I clearly remember the first time I went; it was ona political factfinding tour during the mid-term elections of 1994. I must have been a curse on the Democratic Party (yes, I tend to support them) as they lost the House and the Senate for the first time since 1952. The 1994 mid-term elections have been coined the “Republican Revolution”.
Bill Clinton, who was President at the time, was able to work with Congress and the Senate to some degree and in 1997 he was able to pass a bipartisan budget that increased Medicaid coverage and provided child-based tax credits to the middle class.
As I pack my bag, it seems that the reasonably bipartisan politics experienced under Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama are well and truly over.
So the question I ask myself is: how did we get here, and how is it even possible that Donald Trump could win a second term?
Trump is a symbol of disruption and the continually shifting plates of political coalitions.
However, he is not the cause. A primary cause of that disruption has been the flow of information - from and to non-traditional sources.
People who were once passive consumers of information, who may have watched the news, read a newspaper, or received information one way from their church or union, are now bombarded on their phones through multiple news sites and social media platforms day and night.
While it was once one message, not particularly well-crafted for their ears, today, their interests, views and prejudices are individually catered for and presented to them in many forms: a podcast, a news show, a YouTube channel, Facebook, an email list or a WhatsApp group.
A 75-year-old man sitting at home with his iPad in front of him can opine on all matters relating to US politics because he has more information at his fingertips than his president did just 20 years ago, be that information truth or fiction.
Americans go to the polls to elect the next President on November 5.
Working people in the US and the UK have felt condescended to by the elites of both sides of politics.
They have been offended at being patted on the head, asked for their vote, and then told to shut up for four years.
Whether we believe Trump gives a damn about the people who vote for him, many of them think he does - and many of the rest just don’t care. He speaks to them and for them in a language they can relate to.
Trump’s attacks on the liberal elite and media resonate, especially when he appeals to the “forgotten man”. He rallies against the establishment and institutions that have often failed working communities. The fact that he doesn’t offer solutions appears to mean less than his well-aimed attacks.
Likewise, his support of “American jobs” and economic protectionism reassures generations who have seen the world change so fast, not just economically but also socially and regardless of the fact that he actually never delivers on such propositions.
The political upheaval in the US isn’t unexpected or odd. Think of New Zealand; it was not the traditional Labour working-class voters that led to the Vietnam War or Springbok tour opposition; it was the university-educated liberals who infused the party from the 1960s.
Some of that upheaval led to the appearance of Robert Muldoon. Some similarities can be drawn between what Trump has created and “Rob’s Mob” back in the day.
Political parties have often been tenuous coalitions, particularly in the US. Look at the Democrat-voting South that supported the party universally until Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Act. Trumpism is just another iteration of the many coalitions that make up US politics.
Trump has reshaped the Republican Party in his own image, and he’s reached out to a portion of working people, playing on their fears around law and order and migration.
Many of us find his methods deplorable, but we would not have done what Hillary Clinton did and described his supporters as such. In doing so, she confirmed for many of them what they had always believed she thought of them anyway. If Democrats wish to engage with the voters they have lost to Trump, they will need to start meeting and listening to them on their terms.
I look forward to getting my feet on the ground and hearing perspectives directly from American voters.
