Democracy Briefing: Trump’s win reflects a major political shift in the US, and NZ

Vladimir Lenin famously said: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Does this apply to Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election? And is his win an event that’s specific to American politics or part of a broader political shift encompassing New Zealand’s election of the rightwing coalition government last year?

It's worth considering some of the major political shifts occurring over the last century. In the 1930s and 40s much of the West saw a global turn towards leftwing political parties, which built modern welfare states and delivered stronger labour laws and improved working conditions. But the 1980s saw the rise of neoliberalism and the dismantling of much of that work.

Then when Barack Obama won the US presidency in 2008 many commentators thought it signified a similar tectonic shift, and some progressives hoped that Jacinda Ardern’s politics of kindness and focus on wellbeing would function as “a beacon of hope to the world”. But Obama’s legacy is tenuous, and from our current perspective Ardern ranks as one of the least impactful elected prime ministers in our history.

Now we have a sometimes-radical coalition government that some see as our equivalent of Trump. Does this mean we in the midst of a great transformation? Or just a moment of reaction? 

Inflation was a common factor in both the US and New Zealand elections. Incumbent governments around the world are being punished for high prices. Both the Democratic Party and Labour attempted a leadership switch to counter this. Joe Biden was essentially forced to step down as democratic nominee while Ardern went willingly but neither Chris Hipkins nor Kamala Harris were successful at distancing themselves from their own administrations. Public anger at inflation has not been limited to leftwing parties. The British Conservative Party suffered an historic defeat. Germany’s conservative Social Democratic Party is deeply unpopular. 

The Nobel Prize winning economist Daron Acemoglu (whose ideas and their relevance for New Zealand politics I wrote about last week) wrote on Twitter that Democrats “have been losing the American workers and did nothing to regain them in this election. Dems have ceased to be the workers’ party long ago, owing to their support for digital disruption, globalization, large immigrant flows, and ‘woke’ ideas. The transformation is really striking, as I have argued before: now it is the highly educated, not manual workers that vote for Democrats, and if the center-left does not become more pro-worker, it and democracy will suffer.”

Exit polls certainly indicate that high income voters shifted to the left while middle- and low-income voters across all ethnicities shifted towards Trump. A similar phenomenon has taken place in New Zealand over the last fifty years. Higher educated voters predominantly vote left. Many of the wealthiest electorates in the country are now held by the Green Party. 

In New Zealand the “great awokening” of the 2010s and early 2020s, in which educated elites adopted radical positions on issues of race and gender, emerged as an expansive interpretation of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, and their authority across most policy domains, accompanied by the top-down adoption of Te Reo Māori across state-run institutions and media.

All three coalition parties campaigned against this in opposition. Not only have they rolled back the Ardern government’s accomplishments, David Seymour’s Treaty Principles bill will call for a referendum to radically redefine the principles of the Treaty. Seymour’s bill was finally released this week, to intense criticism. National must vote for it in first reading to honour its coalition agreement with Act, but has promised not to support it beyond that. Seymour believes the issue will endure beyond his current bill. 

The transformation of the media industry was also a key factor in Trump’s victory. The US election is being labelled “the podcast election” due to the prominence of the online broadcasting platform, which was dominated by the Trump campaign.

One of the most perceptive critiques of the impact of this trend and the broader culture of the Democratic party came yesterday from the New York Times columnist and broadcaster Ezra Klein. He pointed out that four years ago podcasting superstar Joe Rogan interviewed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders and endorsed him for president. Sanders was heavily criticised within his own party for speaking to Rogan, who is loathed by progressives because of his stance against transgender women competing in women's categories in Ultimate Fighting Championships. 

This year Rogan interviewed Trump for three hours during the last week of the campaign. It has had more than 47 million views on YouTube alone. Rogan also interviewed Trump’s vice-presidential candidate JD Vance and enthusiastic supporter Elon Musk. On the eve of the election Rogan endorsed Trump. Kamala Harris and her vice-presidential candidate declined to be interviewed.

It recalls Jacinda Ardern’s decision in 2021 to cancel her weekly interview slot with Mike Hosking, New Zealand’s most popular broadcaster. The complaint that leftwing politics is dominated by ideological purity contests and echo chambers is not new, but these problems seem to be deeply entrenched into the political culture of many leftwing parties and movements. Klein points out that Democrats campaigned against Trump as “a fascist” and the greatest threat to democracy in the world, but refused to broaden their messaging to connect to a wider audience and that these positions were obviously in conflict. 

There are many differences between our politics and theirs. In the US, Harris raised far more money than Trump, while in New Zealand National is still the party of big donations and big business.

Three key issues that don’t yet have a purchase in mainstream New Zealand politics are immigration, abortion and transgender issues. New Zealand has seen record high inward migration, but it’s been legal migration.

The number of “undocumented migrants” in the US is estimated between ten and twenty million. Trump has promised “the largest deportation program” of undocumented immigrants. New Zealanders are broadly supportive of recent immigration policy. In the recent Ipsos issues poll only 3% of New Zealanders named immigration as an important issue, while in a Gallup poll at the start of this year 28% of Americans named it the most important issue. 

Abortion was another divisive issue in US politics, while in New Zealand the 2020 Abortion Legislation Act enjoyed a significant majority. Christopher Luxon pledged to resign as prime minister if his government restricted access to abortion. The Trump campaign’s most effective ad attacked Harris on her support for transgender care for prison inmates and undocumented migrants and ended with the tagline “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

Trump is said to have spent $215 million promoting the ad on social media. Analysis by the New York Times suggested that the ad shifted the race 2.7 points in Trump’s favour, winning support from black and Latino men and suburban women voters. While New Zealand First has come out against transgender issues and the Green party’s newest MP identifies as non-binary and uses they/them/ia pronouns, the major parties are mostly silent on the issue. 

A number of New Zealand commentators and journalists have written thoughtful responses to the Trump victory. Ben Thomas believes politics is being infested by fandoms. Josie Pagani blames the outcome on identity politics – she says that the Democrats (like the left in New Zealand) continue to put their money on fighting culture wars, which are a disaster.

Matthew Hooton sees the result as a blow of working people against liberal elites. He concludes: “It is extremely unfortunate that their legitimate demands to be respected but left alone have been expressed through a person as dangerous to the world’s strategic and economic stability and survival of the American democratic republic as Trump.” Similarly, Andrea Vance says that Trump’s victory “marks a massive realignment in politics, demographics and class. Not just in the United State, but throughout the West.”

The challenge now is to think further about how this major political realignment might be impacting New Zealand politics at the moment and into the future. In this regard it’s worth noting what “political commentator” John Key said in response to Trump’s victory. He described Trump’s ongoing rise in popularity as part of a “bigger movement”.

Key explained: “Truthfully, there is a movement happening around the world… You can feel, you know, all sorts of emotions about that, but you can’t deny it.” It’s not quite up there with Lenin’s famous quote, but the gist of Key’s observation does seem equally apt – there’s a transformation going on, and anyone interested in politics, economy and society would be wise to seriously try to understand what’s going on.

Dr Bryce Edwards

Political Analyst in Residence, Director of the Democracy Project, Victoria University of Wellington

Key Sources

Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Democracy Briefing: “Why Nations Fail” – how NZ’s political institutions are failing us

Matthew Hooton (Herald): Trump voters deserve respect, however uncomfortable liberal elites find it (paywalled)

Ezra Klein (New York Times): Where Does This Leave Democrats?

Rachel Maher (Herald): Donald Trump’s victory: Sir John Key and Brad Olsen weigh in on economic implications

Josie Pagani (The Post): Identity politics have failed the left; here is the way forward (paywalled)

Ben Thomas (The Post): How the internet has helped turn Trump supporters into a ‘fandom’ (paywalled)

Andrea Vance (The Post): America gave two fingers to the world ... and the political elite (paywalled)