American UvA professor Brian Burgoon: “Trumpism is bigger than we thought”
Donald Trump has won the US presidential election. How does UvA professor of political economy Brian Burgoon view Trump's victory? “He is more extremist than he was eight years ago.”
The illusion has been punctured, says UvA professor of political economy Brian Burgoon on Wednesday morning, a few hours after it was announced that Donald Trump could hardly escape the US presidency. While in 2016 you could still think it was a snapshot of Trump becoming US president, eight years later there is definitively no such thing. “Trumpism is more persistent and larger than we thought. About half of Americans voted for him.”
It worries him. Because of the detrimental, possibly even catastrophic consequences for his own country - Burgoon was born and raised in the US - but also for Europe and the Netherlands, where he has been living and working for 24 years now: “The period in which we can lean on American leadership here is really over.’ And we need to realise this, says Burgoon, for instance in the field of defence. “As the French minister of economic and European affairs recently put it, “We can no longer put our security in the hands of a few voters in Wisconsin.”
Moreover, Trump has become more extremist than eight years ago, the UvA professor observes. “He is less democratic, more authoritarian, and his international orientation is towards Putin rather than Ukraine. That makes his appointment as president this time really different.”
How do you explain this uprise of Trump in the US system?
“The main one, I think, is the system. Look, it's not as if everyone in the US is equally enthusiastic about Trump's corrupt actions or anti-democratic tendencies. But many voters swallow certain facets of him because, for instance, they are strongly against abortion or think Trump is going to cut taxes. This is a psychological ailment of people, but also a consequence of the US majority system, in which you can really only choose between two parties. If you necessarily do not want abortion, you have to go to the Republican party. In the Netherlands, you could still vote for an anti-abortion party, for instance, if you wanted to. Then you still have to forge a coalition with several parties.”
Are you then arguing for a substantial modification of the US majority system?
“Well, if you respect the plurality of a democracy, I would say that the US system is indeed unprofitable. But the problem is that a constitutional change is required if you wanted to get the US political system more in the direction of, say, proportional representation, as in the Netherlands. And it is incredibly difficult to bring about changes to the Constitution, especially in the US. If you compare the US Constitution to those of other countries, the fewest changes take place there. Representatives of relatively small states, like Wyoming, would otherwise have to give up their advantage in the system. They are not going to do that. So however objectionable, this system is not going to change.”
That makes it all the more interesting what other reasons could be behind this resounding victory for Trump. Do you have any ideas?
“There are countless other explanations to think of. The media ecosystem, where people on the right wing are only fed lies and misinformation, via Fox News or podcasts, for example - about the 2020 election being stolen, to name a few. The increased inflation in the US - many people have forgotten how hugely disruptive that is in politics - for which the Democrats and Biden are held responsible. The idea of being in opposition to an enemy, namely the ‘communist Democrats’. There is a group feeling that comes from that, a kind of family feeling. Anyway, we as social scientists don't really have a good grip on what is going on here either. We are always behind the times. This does not mean that our explanations are wrong, but rather that we are too slow in organising our ideas properly. It is proving more difficult than thought.”
What do you think the Democrats got wrong?
“They really should have pushed Joe Biden aside much earlier. Voters have not had enough time to hear a pro-Harris narrative and instead have heard mainly an anti-Trump narrative, something that also creates a group dynamic among (possibly) Republican voters against the Democrats: a we-feeling against those ‘communist Democrats’. Besides, you could have thought of other candidates who might have been better, brighter, more charismatic than Kamala Harris. Like Gavin Newsom, governor of California. But honestly, it's not like you look at the Democrats and think: gosh, what a weak candidate, what a bad campaign and what a problematic election programme. No, they pretty much did what they had to do. But we are struggling with an American system of just two parties where sometimes crucial margins of thousands or even hundreds of votes in a state are at stake. And then in a very polarised society.”
As an American, do you look at your country differently now?
“Yes, definitely. That was already true leading up to the 2016 election, when there was a huge change with Trump, which I regretted. But now that I realise how many people voted for him, I feel even more alienated from my own country and increasingly European. Many of my compatriots have the same feeling: they don't recognise their country anymore.”
