By Dee Smith
If I told you that my analytical take is that the U.S. is poised on a change so profound that it may become almost unrecognizable, you would probably assume I was referring to the incoming second presidency of Donald Trump.
I am not.
The second election of Donald Trump is a manifestation of a much more profound set of changes that the U.S.—and much of the rest of the world—is undergoing.
Let’s back up a bit.
It is worth remembering how the world we have been living in came to be.
After the devastation of World War II—following on the devastation of World War I and the subsequent global depression—the U.S. led an effort over a period of decades to invent a new world order. In some ways it was an illusion, in some ways it was defined ex post facto, and it was certainly self-serving, but it did bring some real change, particularly because the U.S. had the power to create, impose, and defend it.
This international world order was based on the idea that a set of governing rules would be put in place that would not only shape global order but would try to prevent the kind of conflict that had been so catastrophic in the first half of the 20th century.
The U.S. invited, and sometimes compelled, other nations to join, under US leadership. A kind of alternative system was offered by the Soviet Union, but even the USSR ultimately cooperated with the rules-based global order—the “liberal international order” (or LIO) as it came to be called (“liberal” here does not denote the political left).
The U.S. led and supported the creation of multilateral institutions, like the World Bank, and the United Nations and its multitude of sub-divisions (such as the COP meetings on climate). A primary role of these institutions in theory was to prevent conflict by providing a forum to address disputes, under the watchful eyes of the powers that triumphed in World War II—represented by the UN Security Council.
The U.S.—and this is critical—was the guarantor of this global peace and order, as well as the enforcer of the rules (and the rules were largely America’s). It had not only the influence but also the military might to prevail in many situations.
This system was seen by a large consensus of left and right in the U.S. to be profoundly beneficial to the country. The U.S. dollar became the reserve currency of the world, allowing the United States to sell its debt and finance its operations to an almost unlimited extent.
Eventually, the so-called “neo-liberal” economic order, based on the ideas of economists like Milton Friedman, and put in place particularly by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, led to lowered trade barriers and massive globalization. Production went to the lowest-cost producers, resulting in cheap flat-screen TVs and the like. As mentioned above, it was obviously a self-serving system, but it did arguably pull a billion people out of extreme poverty (and of course, they could then become consumers of the products of U.S. corporations—although in an increasing number of cases, not products actually made in the U.S.).
That whole vision is now being abandoned by a majority of Americans, across the political spectrum. This was underway before Trump took office the first time (and led to his victory then), it continued during the Biden administration, and would have continued if Harris had won the election in November. Trump will simply accelerate it.
It is being abandoned not least for the straightforward reason that it is seen by a large and increasing number of Americans as not having worked, in the specific sense that it has not made their lives better.
This is particularly true for blue-collar workers, who feel that they have been “left behind” by developments in the modern world (including globalization and technology), and also feel their jobs have been increasingly taken by immigrants.
Last year, a self-produced song entitled “Rich Men North of Richmond” was put out by a singer called Oliver Anthony. It made a huge impact and debuted as No. 1 on the Billboard list—the first time anyone has done so with no prior chart history.
“Rich Men North of Richmond” (Washington, D.C., is, of course, north of Richmond) is very telling and has serious implications, and is worth listening to for its political and social import.
The song touches on government power, inflation, taxes, low wages, food insecurity, welfare abuse, and child trafficking—as well as the general sense of dismay.
Here’s how the song begins:
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day / Overtime hours for bullshit pay / So I can sit out here and waste my life away / Drag back home and drown my troubles away.
And here is how it ends:
Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds / Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds / Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground / 'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down.
Anthony is a young, white male—and his song hits home for many. He was apparently very upset about the song’s invocation during last summer’s Republican National Convention: he means it as a condemnation of both parties, a sort of “pox on all your houses” approach.
The scope of the turn against the incumbent order in the U.S. (and not just in the U.S.) is breathtaking, especially when considered as a whole.
There is a massive reaction in the U.S. against the entire range of LIO ideas described above, which is a non-partisan. Martin Wolf, who writes for the Financial Times, has accurately described it as “an undoing project”. It is essential to understand the details, the causes, and the effects.