Yes, Trump can win in 2020.
No, globalization has not stopped.
The American government comprised of wobbly elected officials and poorly skilled regulatory bureaucrats have the wrong policy architecture to deal with the new challenges of globalization.
Globalization isn't easy for anyone. It puts pressure on developing and developed countries equally. Many in American see globalization as a wrenching process. Winners and losers are often different people from different lots in life.
Plus, once China and India joined the global capitalism game, the rules of business changed and a secured life of middle-class stability dimmed.
The American government is hopelessly out of steep in today's hyperspeed of IT and AI enabled globalization. The government is at least seven standard deviations of Moore's law behind private businesses.
One of the most significant challenges to globalization comes down to perspective - the classic where you sit is where you stand. Meaning, do you see a world of abundance or a world of scarcity? Do you look at your job limited only to your county or could you perform your job anywhere on the planet?
That is, can you move your capital and skills anywhere on the planet versus can you only seek employment your county?
Is your employer ten miles from the house or 3,000 miles from your house?
These fault lines of worldviews are the big challenge derived from globalization and provide a platform for Trump to have election success again in 2020.
Education reform and skills retraining offer no instant gratification to this challenge. Short-term tweaks of the tax code and protectionist tariffs aren't a solution either. An America committed to long-term investment and betting on generational transforming innovation is essential.
As NBC News reported in their post Election 2016 analysis, "in the 1960s, white southern Democrats began changing their party affiliation to Republican. Over the next five decades, as the GOP built a three-legged stool of support from security hawks, social conservatives and fiscal conservatives, white working-class voters, especially men, gravitated toward the party but did not fit neatly into any of those groups. Over time, those voters felt little loyalty to a party that increasingly counted on their support in election years but otherwise paid them little attention."
The NBC News report continues, the "Republican Party’s historic focus on supply-side economics — cutting taxes for the highest earners as a way to unleash economic growth and create jobs — has helped fuel the perception of the GOP as the party of the wealthy. The Democratic Party, once the political home for laborers and unions, has evolved into a more urban, coastal and college-educated coalition, embracing a new base of women voters and the nation’s growing minority population. Working-class voters, particularly men, have felt increasingly marginalized, with no natural home in either party."
“Trump is the manifestation of people’s anger,” said Haley Barbour, a former Mississippi governor and onetime Republican National Committee chairman. “People all around the country want to send Washington the bird, and they see him as the gigantic middle finger.”
Nothing has changed since the last election. People are angry and continue to give the bird to Washington.
The lack of change by not addressing the challenges of globalization and the lack of thinking long-term as a unified nation gives Trump the foundation he needs to have electoral success again.
- Marc A. Ross
