What Trump’s Election Tells Us About Global Politics

I’m an American living in the UK, and my wife is Brazilian. in both the UK and in Brazil, I’m seeing people say they can’t believe that Trump won the election. This is an extremely myopic view.

Fourteen million voters picked the Reform party in the UK just a few months ago. Many Brazilians would vote for Jair Bolsonaro if they could (he’s been barred from running for political office until 2030). There are far right governments in power in the EU. These include Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, and the Czech Republic. In Germany and France, far right parties are growing. This trend is also seen in other areas of the world.

This isn’t some anomaly that the United States happened into. It’s the failure of neoliberal policies over the past 54 years. There’s a growing wealth gap and it seems to get bigger every year. The response of politicians is to do some version of this meme:

Democrats were advised in this past election by Labour politicians like Jonathan Ashworth. The Labour Party that is cutting fuel allowances for pensioners. They refuse to lift children out of poverty. They are raising tuition fees while continuing to look after corporate interests. If they continue down this path of pain, they will face serious challenges. They will find themselves in a very similar position that the Democrats are in now.

If there’s no change in the wealth gap, people will vote this way even more. This isn’t something unique to the United States. If wealth inequality continues to widen, so will the rise of fascism.