Make America Great Again? Akahawkeyefan/Flickr. Some rights reserved.It seems a cottage industry of commentators has emerged to try and explain the rise of Donald Trump and his recent capture of the White House. What they fail to address, however, is that over the past year globalisation has created a new class structure in the West — those who have benefited from globalisation and those who have not — which does not fall neatly along previously recognised political lines. While this new structure is by no means unique to the US, it has taken slightly different forms elsewhere. Both groups are worthy of investigation.
The beneficiaries of globalisation
The social and political elites of America generally enjoy the fruits of globalisation. As income inequality exacerbates difference within our nation, the higher socio-economic strata tend to enjoy increasing diversity of global cultures, cuisines, languages, and people. However, they are broadly guilty of self-serving top-down thinking. Private sector elites, often on the right, hoard profits within the C-suite with little regard to the lack of human flourishing below. Conservatives refuse to entertain a raise in the minimum wage, forcing tens of thousands of low-wage employees to seek benefits from social welfare programs while being fully employed — subsidizing corporate business costs at the expense of taxpayers. Further, they blocked nearly all of President Obama’s efforts to help those harmed by globalisation.
The liberal elites, on the other hand, have relied on the courts or executive orders as avenues of social change. Urban liberals attempt to move the country forward by force, forgetting that perception is more powerful than truth in both politics and culture. Safe spaces may be just, white privilege may be real, and political correctness may be decent, but without convincing the white masses that presently form the majority of America, those concepts will not survive outside the ivory tower. Being righteous and alone improves few lives beyond our immediate contact.
