Thomas Frank (Ding-dong, the jerk is gone. But read this before you sing the Hallelujah Chorus, 8 November) is one of a number of commentators warning us about the persistence of Trumpism, even after the departure of Trump himself. While there is widespread consensus about the causes of this phenomenon – unacceptable levels of inequality in the US, fuelling resentment among those left behind – there has been little analysis of what we mean by “Trumpism”.
Donald Trump rode the wave of resentment throughout his presidency, but did little to address its causes. Despite this, the close election result demonstrates the abiding loyalty of his supporters. So what did he give them instead of policies designed to produce a remedy?
We are all familiar with Marx’s characterisation of religion as the opium of the people – a drug that distracted working people from their sufferings with a promised reward in the life to come. It’s a sad reality that many of those left behind in the US have become addicted to actual opiates, but the one that Trump has dished out in abundance is closer to religion in privileging belief over fact. When climate change and Covid-19 are dismissed as “hoaxes”, the appeal is clear: which of us would not prefer a world in which these threats could be declared nonexistent? Trump’s world is a Manichaean one in which Democrats, rather than being tame political opponents, form a child-trafficking ring. For his supporters, the certainty that they are on the side of righteousness, fighting a satanic enemy, exhilarates in a way that conventional political discourse would struggle to match.
This is the Trumpism whose persistence we should fear, while hoping that Joe Biden’s calm reliance on fact and reason over wishful thinking, appropriate empathetic emotion over hysteria and political solutions to real evils will prevail.
Marguerite Alexander
Richmond, London
• Norman Thomas (Letters, 8 November) worries that nearly 50% of voters chose Donald Trump. What is really frightening is that a substantial number of those did so not because they disliked Joe Biden, but because they thought Trump had been the best president ever. The dichotomy in worldview between the liberal majority and Trump’s base could not be harsher, with unforeseen consequences for American political life over the next few years.
Frank Land
Totnes, Devon
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