Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter is right that "Analysis of Trump's success does not go deep enough" but he himself could have gone deeper, and wider (Opinion & Analysis, March 25th).
Trump supporters are not the only “coalition of the dispossessed”, and a key question is who or what dispossessed them? It was not primarily the American political system as Prof Ferriter suggests – as he well knows, there are similar coalitions in Europe and elsewhere.
The wider, deeper cause of dispossession is decades of global neoliberal capitalism, still on the rampage despite giving us the banking crisis of 2008.
As well as right-wing coalitions like Mr Trump’s, there are left-wing “coalitions of the dispossessed”, like those of Bernie Sanders in the US and a variety of anti-austerity coalitions across Europe. They really oppose neoliberalism, as distinct from scapegoating immigrants, for instance, as Mr Trump and European right-wingers do.
The best explanation of these twin but very different "right" and "left" responses comes from Karl Polanyi, an Austrian political economist who in 1944 published The Great Transformation.
Faced with the devastation of two World Wars, the 1930s Depression, growing inequality, the rise of communism (then heavily distorted by Stalinism), and, especially, the rise of anti-Semitism and fascism across Europe, he laid the blame squarely on liberal, market-led capitalism (neo-liberalism in today's terms). Whereas his fellow-Austrian, Friedrich von Hayek, believed the capitalist market was naturally and benignly "self-regulating" (his The Road to Serfdom published in the same year would become the bible of neoliberalism), Polanyi argued that this so-called laissez-faire system was in reality created and maintained by states; that it separated out the economy and elevated the market above society; and that politically it was highly destabilising. Marketisation removed or eroded the social institutions on which all but the wealthy depended.
In response, people sought social protection from marketisation in different types of politics, moving away from the established centre-ground, either stupidly, self-destructively to the “right” or more sensibly to the “left”.
So today we see the surprising rise both of Mr Trump and of Mr Sanders; of Ukip and the anti-EU right in England, but also of Corbynism; of Le Pen and other fascists on the Continent, but also Podemos and other anti-austerity movements.
Meanwhile social democratic forces who support the established neoliberalism, including Clinton Democrats, Blairite Labour in Britain and the Irish Labour Party, haemorrhage support and effectiveness.
Trumping Mr Trump and the other right-wing reactionaries increasingly depends on the left-wing opponents of neoliberalism. – Yours, etc,
JAMES ANDERSON,
Professor Emeritus
of Political Geography,
Queen’s University Belfast,
Belfast.
Sir, – It would be odd if Donald Trump’s support is based on a “coalition of the dispossessed”, as Diarmaid Ferriter suggests.
Do the disenfranchised really see a man who is possibly the most franchised person on the planet as representing their cause? Perhaps even polar opposites attract. – Yours, etc,
COLIN WALSH,
Templeogue, Dublin 6W.
Sir, – Donald Trump seemingly would have us believe that striving to achieve an agreement with other nations on either trade or security would be little different to him than finalising a business deal for a hotel or a golf course ("Trump warns on Arab oil imports unless allies fight or fund Isis war, torpedoing Nato and of not being 'ripped off'", March 29th) .
In a business deal, if Donald Trump does not like the proposal, he can walk out and seek a deal elsewhere. In some instances, he might be able to dictate the terms of a contract. However, in the world of international relations such unilateral, idiosyncratic behaviour from Mr Trump would be unlikely to achieve success.
Rather than being a modern-day Constantine (Neil Bray, March 29th), Mr Trump could too easily descend into the role of an American Nero. – Yours, etc,
DAN DONOVAN,
Dungarvan,
Co Waterford.
Sir, – In view of the appalling behaviour of some of his followers, should Donald Trump now be called “Donald Thump”? – Yours, etc,
TONY CORCORAN,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.