The fruits of injury + condescension

As Michael Sandel explains, part of Trump’s appeal can be laid at the door of the Democrats:

To win back the trust of the voters they’ve lost, Democrats need to acknowledge that the neoliberal globalization project they and mainstream Republicans pursued in recent decades brought huge gains for those at the top but job loss and stagnant wages for most working people. The winners used their windfall to buy influence in high places. Government stopped trying to check concentrated economic power. The two parties joined forces to deregulate Wall Street….

By 2016, four decades of neoliberal governance had created inequalities of income and wealth not seen since the 1920s. Labor unions were in decline. Workers received a smaller and smaller share of the profits they produced. Finance claimed a growing share of the economy but flowed more into speculative assets (like risky derivatives) than into productive assets (factories, homes, roads, schools) in the real economy.

Rather than contend directly with the damage they had done, both political parties told workers to improve themselves by getting college degrees. The politicians said: What you earn will depend on what you learn; you can make it if you try. The elites who offered this advice missed the implicit insult it contained: If you’re struggling in the new economy, it’s your fault. This galling mix of economic injury and credentialist condescension helped propel Mr. Trump to the presidency.

Read more here.