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jake-dunn
13th December 2017

Trump’s revolution

By alienating his foreign allies and pushing his nationalist rhetoric to the extreme, Trump risks undermining the revolution he started in 2016
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TLDR

In 2016, Donald Trump became the new flag bearer for Populism around the world. He has made Populism, bigger, badder and more American. When Trump walked into the White House as President on the 20th of January 2017, he brought along with him a new era of American politics. Despite having control of Congress, the Presidency, the Supreme Court, and the vast majority of State governments, the Republican party has been divided and weakened by Trump and his Presidency.

When Trump emerged onto the political landscape in 2015, everyone thought he was a joke. But that is exactly what Donald Trump wanted you to do. Trump was underestimated throughout the Presidential election and that was why he won, Hillary Clinton mocked him and called him a ‘racist’ but that was exactly what he wanted, with a populist sentiment in the air after Brexit, Trump was elected President, and the political establishment was shocked and horrified.

Trump’s Presidency has divided American in a way we never thought possible, race, class, gender, rural and urban have all become more and more polarised and pushed apart as a result of his ascendency. Hate crime is on the rise, and race has become more an issue than it was under any previous administration.

Trump’s Revolution involves this huge racial divide engulfing the USA, Trump core supporter base is mainly white working-class people who fear that they are becoming the minority and are going to lose their identity.

Trump’s talk and actions over immigration are an example of him addressing their concerns, in this matter, Trump pursuit of increasing isolationism in the international community is another example of this, Trump’s revolution is aimed at securing the place of White Americans at both home and abroad, by encouraging in a new bizarre way and form White nationalism and populism.

Trump’s Revolution has affected the Republican party and establishment. The party once dedicated to big business has become a melting pot for conservatives, nationalists, and racists alike. The Republican Party is now increasingly the party for America’s white population and have alienated many African American, Latino and Hispanic voters with Trump’s emergence.

People like Roy Moore, in Alabama who hopes to win, Jeff Session’s former Senate seat in December are the new face of the Republican party. A man, may I say who has called Islam a ‘False Religion’, recommended Muslims should be barred from serving in Congress and said ‘America exports Homosexuality around the world’.

Admittedly, some shocking statements, but without Trump, Moore’s brand of radical, populist, conservative and nationalist right-wing politics would have never had the confidence to emerge as they have. The Republican party has now become a party of this new wave of white American populist nationalism, with Islam and immigration from Mexico being the main target of its rage.

Trump’s most recent re-tweets of Britain First’s very right-wing and Islamophobic propaganda, is just a symbol of this rage. Trump is attempting to show his base that he means business and that he is still talking tough and he is attempting to draw attention away from his failures to repeal Obamacare and introduce Muslim bans, and by tweeting and holding across the USA, he is communicating with his base in a far better way than traditional way than traditional politicians have.

While it is likely in the 2018 midterms that the Republicans will keep their majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, internally the Republicans have been divided by Trump, in a way that will determine their future for the next few decades and as the Democratic party seem to be moving to the left in the same way the Republicans have moved to the right, the boundaries of American politics are changing, with both parties being polarised in opposite directions by populism.

Trump’s most recent tweets are nothing new, but he is beginning to push the boundaries of right-wing politics in the USA. By re-tweeting Britain Frist, he is pushing the new wave of alt-right nationalism and populism spreading across the Western world. He has alienated Theresa May, his only major European ally. In the USA, it is the same his rise will be as quick as his fall, while Trump is a genius populist, he might be pushing his luck and skills to the limit.


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