I remember the first time I started to understand Donald Trump’s appeal to white, working-class Americans. Falwell told the crowd that Trump had picked him up in his private plane and offered him dinner. If they ever got rich – and a significant proportion of white working-class Americans sincerely believe that one day they might – then they could be like him, rather than a snob like Mitt Romney, whom they had rejected in a previous election. The left believes that the prospects for democracy weaken as inequalities grow and oligarchies emerge which govern in their own interests. Second, there are far more powerful and plausible national stories we can tell, that are inclusive and optimistic and they occasionally break through.

Source: The Guardian November 23, 2018 06:00 UTC