The story began with the nation’s first primary in February, in which New Hampshire voters clearly rejected famous figures and political veterans - men and women alike - in favor of the so-called outsiders Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. It was a political earthquake. The headlines were dramatic. “Sanders, Trump Stun America,” CNN declared on its website. The American Prospect summed it up as “The Establishment Tanks.” The article’s subtitle read, “The Donald? The Bern? What’s this country coming to?”
Trump has been characterized as a racist, sexist, eccentric billionaire, not only by Democrats, but also by a notable faction of Republicans. The overwhelming majority of the mainstream media portray his admirers as white-supremacists, anti-immigrants, anti-abortion zealots, and gun enthusiast fanatics. Hillary Clinton called half of his supporters “deplorables.”
But a closer look at what is happening in the US reveals this approach as extremely simplistic, because it ignores the emergence of a seismic transformation in American society. Several important statistical indicators support this conclusion.
According to Real Clear Politics, Trump received 13.3 million votes during the primaries. He set the record for the most GOP primary votes. After 56 primaries and caucuses, Trump defeated 16 major candidates to obtain the formal nomination of the Republican Party’s candidate for president of the United States.
At the Republican National Convention in July, 1,725 delegates voted for Trump. The other votes went to Texas senator Ted Cruz (475), Ohio governor John Kasich (120), Florida senator Marco Rubio (114), neurosurgeon Ben Carson (7), former Florida governor Jeb Bush (3), and Kentucky senator Rand Paul (2).
Based on the current polls, at least 40 percent of voters will vote for Trump. Taking the turnout of around 130 million in 2008 and 2012 as a base, Trump is expected to receive at least 52 million votes. Record turnout is expected according to many observers. Obama won 66 million in 2012.
These numbers support a political conclusion that a large faction of American society, regardless of how Trump’s worldview is branded, support his vision. It is of the utmost importance to realize that this is a powerful ideological current that Trump did not invent. Rather, he has only given a voice to, galvanized, emboldened, and mobilized it.
Dr. Gregg Henriques, a professor of social psychology at James Madison University, explains that “what is being played out on the political stage” is “a battle for the very identity of the United States of America.”
This development closely resembles the battle that emerged between two camps in Britain that led to the shocking and unexpected victory of the “leave” campaign voting for the exit of the UK from the European Union in the June referendum. The result reflected deep-seated frustrations in a large faction of British society, which had built up over an extended period of time, that UK politicians had not fully recognized or made any meaningful attempt to address.
At the heart of the UK battle were the supporters of the “leave” campaign and the supporters of the “remain” campaign. The supporters of the “leave” campaign sought to preserve British identity by rejecting a European identity and opposing Europeans immigrating freely to the UK. The supporters of the “remain” campaign consisted of cosmopolitans who accepted multiculturalism and globalization with all their pros and cons.
In a lengthy article analyzing the social and political forces that have given rise to Donald Trump, Henriques writes:
The despised political class is largely cosmopolitan, and what is propelling Trump is a wave of anger and frustration directed at the political and intellectual establishment from a group of disaffected traditionalists who feel unheard, unfairly treated, left behind, and betrayed by the dysfunctional establishment. This group believes that the system is rigged by Washington insiders, politically correct academic leftists, and by processes of globalization. They fear what is happening is a redistribution of power away from traditional places and a shift toward multicultural values and international commerce that threaten both their economic livelihood and their very identity as Americans who take pride in their values and sense of exceptionalism. These individuals seek a strong leader who speaks their plain language and can break up the current establishment.
A Trump election win would act as an earthquake of epic proportions. It would likely lead to an unarmed civil war between those who want to bring him down led by the American establishment, most likely from both parties, and those who are mobilized by Trump and have been silenced for decades under the weight of the two political parties.
And if Trump loses the election, he may not quit leading what he calls “our movement,” although he will likely pay a high price for fighting the establishment (Democrats as well as heavy-weight Republicans) and the powerful media.
Indeed, the reason he refuses to commit to unconditionally accepting the outcome of the election could be his desire to extend the movement and reconstruct the remnants of his campaign into a powerful political force. He will most likely confront Clinton and her initiatives at every turn. Meanwhile, whether he will launch the Trump news network to promote his visions remains to be seen.
In reaction to these potential developments, it is quite possible that the mirror image of them emerges on the opposite side of the political spectrum in the US, the left. Here is where Bernie Sanders, unlike Donald Trump, quietly laid the torch down and abandoned his 13 million staunch supporters who voted for him in the primaries in the hope of revolutionizing the fabric of politics in the US.
After Sanders endorsed Clinton, a tirade of disappointed and angry comments poured in online, with many Sanders supporters feeling cheated and used by the self-described “democratic socialist.” One twitter user wrote, “Bernie Sanders endorsing Hillary Clinton feels so much like when the girl you love starts dating the guy you hate most.”
It is quite likely that an unmatched army of young, left-leaning Sanders supporters gives rise to a new leader who will pick up and carry the progressive torch and join the next round of battles that will reshape the two-century-old American political system.