Along with just about everyone else, this humble spirit fears that he’s spent too much time writing about Donald Trump. Unfortunately, the man provides an almost bottomless pit of material, and he’s getting worse as the election approaches. No one looks forward to the country “getting past” Trump more than I do, but until then. . .
According to Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, “the challenges America faces aren’t really logistical, they are metaphysical” and as a result “the economic metrics used by economists and presidents to capture the state of the nation are masking a vast ‘spiritual crises.’” His ideas were summarized in the New York times: “The Senator Warning Democrats of a Crisis Unfolding Beneath Their Noses.” The senator defines his mission as “understanding how the version of liberalism we’ve adopted—defined by its emphasis on free markets, globalization and free choice—has begun to feel to many like a dead end, and to therefore come up with a new vision for the Democratic Party.”
The problem, as he sees it, is that America’s leaders have long been guided by what’s often called the neoliberal consensus: the notion that “barrier-free international markets, rapidly advancing communications technology and automation, decreased regulation, and empowered citizen-consumers would be the keys to prosperity, happiness and strong democracy” In other words, the assumption that what’s good for markets is good for society—and what makes us prosperous, will also make us happy.
Too Many Americans Feel the World is Just Getting Worse
Needless to say, the old adage that “what’s good for General Motors is good for America” no longer holds true. And it’s more than just losing the industrial powerhouses that once employed huge swaths of Americans, enabling them to live middleclass lives. Does anyone seriously believe that what’s good for companies like Mehta (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), Nvidia (chips for AI), Tesla (Elon Musk), Apple (exploited Chinese labor), and Amazon (having to return what the Chinese make) are good for American society as a whole? Their profits keep going up, as do their market valuations, but their stock is owned by a relatively small portion of Americans. And even if their success could be shared equitably throughout society, there’s reason to think Americans are looking for something better, something more than simply material gain.
“The idea that modern life is a story of constant economic and technological progress steadily making the world a better place has stopped lining up with how Americans feel. You can look at statistics about suicide, depression, overdoses and declining life expectancy. . . and the astonishingly pervasive sense of loneliness that now seems to color so many American lives. But no statistics really capture the feeling, shared by growing numbers of Americans, that the world is just getting worse.”
It’s not just the cost of living and the lack of opportunity to improve their lives (a house would be nice) that’s angered people and prevented the Democrats’ message from getting through. The truth is, it’s hard for most people to assess the state of the economy. Unless there are circumstances such as occurred during the Great Recession or the Covid pandemic, asking people about the “economy” usually garners nothing more than how they feel about their own circumstances and prospects at the moment—which have lately been tainted by the grim notion that the world is getting worse.
“For over a year, the Biden administration and its allies had been promoting data showing an economic miracle, as friendly pundits described it — a record-setting stock market, low unemployment, and G.D.P. growth outpacing that of almost every other Western nation. But very few voters believed the story those metrics were telling. In poll after poll, they expressed a bleak view of the economy — to the frustration of both Democrats and many economists.”
We may not yet have discovered how to counteract it, but the fact is, “Donald Trump and the MAGA movement have tapped into a sense of deep alienation and national malaise, feelings that Democrats often have trouble even acknowledging are real.”