This era of conservative bliss was broken with the emergence of two anti-establishment outliers within both parties: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Bernie’s politics is rooted in the progressive left movement of the 1960’s, whereas Donald Trump draws from the White working-class populism of George Wallace and Andrew Jackson. These iconoclast politicians gave a tough fight to the establishment-supported candidates of their own political parties, but only Donald Trump emerged as the winner of the Republican primaries. In the Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton defeated Bernie Sanders and it seems that she is all set to become the next president of the country even after all the controversies surrounding her candidacy.
Hillary’s hitherto successful political strategy can be broken down into three major parts: gaining support from President Obama, strengthening her support for the business and corporate interests, and asserting her experience as a stateswoman in dealing with international affairs.
President Obama enjoys rock solid support within the African American community which was instrumental in allowing Hillary to sweep the American South in the Democratic primaries. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, was supported by African American intellectuals such as Cornell West and Michelle Alexander who criticize President Obama for what they say is his failure to deal with pressing issues pertaining to Black communities such as mass incarceration and police abuse. How so ever sound, these views are not internalized within these communities and President Obama continues to be regarded as an iconic symbol of hope. In recent polls, more than 85% of African Americans supported Hillary Clinton and 0% supported Trump (15% undecided or other).
Hillary’s second source of strength is her support within the American business community and the corporate sector. Her links with Wall Street are well-known and the recently leaked emails reflect how much her political views are entrenched within the corporate free market ideology. This helps Hillary gain election funds and votes from the broader American upper-middle class (mostly college-educated) individuals who either own small businesses or work in high-paying jobs for the corporate sector. As shown by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page in their seminal 2014 paper, this small minority (around 10% of the population) wields a strong influence on policy making in America.
The economic interests of this powerful minority hinges on international free trade, cheap semi-skilled immigrant labour, and an exploitation of natural resources from other countries. The money brought back to US through wars and an exploitation of labour on the mainland allows the American upper-middle class to maintain its high living standards. Exorbitantly low wages for American retail employees working in places such as McDonalds and Walmart allows company executives and shareholders to save more money for themselves, whereas cheap undocumented construction labour from South America allows them to afford their large sub-urban homes. Donald Trump’s criticism of international trade agreements such as NAFTA and proposal to block undocumented labour from the south has nudged the upper-class Americans to support Hillary in order to protect their economic interests regardless of their party affiliations.
Hillary Clinton has recently demonstrated her support for the corporate and financial business interests by appointing strong pro-business lobbyists such as Ken Salazar to lead the White House Transition team that will be responsible to fill cabinet and administrative positions. The message is clear that her presidency will be a continuation of President Obama’s policy and business interests will be allowed to operate with relative impunity, low taxes, and will be facilitated in securing international trade deals and resources. This also ensures that environmental degradation and climate change will not be on top of the presidential agenda. Meanwhile, the working class Americans of all races and ethnicities will continue to suffer low social services and a crumbling education system, and will keep on sacrificing their lives as soldiers in foreign lands. This will increase the feelings of marginalization within the working class individuals and will disenfranchise them from the mainstream political discourse and economy of the county.
The more terrifying news for the American voters is that there is no better alternate to Hillary as things would get much worse if Donald Trump is elected as the president. America does not have much of a choice this year—either it is the pro-oligarchic Hillary Clinton or the racist Donald Trump. Whatever the results of the elections, the future does not look so great. Francis Fukuyama and Daniel Drezner have called this the year of political decay for America.
Obed Pasha is lecturer of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He can be reached at obedpasha@gmail.com or @ramblingsufi