I speak often about the fact that heightened status anxiety, caused by extreme wealth and the resulting inequality, has led to many, probably most, of the problems our nation faces, from poor health and education outcomes to high rates of gun violence and opioid use. As I read about the horrors and cruelty that emanates from the Oval office, it is hard to focus on tax policy. Instead, I am reminded of–and haunted by–a New York Times piece I read three days after the November 5, 2024 election, Thomas B. Edsall’s “Let’s Not Lose Sight of Who Trump Is.”
Edsall is a master of piecing together email responses to his queries, but one respondent in particular, Herbert Kitschelt, a political scientist at Duke, succinctly explained the link between status anxiety and predicted the America we are now witnessing. Kitschelt wrote,
“Changing labor markets have eroded the earnings potential of less educated people, and particularly those in occupations that were in demand in manufacturing. Changing marriage markets have reduced the bargaining power of men to dominate gender relations and the choice of offspring. Young men of lesser education are hit twice, both in marriage and in labor markets [status anxiety]. It is not surprising that they are most likely to voice their grievances in expressions of political dissatisfaction with the status quo.
“The moderate and progressive left in the United States thought it could count on disadvantaged minorities as fixed components of a left-wing ‘rainbow coalition.’ But it now turns out in the United States — and elsewhere — that these ethnic groups are internally divided by the same kinds of knowledge-society-induced divisions based on education, occupation and gender that run through the ethnic majority population [status anxiety!]. And right-wing populist authoritarians are increasingly skilled to sense these divisions and make their appeals resonate among the aggrieved elements of these minorities, especially younger people without college education, particularly young men.
“The rise of Trumpism in the United States — and right-wing populist authoritarianism around the world — throws down the gauntlet to the remaining liberal and progressive forces to come up with new ideas for institutional innovation and policy reform [emphasis added] that include those who have hitherto been losers of multiple decades of social change. The 2024 U.S. election is a signal that the political projects of the existing left have failed.
“The pool of new ‘losers’ is not represented by the Democratic Party and was not by the old Republican Party. A political entrepreneur — Donald Trump — has managed to activate them to drive his ascent. Aggrieved people look for an outlet and recently found one in Donald Trump, many of them never previously Republicans, but now Trumpists.
“Trump’s current ideas to soothe the ills of the knowledge society through tariffs and eviction of immigrants. But there is a strong probability that these policies will disappoint the president’s core constituencies. Few jobs will be created through re-industrialization and the absence of immigrants will hurt — instead of improve — the labor market payoffs of many natives. All the while the real incomes of the less well-off will be reduced by a surge of tariff-induced inflation that bond and gold markets are now already anticipating.
“When backed into a corner by policy failure, the greatest danger, then, becomes Donald Trump’s and his strategists’ inclination to suffocate opposition.”
“The hour of political authoritarianism arrives when the new wagers to create economic affluence among the less well-off and to resurrect the old kinship relations of industrial society turn sour and generate disenchantment among Trump’s own following. Trump then may well want to make sure that his disenchanted supporters — as well as those who always opposed Trumpism — will not get another chance to express their opinions [emphasis added].
As Edsall wrote: “Kitschelt’s conclusion is both dark and bleak, suggesting that if Trump’s policies fail to produce a boom economy, his inclination toward authoritarianism will intensify as he tries to hold power in the face of growing public opposition.”
It should be obvious that this is a time when everyone who has a stake in preserving democracy must participate in efforts to do so, in whatever way one can. Voting on the local, state, and national levels is the most effective short-term solution to the current crisis. As for “new ideas for institutional innovation and policy reform” to motivate voters, consider the wealth tax. It provides an opportunity to lift up the poor, working and middle class, and perhaps most importantly, reduce status anxiety among us all.