The View | In spite of the gaffes, Donald Trump has a powerful anti-establishment message
There are strong parallels between Brexit and the rise of the anti-establishment populism of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump
“The Times they are a’changing”. Only in America could a high profile billionaire seek to move into public housing that has just been vacated by an evicted black family.
It is difficult to see big political revolutions in real time. True revolutions happen about once a century and we are in the midst of one right now. For a hundred years, the battlefield was simple: between left and right, poor and rich, blue and white collar. The old left have now become irrelevant because the digital economy has made the labour heartland in coal, steel, and agriculture largely extinct.
The middle class buys capital but sells labour
In its place are the two new extremes of rich and poor – the mega-rich and the broad, reasonably educated middle class struggling to improve their lot. This is why a very wealthy man who is hypocritically prepared to insult women, religions and foreigners is able to get as much traction in the United States as a presidential candidate. Donald Trump is a thin-skinned bully who confuses slogans for policy and takes political debate personally. He is an angry attack dog who speaks to the hopes of the middle class as a force for change.
They want to vote for something different. Life has been too good for the establishment for too long by making them rich on plentiful money and low interest rates, which favours capital over labour. The middle class buys capital but sells labour. They are not lefty socialists, as proved by the failure of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, but they are looking for a cut of the action.
The Brexit vote was a forerunner of this global phenomenon. Brexit was not a vote to leave Europe but a vote for change; a vote against the establishment. A Trump victory will make Brexit look like a Sunday School tea party.
Hillary Clinton attracts a lengthy and long lasting list of enemies because she is the unacceptable face of the establishment - and the left of centre establishment at that. Yet in a position of leadership, she proved to be an extremely successful foreign minister (and how many people over 50 knew what a email server was five years ago?)