Trump and the “Globalists”
By Eder Leonel Torres
During campaign on a variety of speeches, Donald Trump denounced the American “establishment” for sending away factories that employed thousands of American workers. He spoke about issues that most Americans in lower classes are concerned about, employment, illegal migration, crime, and poverty. Although it is evident that Donald Trump did not represent a workers’ movement. His antiestablishment speeches during the 2016 presidential race encouraged many Americans to believe he represented the American working class. Many people in the United States liked that Trump denounced the political establishment’s corruption and weakness when making trade deals with China. Moreover, Trump’s speeches denounced the actions of American economic and political elites. In the United States neoliberal capitalism as an economic system supports corporations to stablish operations in states like Mexico. According to industry week “in the first decade of this century, America lost 56,190 factories, 15 a day”. These numbers are alarming; however, under neoliberal capitalism corporations are free to invest and exploit resources in other states without major governmental restrictions. Therefore, it is not surprising that many workers disappointed at the American political establishment supported Donald Trump to win the election.
On the political spectrum workers feel that traditional parties do not offer viable solutions to their economic problems. Instead, workers not only in the United States but in many “democracies” find fascinating that leaders present themselves as “outsiders”. They prefer that the “outsiders” express anti-establishment rhetoric and nationalism. To get elected Trump expressed a type nationalism that politically attacked “globalists” like the Clintons and Barack Obama. Although not expressed in the liberal media, social issues like poverty, illegal migration, and massive incarceration derive from the global economic system of neoliberal capitalism. Although I do not suggest that these issues did not exist before neoliberal capitalism was stablished but rather to reflect that in most democratic states political and economic elites rely on neoliberal capitalism to empower and enrich themselves at the expense of millions worldwide. Leaders like Donald Trump that expose “the globalists” for their corruption encourage working class Americans to hope and dream under the US national flag. Nationalism encourages people in lower classes to feel secure since they associate their well-being in connection to the state.