This week’s column: the politics of resentment

— 05.15.2017 02:24 PM

The guests at the event at the Royal Canadian Military Institute, just down University Avenue from the barricaded U.S. Consulate, were buzzing. Not about Christy Clark’s extraordinary comeback win in BC, so much, or the restive Ontario Liberal caucus.

About Donald Trump, naturally. That’s all anyone talks about at political gatherings, these days. Trump, Trump, Trump.

The latest: Trump had fired anyone securing evidence about the connections between Russia and his campaign – and then he and his cabal were insisting there was no evidence. He was clearly gutting the rule of law, by obstructing justice and covering-up. He was a clown show, a circus act, a crook, descending ever-downward into Hamlet-like madness.

And those were just the nice things being said about him, this night. In attendance: the dean of the Prime Ministers (John Turner), an admired former Premier (Dalton McGuinty), several respected cabinet ministers, current and former (Sandra Pupatello, Bob Chiarelli, Jim Bradley), and one quite impressive mayor (Bonnie Crombie). And lots of political hacks, shaking their heads about the Unpresident.

Beneath all the military decorations on the walls, beneath two Victoria Crosses – the highest award in the Commonwealth, awarded to men who (unlike the draft-dodging Donald Trump) had shown gallantry in the face of the enemy, instead of coddling the enemy (like the Putin-loving Donald Trump) – we had assembled to listen to McGuinty’s friend, Justin Gest.

Gest is an interesting fellow. Born and raised in Los Angeles inner city – by a Holocaust survivor and rural Georgian – Professor Gest has gone on to be perhaps one of the leading experts in the United States on immigration and, lately, the white working class. And, notably, how the white working class came together to shatter the liberal democratic consensus, and make Brexit and Trump happen.

His new book is The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality. It is the product of literally hundreds of interviews with white working-class folks in post-industrial London, England, and Ohio, USA. His resulting thesis: the white working poor are rational, but also now radical. They have been traumatized by the loss of jobs, by the loss of control and – most of all – by the loss of how things used to be. “Nostalgia,” Gest says, as he is interviewed by former Globe and Mail star Jane Taber. “They yearn for how things used to be.”

The white working class – who wanted Britain out of the European Union, and who wanted Donald Trump in the White House – truly want to “Make America (or Britain) Great Again,” Gest says. Trump’s slogan wouldn’t have worked if it had been “Make America Great,” he says. The white working class want to go back to what they think once was.

Says Gest, as his decidedly non-white-working-class audience listen: “White working-class people were once largely in the centre of the political world. Their votes were coveted by both political parties and their voices seemed to matter. Now, they see themselves as politically alienated and, in some cases, vilified — and this is in a country they once defined.” He pauses. “It’s this sense of loss that motivates so much of their frustration and so much of the politics we’re seeing right now. They are consumed by nostalgia.”

And Trump panders to that. He offers a return to a shimmering, golden time where everyone had a job, children listened to their elders, and there was structure and order. It doesn’t matter that things were never truly like that, says Gest. Trump’s white working class army are simply satisfied that one of their own – an outsider, like them – was able to run and win. To them, that is enough.

Like this writer, Gest agrees that the pointy-headed elites will not be saved by some Democratic Party St. George, riding a white steed – bearing Articles of Impeachment – and intent on slaying the twin-headed dragon of Trump and Putin. What we need to do, instead, is make the white working class feel like they matter. To render them visible. Because they think they are invisible.

Will we be able to do that? Will we ever be able to satisfy the raging, seething, resentful white working class?

Even Justin Gest – and the coterie of a Prime Minister, a Premier, some cabinet ministers and some political strategists – don’t know the answer to that one.

But we’d better find it, and fast.


Comments (3)

Donald Trump is a liar, a criminal, and a danger to all of us

— 05.12.2017 10:13 AM

18485489_10155784865990400_4648945233398990738_n

…everyone who is sane knows that.  He is a draft dodger.  He is a racist.  He sexually assaults women and brags about it.  He violated the Cuba embargo. He has long been linked to organized crime. He condones violence against those who disagree with him.  He’s had multiple bankruptcies.  His ex-wife says he raped her, and treats his current one like dirt. He attacks press freedom. He has used the undocumented workers he maligns. He lies about his wealth, which is why he doesn’t release his tax returns. He hires anti-Semites.  He steals.  He discriminates against blacks in housing.  And so on and so on.

Most of all, he is a liar who was helped by Russia to cheat his way into power.  He’s a traitor to the United States and its allies.

So why – why, why, why – does his vote stay with him?  That’s the question everyone is asking: his core voters can’t be that clueless, can they?

The talk we attended this week, by Professor Justin Gest, generated a lot of response here, on Facebook, and elsewhere on the Warren-related Internets.  Gest was asked the same question a couple times by bewildered Canadians.

In answering, Gest distinguished between two kinds of Trump voters: the Nationalists, who are white supremacists, more or less, and who will never abandon Trump because they subscribe to his racist conspiracy theories.  Then, there’s what he calls the Exasperated, who aren’t lifelong Republicans, aren’t necessarily racist, and who are just simply weary of politicians lying – and won’t stay with Trump if he continues to lie.

Here’s a synopsis of Gest’s response, taken from the huge thing he did in Politico:

Put simply, a significant portion of the white working-class vote is up in the air. Yes, Nationalists will stay loyal to Trump and his party. But the support of the Exasperated depends on the complete reorientation of the Republican Party and the extent to which Democrats can develop an authentic, persuasive platform to make wary, white working-class people feel that they have a future. And that’s going to require a reorientation of their own.

See?  There’s opportunity, however slim.  Not with Trump’s bigots: they’re always going to stick with him, and who wants to coddle them, anyway?  But the so-called Exasperated?  They want to feel they are being listened to, and that change is possible.  They’re gettable vote.

My personal advice? Shut down Washington until you get an independent prosecutor, properly funded.  Fill the the streets.  Take the momentum of the Women’s March and the science demos, and demand an independent prosector, now.

The best way to show Trump is a liar, with evidence, is to empower someone to find the evidence.  So do it, America.

 


Comments (22)

When 25 per cent isn’t

— 05.12.2017 07:45 AM

It’s difficult to understate the political importance of the Ontario government’s 25 per cent hydro rate cut: all of the chips are riding on it, pretty much.  Youth pharmacare and free tuition are terrific, but they’re aimed at a demographic who don’t vote.  The hydro rate cut, ipso facto, is the sine qua non.  If it doesn’t fly, the Ontario Libs are in big trouble.

So, check out this Toronto Star Queen’s Park bureau scoop, which apparently emanated from the Ontario PC war room:

The short-term gain of a 25-per-cent hydro rate cut this summer could lead to long-term pain as a leaked cabinet document forecasts prices jumping again in five years.

In the briefing materials first revealed by the Star and obtained by the Progressive Conservatives, rates will start rising 6.5 per cent a year in 2022 and top out at 10.5 per cent in 2028, when average monthly bills hit $215.

That would be up from $123 this year once the rate cut — the subject of long-awaited legislation unveiled Thursday by Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault — takes full effect. 

The leaked papers overshadowed Thibeault’s efforts to tout the price break, which will be followed with four years of hydro rate increases at 2 per cent, roughly the rate of inflation.

This is revelation is disastrous, pretty much. It discredits just about every claim that has been made about hydro for the past several months.  And it landed, literally, while I was having expresso with a long-time Ontario Liberal stalwart, a Kathleen Wynne loyalist, who had told me they were going to “sit out the next election.”

If this secret cabinet document is true – and it likely is – all that is left is a hoped-for bump from the budget.  So, where is the polling to show that there was one?  Given how much the wizards are being paid for research, you’d think the Liberal caucus would have been shown it by now.

Over espresso, yesterday, my old friend said we are going to come third in the upcoming Sault by-election.  After yesterday, I don’t doubt it.

 


Comments (12)