US election: Donald Trump’s win heralds the new reality

Donald Trump on stage with his family on election night in New York.

More than any other event Don­ald Trump’s victory reveals the transformed and fractured nature of American and Western democracy in an age of disruption — an omen of the coming brutal contests over the economic and social order. Beware confident predictions about what Trumpism means once the man sits in the Oval Office. This is a classic in Don­ald Rumsfeld’s notion of “known unknowns” — things we know we don’t know. The smartest people in the world are clueless about how Trump will govern or what he will actually do.

In his acceptance speech he cast himself not as a mere vote-gatherer but as something much grander: as leader of “an incredible and great movement” — a movement that would unleash the “tremendous potential” of each person in the quest to renew the American Dream, fill the land with new bridges, tunnels, schools and hospitals, double economic growth, have “great relationships” with other nations and put government back where it belongs, at the service of the people.

This is the language of new British Prime Minister Theresa May, who came to office, like Trump, as a consequence of a people’s revolt or movement and now pledges that government must serve the people who have missed out.

Suffice to say, Trump sees himself at a global turning point with its epicentre in the US. There is no disputing the historical nature of this election or the reality of his movement, best called a white working class/lower middle class revolt.

President-elect Donald Trump with three of his children, from left, Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka. Picture: Ben Baker/Redux/Headpress

The Trumpian revolt is driven by negatives rather than positives.

Fuelled by anger, it knows what it resents and hates: an untrustworthy political system, the impact of globalisation, structural economic change driving job losses, elites seen as remote and corrupt, a progressive cultural revolution destroying traditional values and a challenge to the status and power of white men as workers and fathers who see their income slashed, their masculinity marginalised.

Trump faces the trap of the political novice — raising expectations among his followers that cannot be satisfied but that may require appeasement by extreme racial or populist stances.

Yet his achievement at this election is astonishing. He has mobilised a new force in the country and the Republicans have control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, with Trump able to reshape the Supreme Court. The transition from Barack Obama to Trump highlights the sheer scale of the power transformation.

The key was Trump’s cunning in diagnosing the “personal grievance” plaguing the American soul. Trump became a symbol — the fixer, the nostalgia agent, the man who shared your anger, and he depicted a political establishment rotten to the core. His victory revealed an America even more bitterly divided than we grasped, with its sense of moral compass smashed to pieces.

But power is a transforming event. Trump must now govern, and that’s a different business brief. “I’m all about the hunt and the chase,” he previously said. But having destroyed the legitimacy of elites, president-elect Trump is now the chief elitist. His life is about to get a lot more difficult.

Trump wants to succeed as president. That means knowing when to cut deals, when to excuse and back off, and when to press ahead. In his acceptance speech he was unrecognisable from the narcissistic bully of the campaign.

With a touch of Lincoln he said: “Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division.” Forgetting about “crooked Hillary” who should be in jail, Trump praised Clinton, saying she was owed “a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country”. Having waged a despicable campaign of vengeance, he said “I’m reaching out” to those who had not supported him. The stench of hypocrisy was enough to choke.

But this is Trump. The guy wants to succeed. His brazen capacity to impose parts of his agenda and ditch others should not be misjudged. Remember, Trump doesn’t play by the rule book; he just tore it up and got rewarded. He met Obama and said he wanted to take his counsel. The lesson is obvious.

This is a time for calm and rationality. Anger at Trump’s election is as worthless as denouncing the American public. It is as true today as it was before to say Trump is unfit to be president. But it is counter-productive because he is president. History keeps remaking our realities. And Trump, inexperienced in public life, must figure how to keep remaking himself.

If you believe that Trump’s agenda is a danger to the world — pretty much a statement of the obvious — then the only rational response is to engage, advocate and persuade. This is how political leaders around the world should act. Malcolm Turnbull got it dead right, operating as a prime minister, not a journalist.

Turnbull remained cool; no hysteria, no moralism. He spoke to Trump, underlining Australia’s desire to see a strong US presence in East Asia, our support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal that Trump detests and Australia’s conviction as a US alliance partner.

In truth, Trump is about to enter a steep learning curve. He will be more prepared to listen to friends and supporters, not patronising leaders who think criticising Trump will earn them electoral kudos at home. Trump, no doubt, will treat such leaders as mugs. You don’t need a doctorate in human psychology to realise Trump is a vain man with a glass jaw likely to visit retribution on leaders and countries that opt for gratuitous insults.

The most fascinating element in Trump, however, is his dual identity. There seem to be two Don­ald Trumps, thereby complicating how the new president will govern: the real Trump and candidate Trump.

As Marc Fisher wrote in The Washington Post, the real Trump was a rich business elitist, enjoyed a playboy lifestyle, ripped off his contractors, dodged his taxes, embraced liberal causes, hired illegal immigrants and had the Clintons as his friends. But candidate Trump was a conservative champion, a supporter of the little man, an opponent of cheap and illegal immigrant workers, branded Hillary Clinton as corrupt, upheld traditional values and denounced the existing power structure as a swamp that had to be drained.

In retrospect, Trump’s opportunism is mind-boggling. It suggests, however, there is more scope for pragmatism and flexibility in Trump than may be expected.

Trump’s victory will provoke deep questions about the real nature of American society and power. He won in the teeth of an anti-Trump coalition that seemed unbeatable: the mainstream media, the academy, Hollywood, the educated professionals, the culture sector, the creative class, the trade unions and much of business.

Clinton had every professional advantage: more money, more activists, on-the-ground organisers, celebrity endorsements and polls showing she would win. Yet the extent of her failure is extraordinary.

This is a Democratic Party that has betrayed its base. Exit polls showed Trump got 60 per cent of the white male vote and 52 per cent of the white female vote. Traditional Republican voters tended to stick with Trump despite their doubts. So did evangelical Christians. Clinton was unable to win support of women and Hispanics in sufficient numbers.

She failed to match Obama’s 2012 performance with Afro-Americans or Hispanics. The remaking of the Democrats has been a flawed project. It worked under Obama but not for Clinton in the post-Obama age. Clinton was unable to carry the big industrial states of middle America, where job losses and economic angst ran high and people listened to Trump’s polemics because Clinton failed to cut through.

This election will plunge the Democrats and the progressive side of US politics into crisis. Trump has exposed their arrogance and misconception, based on Obama’s success, that they controlled America’s future. Obama is going. The Clintons are finished. The ultimate judgment is that they were too greedy seeking yet another presidential term as a couple.

Trump can talk about uniting America but he has no chance. This election shows the nation utterly divided about its future, its values and its national identity. David Brooks in The New York Times captured the dilemma brilliantly, saying: “Sociologically, this campaign has been an education in how societies come apart. We are a far more divided society than we realised.” America is becoming a more tribal nation, less bound together by shared, universal values and more shaped by the rise of subcultures based on identity. This is a profound weakening from within that must undermine US resolution in the world.

In coming years America will be preoccupied by its own problems. It will be less focused on the world and more focused on itself. How far this runs under Trump is difficult to say but it is an ominous trend, a problem for countries such as Australia and constitutes a global risk.

In Australia and other Western nations a tide of anti-Americanism is guaranteed to erupt. The shallowness of progressives will be exposed big time. They want their version of America, not the real America. They would accept Obama’s America but not Trump’s America. The Greens are leading the way and Bill Shorten will have trouble containing anti-Trump hostility within Labor.

The further lesson from this election is that America’s tribulations will be lasting. We have entered a new era. It is hard to fully grasp its dynamics but there is no doubt that passage through its threshold is a decisive event.

Trump’s victory is the greatest win by an outsider in the past century. The revolt of Middle America in 2016 is intense yet contested. On display is a culture war combined with a battle over economic interests and the distribution of national income. There is no easy resolution to these issues. Globalisation and technological change cannot be reversed or disinvented. In the end structural change cannot be halted at the US border despite Trump’s false promises, his hostility to free trade and rampant protectionism.

Yet there is an opportunity for Trump, perhaps a long shot. He is a businessman; he believes in lower taxes, higher investment and more jobs; his bizarre political coalition will drive him towards a growth economy with tangible gains for the Middle America that voted him into office. Trump cannot afford to fail on economic policy. That would negate his political meaning. It would be his road to ruin. Yet his agenda is a mix of opportunity and danger.

Trump will cut taxes at the higher end and for business. He will launch an agenda of infrastructure renewal and city regeneration. Will he threaten the independence of the Federal Reserve? Will he stick by his mad pledge to renegotiate or terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the deal he hates the most? Will he attempt to build a wall on the Mexican border? Will he begin deportation of illegals and launch a discriminatory policy against Muslim entry into the US?

Will he put the US budget deficit on an explosion trajectory? This is where Trumpism as an ideological movement collides with hard political and governing reality. If he misjudges on some or all of these fronts Trump will become a leader defined by convulsion, division and recklessness. Without sounding hysterical, the spectre of violence always hovered over Trump’s agenda. If he cannot grasp this risk and put a premium on the need for calm and reassurance then he is the ego-driven fool many believe and a tangible threat to the US and the world.

Have no doubt the US stands at a crossroads. The wisdom of Obama and Clinton has been on display in their post-election remarks. A gracious Clinton called on her supporters to accept the vote and give Trump the chance to govern. Obama said his aim in the transition period was to ensure Trump had a successful entry into office. And Trump has responded in turn. The stakes involved here cannot be greater — honouring the US constitutional provisions for a peaceful transition of power.

At the heart of Trump’s challenge is the fate of the Republican Party. It has been in a condition of internal ferment since Trump won the nomination acting on the premise he faced certain defeat. But victory is a healing agent. If Trump is smart he will reach out to Republicans, try to mend the divisions and create the basis for legislative success.

It is imperative that Trump, in office, change the style and content of his proposed foreign policy. Threats to NATO and to US allies Japan and South Korea are reckless and a threat to world stability. They risk fuelling a huge anti-Americanism in democracies around the globe while achieving little for the US national interest.

Trump is seen by many as proof of America’s social, moral and strategic decline. If this idea takes hold it will ruin Trump’s presidency, render grave damage to the US and constitute a world where the forces of evil will begin their march.