply is supposed to be and to consider afresh the deeper currents and contradictory tendencies within our social order.”[xv] Though Trump does not offer a utopian vision, he taps into a fantasy that people have and seek because of desperation. De Cock et. al. goes on to write that “Trump’s alternatives of dystopia, regression and appeals to ‘Greatness’ confront us with the limitations of our tried and trusted modes of thinking, with our own historical inability to imagine utopia.”[xvi] What Trump’s superficial appeals do is betray the limits of the current system, and he recognized the economic dislocation ravaging rural America. This will soon spread into metropolitan areas as well. Rather than offer a utopian vision to counter Trump’s dystopian vision, the Democratic party gave Americans Joe Biden and a cabinet populated by bloodthirsty neoliberals who led to Trump’s dystopia resonating with voters. This crucial underlying cause of Trump’s appeal is largely ignored.

Critics of the MAGA label and the America First agenda focus on the nostalgia for a past America that is innate in his message. Many critics of populism point this out, like Werner -Muller, who deems it empty.[xvii] This is only part of the story behind Trump’s messaging, and Make America Great Again is about so much more than race, creed, religion, and even class, it is about providing order to a world which for many people, is in utter disorder and does not have a purpose for them. They are justified in this feeling and resentment and are not wrong in thinking that they are being manipulated, dismissed, exploited, and deceived. What Trump supporters understand uniquely is that the Washington elite is corrupt and craven, no matter the party affiliation. This may have been true about Trump as well but being an outsider and claims to be the sole representative of the forgotten people were and continue to be extremely resonant. Rethinking the discourse on Trump’s base of support and that of populist leaders across the world is integral to building bridges and understanding that the right/left divide enforced by Washington is superficial. Being lost and a member of displaced class pits you not against the right or the left, but against the keyboard class, so named as shown under the lockdowns imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, a select group of elites benefit and share none of the consequences that those who relied on the economy being open bared the brunt of. The keyboard class sneer at the mere thought of the rabble who protest vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and other restrictive policies, and they do so at their detriment. The displaced class will grow in number as automation and other technological advancements further shrink the number of workers needed. Leaders like Trump will be able to continue exploiting this growing base, converting resonance with them into electoral victories, perhaps even in the popular vote as well as the electoral college next time around.

Just as progress towards full automation and a post-work world is considered inevitable, Karl Marx predicted the collapse of capitalism as inevitable decades ago. Where he writes that “What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”, he may have been half right.[xviii] What he gets wrong is the political ascendancy of the proletariat. If there is a dismissed class, what I refer to as the displaced class, they are defined not by their status in terms of labor, but by their displacement from the current economy with no prospects for becoming reintegrated. Marx’s dream of a worker’s paradise is fantastical. How can the workers own the means of production if there is no workers or work for them do? If the means of production are machines, then beyond a crew tasked with maintenance and cleaning, who would be involved in any production? The green industry is claimed to be a sector in which workers can transition from work in the oil and gas industry, however, by then machines will probably be building solar panels and maintaining wind turbines. Marx also writes that, “Modem industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist.”[xix] He was speaking of the change to industry caused by the Industrial Revolution, however, in the impending revolution, where artificial intelligence will eventually comprise the entire workforce, the factories of industrial capitalists will become the factories of machine building corporations.

Labor has changed so much from when Marx is writing. Many who attempt to enact and extend his ideas miss out on this reality. There will be no workers paradise. Striving for such a fantastical ideal is a purpose, and this is what people are searching for, meaning. Work in coal and other dying industries gave people meaning and purpose, and there is a struggle to fit into a globalized economy. The main problem is not the hopelessness of the working class, but the loss and decay of the displaced class. Liberal elites who sneer from ivory towers and plush newsrooms are the vanguard of a cadre of aging and zombified oligarchs in Washington. People who are lost search for meaning and find it in disruptive and destructive outlets. Trump’s movement is a prime example. A culture of despair is ripe for exploitation by the worst people, from political opportunists like Trump to the gambling industry, overly sadistic and extreme pornography, scam artists of all sorts, and cults. The displaced class is ignored by the chattering keyboard class as they are a reminder that the neoliberal system for which they are pathetic shills is failing millions. It is easier to turn away from images of people sleeping under bridges, shooting heroine, popping pills, and drinking themselves to death than it is to face it head on and call for solutions or at the very least, for debate on what should be done.

Marx declared that class culture “is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine.”, and with work being taken up by literal machines, people will no longer be ‘cogs in the machine’, they will be disposed of.[xx] They must find a new purpose. As Wendy Brown comments, in the neoliberal global economy, humans are homo economicus, and “neoliberal homo economicus takes its shape as human capital seeking to strengthen its competitive positioning and appreciate its value, rather than as a figure of exchange or interest.”[xxi] It is no wonder that those with no more than a high school education have been rendered useless by an economy that requires increasing levels of education and status. Many cannot be human capital to anyone.  In a society characterized by credentialism, those with no viable credentials are useless. The displaced class are not simply racist, sexist, or whatever reductive moniker the keyboard class wishes to attach to them, they are lost and desire inclusion into a world that seeks to exclude them. Voting for Trump is a way to make their voices heard. The attempts of the Washington establishment to ensure Trump is extinguished from politics prove to them that they are sought out for erasure. The displaced class are not against progress or modernity, as so many claims, just as the Luddites were not, as John Ralston Saul remarks, “The Luddites were not opposed to progress. They just wanted to be included, wanted not to starve, not to be humiliated.”[xxii] All Trump supporters are seeking is respect, a respect that has been lost as they have been sidelined by the globalized economy. The assumed inevitability of globalization is a progression to what? A world run by artificial intelligence, which may or may not decide that we humans are too violent and oafish? This is several decades away, however, technological innovation is rapidly ongoing in workplaces across the world. More and more people will be tossed out of the economy until it is totally overtaken by machines. Marx’s idea of people being molded into machines is no longer applicable, as it will eventually be literal machines doing most if not all labor, from manual labor like working assembly line work to advanced labor like performing surgeries. What happens when the professional class starts to be hollowed out? Having these debates now would help soften the blow coming for what’s left of the working class. Should we all own a part of the corporations who will design and manufacture the labor of the future? This is no longer the stuff of science fiction stories. The displaced class will continue to grow. This is an inevitability alongside the ruthless progression of technology and modernity. This class will only grow more desperate and is a breeding ground for crass demagogues like Trump. As the rot in US institutions festers, he will be able to easily soar through primaries and a general election. After Trump wins in 2024, in 2028 one of his acolytes will take up the mantle. Unless the problem of the displaced class is addressed, there will be a growing population of people who, out of desperation and loss, will cast their vote for Trump or whoever he crowns as his successor.

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[i] Mackenzie, David. Hell or High Water. Neo-Western Crime. Lionsgate and CBS Films, 2016.

[ii] Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. New York City: W. W. Norton and Company, 2005.

[iii] Aristotle. Politics. Translated by Ernest Barker. Oxford University Press, 2009.

[iv] PBS NewsHour. “Transcript: Read President Trump’s Full Inaugural Address,” January 20, 2017. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/transcript-read-president-trumps-full-inaugural-address.

[v] Kakutani, Michiko. “Donald Trump’s Chilling Language, and the Fearsome Power of Words.” Vanity Fair, January 21, 2017. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/donald-trumps-chilling-language-and-the-power-of-words.

[vi] Meyerson, Harold. “Trump’s Appeal to the Forgotten Man.” The American Prospect, August 4, 2016. https://prospect.org/api/content/6ab88565-3595-511f-9143-b5bd204d88d3/.

[vii] Müller, Jan-Werne. What Is Populism? London: Penguin Books. 2016. Pg. 40

[viii] Cowie, Jefferson. “Donald Trump and History’s Competing Visions of America’s ‘Forgotten Man.’” Time. Accessed June 13, 2022. https://time.com/4567949/forgotten-man-donald-trump/.

[ix] “Radio Address from Albany, New York: ‘The “Forgotten Man” Speech’ | The American Presidency Project.” Accessed June 13, 2022. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/radio-address-from-albany-new-york-the-forgotten-man-speech.

[x] “Radio Address from Albany, New York: ‘The “Forgotten Man”

[xi] “Radio Address from Albany, New York: ‘The “Forgotten Man”

[xii] Ballotpedia. “Pivot Counties: The Counties That Voted Obama-Obama-Trump from 2008-2016.” Accessed June 13, 2022. https://ballotpedia.org/Pivot_Counties:_The_counties_that_voted_Obama-Obama-Trump_from_2008-2016.

[xiii] Staff, Politico. “Full Transcript: Third 2016 Presidential Debate.” POLITICO. Accessed June 13, 2022. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/full-transcript-third-2016-presidential-debate-230063.

[xiv] Sayers, Freddie. “Andrew Sullivan: I Was Right about Donald Trump.” UnHerd. Accessed June 13, 2022. https://unherd.com/thepost/andrew-sullivan-i-was-right-about-trump-december/.

[xv] De Cock, Christian, Sine N. Just, and Emil Husted. “What’s He Building? Activating the Utopian Imagination with Trump.” Organization (London, England) 25, no. 5 (2018): 671–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508418784393. Pg. 678

[xvi] De Cock, et. al. “What’s He Building? Activating the Utopian Imagination with Trump.” Pg. 678

[xvii] Müller. What Is Populism? 2016.

[xviii] Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Translated by Samuel Moore. 2nd ed. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977. Pg. 48

[xix] Marx and Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Pg. 43

[xx] Marx and Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Pg. 54

[xxi] Brown, Wendy. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. Zone / Near Futures. Cambridge The MIT Press, 2015. Pg. 33

[xxii] Saul, John Ralston. The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the World. Camberwell, Vic.: Penguin Group Australia, 2009. Pg. 95

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