Prof. Frank Dehne

For those of us in the university crowd who wonder about the rise of Trumpism, Wolfgang Streeck (Emeritus Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies) published a very important new book "Taking Back Control?: States and State Systems After Globalism".

His book makes a very compelling case that the rise of new populist movements such as Trumpism is a consequence of the "withdrawal of the new middle class from its alliance with the old, and new, working class" ...  📖

... "the new middle class do not want to be held responsible for satisfying the parochial demands of the losers of globalisation for material or cultural compensation. Their world is the planet, not the nation, at least in their self-image" ...  📖

... "[a large part of] the new middle class works in the field of education, where they believe their task to be to dissuade the less learned by friendly encouragement or bad examination marks from holding erroneous opinions" ...  📖

Sounds familiar?

We're the ones doing this...

Social Democracy

"Democracy, as a system of social institutions under capitalism, offered plebeian interests disadvantaged by the capitalist market and capitalist society an opportunity to assert themselves by mobilising political majorities. Its mode of action was the struggle, a trial of strength between more or less well-organised camps within society, represented by parties and associations, settled by a compromise" ...  📖

Liberal Democracy

The new middle class views "democracy as a value system" 📖  ... "its ‘values’ are determined by legal experts instead of by the decisions of contending citizens; they are constitutionalised, that is to say withdrawn from the purview of the majority, to protect them from voters who might misuse democracy to produce faulty decisions; interests are converted into laws and thereby made subject to judicial oversight; politics is no longer a struggle but a discourse, no longer plebeian but elitist" ...  📖

Summary

The rise of Trumpism is an expression of the workers' desire to take back control and get back social democracy ("make America great again").

This also explains the gender gap in voting patterns because a disproportionate number of  young men have been systematically excluded from the education system (disproportionately high male high school dropout rates created by policies supporting girls only) and pushed into worker roles.

Here are excerpts from Wolfgang Streeck's book 

explaining this in more detail

[Wolfgang Streeck (Emeritus Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies), "Taking Back Control?: States and State Systems After Globalism". Verso Books. Kindle Edition.]

... "the new class division can be understood as a result of divergent interests vis-avis globalisation: a definition of the new middle class as a group who are believed to, or actually do, profit from globalisation, who have an interest in open international markets for their human capital, and who do not want to be held responsible for satisfying the parochial demands of the losers of globalisation for material or cultural compensation. Their world is the planet, not the nation, at least in their self-image" ...  📖

... "The conflict between the old working class and its former allies, now feeling themselves to be cosmopolitans, is exacerbated by a particular asymmetry." ...  📖

... "it is typically the representatives of the new middle class who end up in possession, or, in any case, in control, of the means of cultural production and communication. This enables them to present and express their particular perspective as a general one – which is, of course, exactly what is meant by the production of ideology" ...  📖

... "the representation of the underclass in a democracy conceived as a system of institutions is replaced by the education of the underclass in democracy as a system of values. This reversal in the direction of political communication is additionally favoured by the fact that a large part of the new class works in the field of education, where they believe their task to be to dissuade the less learned by friendly encouragement or bad examination marks from holding erroneous opinions." ...  📖

Sounds familiar?

We're the ones doing this...

...  "The resulting culture wars, in which a newly standardised way of writing and speaking sometimes becomes a requirement for full moral citizenship, are conducted with a passion and emotion which is all the greater because the two hostile camps were previously allies, or at least thought they were." ...  📖

... "Democracy, as a system of social institutions under capitalism, offered plebeian interests disadvantaged by the capitalist market and capitalist society an opportunity to assert themselves by mobilising political majorities. Its mode of action was the struggle, a trial of strength between more or less well-organised camps within society, represented by parties and associations, settled by a compromise" ...  📖

... "This formula is institutionally anchored in a system of universal suffrage, in which everyone possesses one, and only one, vote, with the possibility in principle for even the great unwashed to turn their notion of common sense into society’s, or at least to make it socially influential. The involution of social into liberal democracy, as promoted by the new middle class, attacks this premise" ...  📖

The new middle class views "democracy as a value system" 📖

... "Democracy, in this sense needs, an elite capable of an authoritative interpretation of its authoritative values; it is not plebeian but elitist or meritocratic; its ‘values’ are determined by legal experts instead of by the decisions of contending citizens; they are constitutionalised, that is to say withdrawn from the purview of the majority, to protect them from voters who might misuse democracy to produce faulty decisions; interests are converted into laws and thereby made subject to judicial oversight; politics is no longer a struggle but a discourse, no longer plebeian but elitist" ...  📖

Here is how Wolfgang Streeck compares "social democracy" (the workers' version) with "liberal democracy" (the intellectuals' version):

• We're not looking good!

• We're on the wrong side of history 😧

SUMMARY: The rise of Trumpism is an expression of the workers' desire to take back control and get back social democracy ("make America great again").