The Rise of the Anti-Establishment Candidate

A central theme of this election has been: the establishment versus the anti-establishment. This conflict first manifested itself during the Democratic primary. Bernie Sanders represented the anti-establishment and Hillary Clinton represented the establishment. On the Republican side we saw something similar. Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz (the tea party candidate) represented the anti-establishment. Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and others represented the establishment. The theme persists as a Democratic establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, battles against the anti-establishment candidate, Donald Trump.

What’s going on here? Why has this election become a battle between these two opposing forces? How did we get here? The answer: economic inequality.

The economy has grown since 2010 at a sluggish pace of just over 2% growth annually. Most of the capital gains from this growth has gone to the “one percent.” This growth is not just fragmented by socioeconomic status but also by region. Below is a map of the United States color coded to display their respective levels of GDP growth.

The darker the shade of blue a state is colored, the more economic growth that state has experienced. This chart shows us that whole regions missed out on economic growth in 2015. Some have even seen negative growth. In this past economic quarter, some of the states that were doing well, are no longer doing so well. There were no longer any states experiencing negative growth, but states which were at one point growing modestly have slowed.

If we compare these maps to the current map of states supporting Trump and Clinton, a pattern begins to emerge.

We see that states that have experienced low levels of GDP growth are more likely to vote Trump. States that have experienced decent growth are more likely to vote for Clinton. Most of these Trump states are historically Republican, so it’s not particularly surprising that they would vote for the current Republican candidate for president. However, this data reveals that Republican states are experiencing a lot less growth than historically Democratic states. The reason for this is complex, and beyond the scope of this article. But, this trend could help explain why there is such a strong anti-establishment sentiment within the Republican party relative to the Democratic party. Essentially, these people fear that they’re getting left behind in the economy as globalization and mechanization erases more and more American jobs. Farmers, factory workers, and soon truck drivers, have had their methods of subsistence either taken away from them or downgraded by technology and competition from other countries. These people are being squeezed by growing corporations and their pursuit for exponential growth. Corporations who are looking to pay as little as possible for labor and commodities, and use the global market place to look for the lowest prices. People are anti-establishment because the established political and economic system no longer benefits them.

Some folks in the anti-establishment camp blame immigrants for the rise in inequality. However, the data shows that their effects are negligible on this matter. Others blame trade deals like NAFTA and TPP.

Globalization would exist regardless of whether these trade deals did, and although they have facilitated the rate of globalization, they are not the cause. Globalization is caused by corporations looking for countries that serve as tax shelters, provide cheaper labor and less regulation, and generally lower cost of production. This creates inequality because American laborers are now competing with laborers from other countries. Other countries who don’t provide their citizens minimum wages or safety regulations like the ones we have here in the U.S. Of course, higher minimum wages and more regulation translate to higher labor costs. Corporations in pursuit of profit seek to lower all costs, including labor. This is what fuels anti establishment candidates. Not necessarily the knowledge of what’s causing this inequality, but the experience of inequality itself. Trump is very much in tune with this sentiment. He plays on the fears of these people by proposing solutions like building a wall to keep immigrants out, taxing goods from other countries, and cutting down existing trade deals. That is, as people continue to see their jobs leave the country and their incomes drop, Trump promises to fight globalization and promotes nationalism as a solution. It might seem reasonable to some, when faced with the fact that a growing trend of globalization is the cause of their problems, to propose stopping the progress of globalization. However, fighting a trend has always been much more difficult than adapting to one. That is, the trend of rising globalization is likely to continue whether we like it or not. The quicker we accept that fact, the quicker we can start putting forth some actual solutions. Although I strongly believe that the anti-establishment movement is justified, and even necessary, I don’t believe Donald Trump is the answer to the problem of inequality. His proposals to put tariffs on non-American products would certainly hurt non-American economies. The US relies on non-American economies just as much as they rely on us. Hurting any major economy in today’s highly interconnected world would create a domino effect across the planet. In other words, closing ourselves off from the rest of the world would have disastrous effects on the global economy. This means: less jobs, less income, and less opportunity for all. The anti-establishment is going to have to look for a new candidate to get behind, and it’s going to have to wait until next election. In the meantime, there’s plenty of opportunity at the local level for the anti-establishment movement to make an impact.