Michael J. Boskin
Michael J. Boskin is Professor of
Economics at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Hoover
Institution. He was Chairman of George H. W. Bush’s Council of Economic
Advisers from 1989 to 1993, and headed the so-called Boskin Commission, a
congressional advisory body that highlighted errors in … read more
STANFORD
– Donald Trump’s surprise election as the 45th president of the United
States has spawned a cottage industry of election post-mortems and
predictions, in America and abroad. Some correlate Trump’s victory with a
broader trend toward populism in the West, and, in particular, in Europe,
exemplified in the United Kingdom’s vote in June to leave the European
Union. Others focus on Trump’s appeal as an outsider, capable of
disrupting the political system in a way that his opponent, former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – a consummate insider – never could.
There may be something to these explanations, particularly the latter.
But there is more to the story.
In
the months preceding the election, the mainstream media, pundits, and
pollsters kept repeating that Trump had an extremely narrow path to
victory. What they failed to recognize was the extent of economic
anxiety felt by working-class families in key states, owing to the
dislocations caused by technology and globalization.
But, as I highlighted
two months before the election, those frustrations were far-reaching,
as was the sense of being ignored and left behind – and it was Trump who
finally made that group feel seen. That is why I recognized the
possibility of a Trump upset, despite Clinton’s significant lead in the
polls (five points, just before the election).
And
an upset is what happened. Trump narrowly won states that Republicans
had not won in decades (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania), and won
big in usually closely contested Ohio.
In
fact, Republicans secured a broad victory. The party retained control
of the Senate, even though more than twice as many Republican seats were
up for reelection than Democratic seats, and it lost just a handful of
House seats, far fewer than the 20 predicted. Moreover, the Republicans
now control 33 governorships, compared to 16 for the Democrats, and have
expanded their already-large majorities in state legislatures. Now,
talk has turned from the impending implosion of the Republican Party to
the repudiation, disarray, and bleak future prospects of the Democrats.
Since
the election, Trump has moved quickly to assert himself. Republicans,
even those who opposed Trump during the campaign, have coalesced behind
him. Meanwhile, the Democrats in government – most notably President
Barack Obama – have largely echoed Clinton’s gracious concession-speech injunction that Trump should be given an opportunity to lead.
The US election’s unexpected outcome holds four key lessons, applicable to all advanced democracies.
First,
growth beats redistribution. Clinton’s barely discussed economic plan
was to expand Obama’s left-leaning agenda, so that it looked more like
the socialism of her opponent in the Democratic primary, Vermont Senator
Bernie Sanders. Higher taxes for the wealthy, together with more “free”
(taxpayer-paid) services, was, she argued, the best route to combating
inequality.
Trump,
by contrast, hammered home messages about jobs and incomes. Though the
media almost exclusively covered his most hyperbolic and controversial
statements, it was largely his economic message that won him support.
People want hope for a better future – and that comes from rising
incomes, not from an extra government-issued slice of the pie.
The
second lesson concerns the risk of dismissing, let alone condescending
to, voters. From the start, Clinton was not broadly liked. Revelations
during the campaign – for example, that, in a 2015 speech,
she had said that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs, and
structural biases have to be changed” to secure women’s reproductive and
other rights – reinforced fears that she would push too progressive a
social agenda.
Recognizing these shortcomings, Clinton tried to win the election by making Trump unacceptable. But her remarks
that half of Trump’s supporters belonged to a “basket of deplorables” –
that they were racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic –
reinforced the impression that she and her party looked down on Trump
voters as morally contemptible and even stupid. Such statements could
well have pushed some undecided voters to decide against Clinton.
The
third lesson is that a society’s capacity to absorb rapid change is
limited. When technological progress and globalization, not to mention
social and cultural change, outpace people’s ability to adapt, they
become too jarring, disruptive, and overwhelming. Many voters – not just
in America – also fret over terrorism and immigration, especially in
combination with these rapid changes.
Add
to that concerns about America’s growing opioid epidemic and a tedious
and intolerant form of political correctness, and, for many, change did
not look like progress. If democratic political systems do not find ways
to ease transitions, provide shock absorbers, and accept heterodox
attitudes and values without condemnation, voters will push back.
The
final lesson relates to the danger of the ideological echo chamber. The
repeated claim by shocked Clinton voters that no one they knew voted
for Trump reveals the extent to which too many people – Republicans as
well as Democrats – live in social, economic, informational, cultural,
and communication bubbles.
Declining
trust in national media, combined with a proliferation of Internet
communication, has created a world where the news people read is often
created with the goal of “going viral,” not informing the public; the
result can barely be called news at all. Moreover, the information
people see is often filtered, so that they are exposed only to ideas
that reflect or reinforce their own. (The corollary with this online
world is that, as Trump and Clinton discovered, we are all just one hack
away from YouTube or WikiLeaks, cable news or talk radio, fame or
infamy.)
These
developments undermine people’s capacity to engage in informed,
rational discussions, let alone debates, with those who have different
perspectives, values, or economic interests. Even universities, which
are supposed to foster knowledge-sharing and spirited debate, are now
suppressing it, for example by spinelessly rescinding speaking
invitations to almost anyone that some group or another considers
objectionable. When we fail to engage in such debates – when people
choose “safe spaces” over tough discussions – we lose our best chance of
building consensus on how to solve at least some of our societies’
pressing problems
No comments:
Post a Comment