The Populism Edition

Populism has upended American politics.

Bubba
11 Jul

The rise of populism, especially of the right-wing variety, has upended American politics. In this special edition of Bubba News we look at major themes in U.S. populism, a movement that claims to represent the common people against elite institutions that have lost their way.

The conditions (economic and cultural) that sparked the populist movement are complex and hotly debated, but one of the main themes has been growing disillusionment with the country’s systems and institutions.

The share of Americans satisfied with the way democracy works has steadily declined for decades and is now at an all-time low.

Chart: Gallup

Confidence in major institutions (like church, the military, Congress and the Supreme Court) has fallen, especially among Republicans.

Chart: Gallup

Trust in media has absolutely plummeted.

Chart: Axios

Meanwhile, our sense of national identity and shared values seems to be fraying.

Chart: The Wall Street Journal

Amid widening wealth inequality, the public has gotten more pessimistic about the American Dream — the idea that working hard gets you ahead in life.

According to a 2023 Wall Street Journal/NORC poll, just 36% of respondents believe the American Dream still holds true.
In 2012, 53% still believed in the American Dream.
In 2016, 48% believed it held true.

Chart: 2018 World Inequality Report

A Reuters analysis of 10 years of polling data reveals how Republican voters have shifted toward populism:

America First: Republican support for military force to achieve foreign policy goals dropped from 33% to 20% over a decade.
Rigged elections: Confidence in election integrity among Republicans decreased from 66% to 50%.
Immigration is everything: 57% of Republicans now see illegal immigration as an imminent threat, up from 40% in 2015.
Anti-globalism: Support for international trade among Republicans fell from 78% in 2016 to 72%.
Working class realignment: Half of white voters without college degrees now identify as Republican, up from 40% in 2016.

Bubba’s Two Cents

The TLDR here is that many Americans think the system’s broken, or even rigged against them, and they’re looking for political alternatives that aren’t “business as usual.” Right-wing populism helped reshape a lot of the GOP’s priorities. The traditional tax cuts and limited government Republican Party became much more focused on restricting immigration and adopted some positions usually associated with the left (such as support for tariffs and non-interventionism).

You can’t discuss the rise of populism without talking about immigration, which is probably the central policy concern of the movement.

Chart:

Concerns about immigration, which helped get Donald Trump elected in 2016, have reached their peak in the Biden era.

A whopping 51% of the general public (including 42% of Democrats) now supports mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, per an Axios Vibes survey released in April.
42% of U.S. Latinos support building a border wall, up 12 points from December 2021, according to another Axios Vibes survey.
A 2024 Wall Street Journal poll found 71% of Americans say immigration and border security are headed in the wrong direction.

Bubba’s Two Cents

Immigration is key to populism because it links the cultural and economic concerns of the movement. A very common claim from populists is that, at the expense of American citizens, elites are bringing in immigrants as cheap labor and future voters.

In an interview with The New York Times earlier this year, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, made the case for “a comprehensive populist economic agenda.”

Vance on the status quo:

The main thrust of the postwar American order of globalization has involved relying more and more on cheaper labor. The trade issue and the immigration issue are two sides of the same coin: The trade issue is cheaper labor overseas; the immigration issue is cheaper labor at home, which applies upward pressure on a whole host of services, from hospital services to housing and so forth.

Vance on how populists see things:

The populist vision, at least as it exists in my head, is an inversion of that: applying as much upward pressure on wages and as much downward pressure on the services that the people use as possible. We’ve had far too little innovation over the last 40 years, and far too much labor substitution. This is why I think the economics profession is fundamentally wrong about both immigration and about tariffs. Yes, tariffs can apply upward pricing pressure on various things — though I think it’s massively overstated — but when you are forced to do more with your domestic labor force, you have all of these positive dynamic effects.

As president, Donald Trump enacted many of the populist prescriptions (curtailing immigration and enacting tariffs to protect domestic industry) described by Vance.

Ahead of the 2024 presidential, Trump has floated a 10% universal tariff on all imports.

The impact: An Office of the U.S. Trade Representative study released this year found that Trump’s Section 301 tariffs slowed short-term investment growth and didn’t increase manufacturing jobs or wages.

An American Action Forum study from June found Trump’s proposed universal tariff would cost U.S. households an estimated $1,700 to $2,350 per year due to companies passing costs onto consumers.