Some of you know that my favorite book is All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren. I’ve read it many times and I would occasionally assign it to be read when I taught the basic introduction to American government class at the university level. I first read it in high school in Mr. Vernon Shy’s Creative Writing class. A close friend and I read the book, wrote a paper on it, and then gave a presentation to the class. I did not know it then, but All the King’s Men served as my introduction to populism. As someone who taught Latin American politics at the university level for more than 30 years, I spent much time studying, researching, teaching, and writing about populism.
Populism typically arises during crises such as the Great Depression and in the current case of the US it can be traced to the deindustrialization that began during the Reagan years and escalated during the Great Recession. Deindustrialization leaves behind workers who no longer can maintain the standard of living that they once enjoyed. They find it difficult, if not impossible, to move locations or develop a new set of skills for the post-industrial economy. In the US one can see this in the so-called rust belt. It is these marginalized, “forgotten” people who are most susceptible to the appeal of charismatic populists.
Another group that believes its position in society has eroded at the expense of others are evangelical, white Christians who moved to the Republican Party in the 1980s. Ronald Reagan was the first to champion their backlash against the rise of feminism, abortion rights, secularism, “liberal” Christianity, and the growing presence and appeal of other religions that began to take hold in America. Since then, major demographic shifts and the coming of political age by the huge millennial generation and generation Z that has little, if anything to do with evangelicals, have led this group of Christians to believe that their American way of life is disappearing. Thus, white evangelical Christians coupled with those who were left behind due to deindustrialization were ripe for mobilization by a populist named Donald Trump. Trump promised to restore their position in American society; to “make America great again.”
Trump mobilized these groups who believe they were being left behind and rode their votes to the presidency in 2016. He used their voting power to seize control of the Republican Party from its leaders in the US House, the US Senate, and state governments. These Republican leaders are currently at his beckon call fearing the backlash from the groups that he has mobilized. Trump did this just as Willie Stark rode the “hick” vote to the governor's mansion during the Great Depression in All the King’s Men.
Trump pushed through anti-abortion nominees to the Supreme Court to placate the evangelicals. He used his tariff power to placate those that suffered under deindustrialization. While the tariffs were a complete failure and a clear repudiation of traditional Republican principles, Trump’s propaganda machine based on social media and Fox News convinced his mobilized supporters in rust belt towns and the south that he was indeed making them great again.
Populists know that they must make deals with other powerful political and economic interests in society. Trump gave big business and the wealthy two primary gifts – a massive tax break in the middle of an already expanding economy coupled with massive economic deregulation. The wealthy benefitted under Trump just as they had during the first Gilded Age. Trump effectively used his media echo chamber to convince his mobilized supporters that they were the ones who primarily benefitted despite the fact that it contributed dramatically to the growing gap between the rich and working class/poor in America.
Populists must be divisive to remain in power. The groups that they mobilize, like the so-called “hicks” in the world of Willie Stark, must be given someone or some group to blame for their declining and forgotten status in society. Trump used his bully pulpit, Fox News, and the algorithmic echo chambers of social media to constantly blame others such as the Democrats, black football players, Black Lives Matter, China, liberals, intellectuals, feminists, the so-called deep state, immigrants, Muslims, and Mexicans, and NATO allies. The list of those to blame goes on and on and eventually becomes the oxygen upon which a populist like Trump survives and continues to mobilize his supporters. Every issue and event is viewed through the lens of us versus them. Trump’s animated speeches invite both anger and a response from his supporters toward those he blames. It reaches the point to where Willie Stark’s “hick” supporters believe anything he says, just as Trump’s mobilized supporters believe his lies and conspiracy theories.
Populists, like Willie Stark, corrupt democratic institutions and processes. Stark used graft and blackmail, as well as packing the state courts. Trump’s record of circumventing, politicizing, and corrupting the institutions of government including the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and the Pentagon is well documented. He refused to follow the democratic norms of the executive branch concerning his taxes, congressional oversight, and obstruction of justice. Oversight mechanisms within the executive branch were washed away. His corruption of the presidential election of 2016 was documented by the intelligence agencies and the Mueller Report. Evidence during his first impeachment indicated that he illegally withheld military aid from Ukraine in an attempt to get its leader to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. Dramatic evidence of his attempts to illegally reverse the 2020 election will be adjudicated in both federal and state courts. Democracy in the US suffered under Trump’s populism. Think tanks, such as Freedom House and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, that rank democracies in the world have significantly downgraded America’s adherence to democratic processes.
While Trump is no longer President his populism continues to give him control over most of the Republican Party at the national and state levels. Trump-Republicans have moved and are still moving to suppress and restrict voting rights and to allow partisan legislatures/officials the ability to overturn election results based upon the Big Lie. Just as significant is the growing belief by Trump’s supporters in his characterization of the January 6 insurrection as “non-violent.” The pervasive belief in the Big Lie and the “non-violence” of January 6 by his supporters would make even Joseph Goebbels envious.
If you have read All the King’s Men, you know that in the end Willie Stark is murdered. More importantly, the narrator of the story, Jack Burden, who supported and promoted the corruption of the populist Willie Stark through his own cynicism and indifference, finally comes to the realization that he himself must be held responsible for his/her actions and that one person’s actions, in this case his actions, do have consequences for other people. This leads to the following question: When will Trump supporters have their Jack Burden moment?
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