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On the one hand, this is a cynical, destructive, and downright existential argument. On the other hand, a lot from the buyer. The good news is that Trump is not president now. The bad news is that when he got out, he attacked the institution while encouraging supporters to “fight like hell” and march on the Capitol. Of course, the system continues and rejects Trump’s game. But the cost is very chaotic, a politically rattled area that has not yet fully contended with the image of a president who undermined the system. In a democracy governed by unwritten norms, raising a dangerous precedent is one of the most destabilizing things one can do. And who knows who will be forced to push the next precedent?
The more pressing question for American democracy is: Why apart people vote for Donald Trump in 2020 instead of in 2016? Of course he doesn’t miss the news cycle of all the presidents. It is impossible not to miss that he is systematically undermining the institutions on which the government relies. So is it possible to buy the story that the institution is not worthy of redemption? Did the president confirm something about the decay in general social trust?
Try the Edelman Trust Barometer. The public relations company has conducted an annual global survey measuring public trust in institutions since 2000. The 2022 report, which found that distrust is now the “standard emotion of society,” noted a trend of falling faith in institutions such as government or the media.
While it’s easy to dismiss Trump’s nihilistic threat, it’s harder to confront the reality that made him so successful. After decades of allowing inequality to worsen, the people with their hands in America’s democracy suddenly found the will and drive to send thousands of dollars into every American’s bank account. US households increased their wealth by $13.5 trillion in 2020, thanks in part to lower government spending to keep the economy afloat. This solves a big problem – how people are supposed to pay their rent and mortgage when jobs are closed – but it introduces something new: Wait, so the government can do this whenever they want?
It soon became clear that the fortunes of the pandemic were not equal. Because of the unexpected boom in the stock market, more than 70% of the increase in household wealth went to the top 20% of earners. For the most part, higher-income workers seem to be on the upswing due to economic changes due to COVID. Meanwhile, the temporary pandemic relief program is helping to reduce child poverty in the US before it is withdrawn at the end of 2021.
It is possible – sometimes rational, even – to conclude that successive American governments have not considered income inequality to be an important issue. It is rational to conclude that successive American governments have been asleep at the wheel, satisfied with the general economic growth while ignoring the growth itself.
Having this social language was an important success of the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011. The physical impact may have been short-lived, but the rhetoric was a reimagining of the common language of inequality. We have the 1 percent and the 99 percent — and by every metric imaginable, the lives of the 1 percent are getting better, even in a global pandemic. Indeed, the richest Americans have become richer in this age of great upheaval.
If there is any solace to be found in the vague promise to use the pandemic as an opportunity to rethink society — the vow to “Great Reset,” the promise to “Build Back Better” — that solace is immediately nullified by reality. the very oath has been hijacked by the anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown people to claim nonsense conspiracy theories suggesting that the lockdown was deliberately designed to hasten the economic collapse.
These claims are not unique to the US. There were tremors in Canada, where a convoy of trucks and their supporters occupied downtown Ottawa for weeks and demanded the removal of the prime minister. On the other side of the Atlantic, they appeared in the Netherlands, Germany, and France.
It is hard to imagine how confidence in the national government can be improved. This is not, on the face of it, apocalyptic. The lights are on and trains are running at peak times. But civil trust, the building blocks of the nation, believing that the government can improve their lives, looks bleak.
In February, the Republican Party stated that the January 6 uprising and previous events caused “legitimate political discourse.” At best, this is a direct attempt to minimize the day’s events. At worst, the Republican declaration states that US political institutions are a fraud and that any protest – including insurrection – is justified. This may win the party votes in the upcoming midterm elections, but it will cost more than money: There will be a greater price in the erosion of public trust.
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