But Trump is also doing something useful that his many critics seem to miss: conducting a series of high-risk political experiments that could redefine economic success and give voters a whole new way of evaluating their elected officials. Whether Trump succeeds or fails, we’ll end up with a new understanding of what voters will tolerate and reject.
There’s merit to many of these arguments. The problem, though, is that Democrats had their chance to address voters’ basic concerns and they failed miserably. The unpopular Joe Biden gave voters the whole smorgasbord of Democratic orthodoxy: stimulus spending, an infrastructure bill, new health benefits, green energy subsidies, plentiful immigration, and anti-business regulation. Voters said, meh. And in the 2024 election, more voters chose Trump's radicalism than the Democrats' rational but inspiring menu of policies.
So now we’re trying something completely different, to see if a power-hungry rulebreaker can fix a system many Americans consider broken.
President Donald Trump signs a document in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) ·ASSOCIATED PRESS
The immediate issue in the 2024 election was obviously inflation, which eroded the typical family’s buying power for much of Biden’s presidency. But there’s also been chronic dissatisfaction with the US economy for two decades or more as millions of lesser-educated Americans fall increasingly behind in a globalized, technology-driven society. Those are the frustrated voters who put Trump over the top in 2016 and again in 2024.
Establishment policies have failed the American working class over and over. Globalization enriched the shareholder class and brought American shoppers cheap imported goods. But that never lifted the fortunes of those Americans who used to make such products here. Digital technology provided new means of entertainment and information but few jobs for those used to working with their hands.
The portion of national wealth owned by the top fifth of earners has grown from 64% in 2000 to 71% today. Wealth controlled by the bottom 60% has dropped from 20% to 15%. The rich are getting ahead, but the middle and lower rungs aren’t. Worsening wealth inequality is a chronic problem plaguing most advanced economies, with no easy or obvious solutions.
Trump promises a fix. It involves protectionism meant to drive more domestic manufacturing, nativism meant to favor multigenerational Americans over newcomers and migrants, hostility toward cultural sensitivity, and a cadre of loyal henchpeople who will propel the Trump agenda regardless of propriety, custom, or law.
It probably won’t work. But that’s not the point. The point is that nothing else has worked, at least from the perspective of left-behind Americans. That’s how we ended up with Trump, twice.
Since conventionalism has failed, we experiment with radicalism. Trump is likely to trample the law in a rush to make good on his strongest issue and harry migrants out of the country. It will probably cause labor shortages in industries such as agriculture and construction, but we’re at a point where we need to find out for sure instead of just relying on econometric forecasts ginned up in office buildings.
Trump will threaten trade partners in an effort to find advantages for American goods wherever he can. Economists warn this will drive up prices, but economists aren’t coming up with any better ways to help blue-collar workers.
Trump will harass federal employees and discriminate against minority workers because Americans hate their government. It’s not the bureaucrats’ fault, but nobody else takes the blame, so let’s pin it on them.
Trump will cut health benefits for poorer Americans and make it harder for the needy to get food aid and other types of assistance. It might be cruel, but maybe this is what it will finally take to rein in spending.
There will be other uncomfortable moments during the Trump presidency, even for some of the 77 million Americans who voted for him. Trump will say this is what voters sent him to Washington to do. A lot of those voters will say, nah, not really, we just want you to help us get ahead.
Democrats have assumed the position of outraged moralizers. But they should be listening to a lecture, not giving one. Democrats are in the political wilderness because they applied conventional solutions to a problem that has outgrown them. Biden’s infrastructure and green energy bills are creating jobs, somewhere. But they are not convincing struggling Americans that policymakers care about them or that any of it will make a difference in the long run.
If Democrats think they just need to wait for Trump to fail and voters will finally see the wisdom of their big-government solutions, they will become a permanent minority party. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has a better approach, endorsing some Trump policies that seem to line up with voter concerns.
One possible outcome of the Trump presidency is that it defines a rightward boundary for how much radicalism, disorder, and lawlessness voters will tolerate. Trump’s policies do almost nothing to address the core problem holding many Americans back, which is that they don’t have the skills most in demand in a technical knowledge economy. Equipping more people with skills and appropriate education would be a far better approach than trying to force-feed the economy more low-skilled blue-collar jobs than it needs. Voters are tossing incumbents all throughout the democratized world, and Trump could end up just as unpopular as Biden at the end of his second term if he doesn’t deliver a miracle cure for the eroding working-class economy.
A dynamic political system should reward Democratic up-and-comers able to reject the stale bromides of Bidenism and engage with working-class Americans fearful for their livelihoods and cultural relevance. Democrats think they have some winners in the pipeline, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
If they do, those prospects might want to focus on the opportunities Trump 2.0 could open for them, instead of wailing about the end of democracy and every Trump offense. Trump is a guinea pig president who is going to test how much voters can stomach and probably go well beyond that. He’s showing the next president what it takes to win, what they can get away with, and where they should draw the line.
Trump may not heed the lessons his own presidency provides. But his potential successors should. Failed experiments sometimes lead to future breakthroughs.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Bluesky and X: @rickjnewman.
