Donald Trump focused on three major problems the middle class of the United States is facing. He claimed to have solutions for all three. This is what allowed him to be re-elected in 2024 to finish the job.
First problem / first solution:
When a factory closes in the United States, the jobs leave for Mexico or China. Or, within the United States, the work is entrusted to illegal immigrants who earn half the American minimum wage. And they are also happy to be exploited. These two phenomena fuel resentment among American workers.
The Democrats’ ultra-liberalism has fostered this resentment by encouraging offshoring of american enterprises and deregulating more an already hyper competitive job market. The American middle class, which works hard to feed its children and send them to school, feels abandoned.
Trumpism offers two simple remedies: start by deporting undocumented workers. Plus a few legal workers with papers, by persecuting them. Then build a wall at the border to prevent them from returning. And perhaps one day authorize patrols to shoot on sight.
Second problem / second solution:
How can we attract back companies that have left America for Mexico or China ? By increasing the price of their imports to such a level that, at some point, it will become cheaper for them to produce on US soil. And to increase their costs, the miracle solution: tariffs. The declared goal is to reindustrialize the United States, to allow the working middle class to see factories return to their territories. And to save their communities.
Third problem / third solution:
Inflation on basic necessities has severely affected the United States. This was mainly linked to the chaotic management of Covid during the first Trump presidency. Its resolution took time, actually the entire duration of the Biden term. Trump was clearly the first cause of this problem, and it has unfairly benefited him. Trump’s solution : none. Just empathize and complain with the poor people…
To these three categories of solutions proposed by Trump, I see three categories of objections.
Legal objections : the anti-liberal policies implemented, i.e., protecting the jobs of true Americans and reindustrializing the United States, create an obvious threat on civil rights : international law prohibits the expulsion of one’s own nationals; deportation ; should always be to the country of origin ; families must not be separated, aso.
Economic objections : expelling underpaid but highly productive workers risks causing production costs to explode, thus quickly creating inflation, particularly in agriculture. and it will be a long time before foreign companies come to invest in the United States. Building new factories is long and expensive : will the american market be such a good deal? And by making imports more expensive, America introduces inflation (while enriching in counterpart the central government that collects taxes).
Climate objections : none of Trump’s policies bother with environmental protection or the fight against global warming.
By proposing simple (simplistic?) solutions to the three problems mentioned above that affect the middle class and even the lower-middle class, Trump has found his fans and voters. Against an upper middle class that is elitist, progressive, and liberal, primarily (but not exclusively) championed by Democrats.
But Donald Trump’s real agenda is not aimed at the middle class. His hidden goal is to repeat Ronald Reagan’s trick on american society, the one he pulled during the golden years : enriching the wealthy and already rich even more.
By cutting social programs, drastically downsizing the government (but certainly without touching military or homeland security spending) and expanding the national territory by annexing Canada or Greenland, or Panama. Trump’s true policy is aimed at the upper class.
Not to mention that, like any tyrant, he hopes to enrich himself big in the process.