Trump’s Fake Populism: Putting Your Mouth Where Your Money Isn’t
NOVANEWS
By Rajan Menon
President Trump gestures during a rally at the Phoenix Convention Center on August 22, 2017, in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo: Ralph Freso / Getty Images)
Among the stranger features of the 2016 election campaign was the success of Donald Trump, a creature of globalization, as an America First savior of the white working class. A candidate who amassed billions of dollars by playing globalization for all it was worth -- he manufactured clothes and accessories bearing his name in low-wage economies and invested in corporations eager to outsource -- won over millions of voters by promising to keep jobs here in the US.
Admittedly, only a third of his voters earned less than $50,000 a year and cultural and racial resentment, not just economic grievances, drove many of...