The Rise of Fear Based Politics: From Trump to Kaua'i

Donald Trump has repeatedly proven me wrong.

Just a few weeks ago I erroneously wrote that he represents the ideological extreme of the Republican party.

But his crawl to the left of the GOP at the last two debates (criticizing George W. Bush, defending planned parenthood and Obamacare), and then his quick slither back to the right made me finally accept that it isn’t ideology that drives Trump—it’s his narcissistic quest for power. While Ted Cruz represents the ideological extreme of the Republican Party, Donald Trump is simply a manifestation of the anger and fear which the GOP has been carefully cultivating among their base since the election of Barak Obama.

Yet, as predicted by nearly every creation story from Prometheus to Frankenstein-- the GOP lost control of their anger fueled electorate.  

And I was wrong again when I wrote a piece for Civil Beat saying that Donald Trump’s name "will soon be buried in the sand of history. Just another hate-mongering demagogue who never made it into elected office."
Super Tuesday's primary results were clear enough to show that he will almost certainly be the GOP nominee. Which puts us one terrorist attack or economic recession away from having this vile political animal winning election to the most powerful office on the planet.

And even if he loses the election and drifts into obscurity, his brand of authoritarian politics is here to stay. Because he's not the problem.

Thomas Edsall recently wrote in a New York Times op-ed that the widening inequality gap and the stagnation of middle-class wages is driving the success of Donald Trump. "Already disillusioned with the Democratic Party, these white voters became convinced that the mainstream of the Republican Party had failed them, not only on economic issues, but on cultural matters as well."

Ironically, Donald Trump is a perfect example of the fundamental flaw in unfettered capitalism which leads to growing inequality and middle class wage stagnation. Trump inherited $40 million in 1974. As Vox reports, if he had just let the money sit in an index fund he would have just about the same size fortune as he has right now (somewhere around $3 billion). Donald Trump's wealth isn't because he's a brilliant businessman or good at making deals, it's simply because wealth begets wealth.

In every developed country on Earth the rate of return on capital exceeds overall economic growth. So investment returns on accrued or inherited wealth-- whether it's in stocks, land, or equipment-- increase much faster than wages do.

As Donald Trump shows us, those with money make more money at a faster rate than those who rely on wages. And unless we correct for it, inequality will continue to rise.

Which is the most fundamental problem facing America today. 

While I won't give him credit for his financial success-- he does deserve credit for his innate understanding of the electorate. Instead of confronting the fundamental issues that have swallowed the wealth of the bottom 90% of Americans-- Donald Trump has capitalized on our fear, anger, and desire to blame someone else.

Vox recently featured a must-read overview on the rise of American authoritarianism.

Two decades worth of research into authoritarianism has shown that a large segment of the population turns to authoritarian leaders when presented with a stimulus of fear. And it predicted the rise of a future authoritarian politician who could capitalize on those fears. But, while the article focuses on Donald Trump as the epitome of an authoritarian leader, it's hard to read it and not think about Kaua'i.

Frustration with the economy and social change isn't isolated to the mainland. Growth in personal income has stagnated in Hawai'i, inequality is growing, and crowded roads and crumbling infrastructure are the first signs that we are reaching our limits to growth.

If you grew up on Kaua'i, then the rapid pace of change and our seeming inability to do anything about it can be both frightening and maddening. In 2014, that fear gave rise to an unprecedented level of polarization from emotion based politics. One side capitalized on the fear of genetic modification and the other side capitalized on the fear of socio-economic change. 

Polarization on Kaua'i: Click to Enlarge

With that in mind, please read closely these excerpts from the Vox article:

Authoritarians are thought to express much deeper fears than the rest of the electorate... and the extreme nature of authoritarians' fears, and of their desire to challenge threats with force, would lead them toward a candidate whose temperament was totally unlike anything we usually see in in American politics...   

When they face physical threats or threats to the status quo, authoritarians support policies that seem to offer protection against those fears. They favor forceful, decisive action against things they perceive as threats. And then they flock to political leaders who they believe will bring this action...  

There is a certain subset of people who hold latent authoritarian tendencies. These tendencies can be triggered or "activated" by the perception of physical threats or destabilizing social change... It is as if... a button is pushed.  

 [In 2005, researchers theorized] that if social change and physical threats coincided at the same time, it could awake a potentially enormous population of American authoritarians, who would demand a strongman leader and the extreme policies necessary, in their view, to meet the rising threats. 

This theory would seem to predict the rise of an American political constituency that looks an awful lot like the support base that has emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, to propel Donald Trump from sideshow loser of the 2012 GOP primary to runaway frontrunner in 2016... 

... non-authoritarians who are sufficiently frightened of physical threats... could essentially be scared into acting like authoritarians. 

Authoritarians are much more susceptible to messages that tell them to fear a specific "other"-- whether or not they have a preexisting animus against that group. Those fears would therefore change over time as events made different groups seem more or less threatening. 

When told to fear a particular outgroup... "On average people who score low in authoritarianism will be like, 'I'm not that worried about that,' while people who score high in authoritarianism will be like 'Oh, my god! I'm worried about that, because the world is a dangerous place..."

Trump's specific policies aren't the thing that most sets him apart from the rest of the field of GOP candidates. Rather, it's his rhetoric and style. The way he reduces everything to black-and-white extremes of strong versus weak, greatest versus worst. His simple, direct promises that he can solve problems that other politicians are too weak to manage. 

This... is "classic authoritarian leadership style: simple, powerful, and punitive..."

If Trump loses the election... the authoritarians will still be there. They will still look for candidates who will give them the strong, punitive leadership they desire. 

And that means Donald Trump could be just the first of many Trumps in American politics, with potentially profound implications for the country.

The key in this research is that fear triggers a move towards authoritarianism: "as if a button is pushed." As I've written about before, our political discourse is moving increasingly towards a rhetoric of constant fear-- which is triggering otherwise latent authoritarianism tendencies in voters.

In the rise of authoritarian leaders, the issues aren't important. What does matter is the "simple, powerful, and punitive" leadership style, the reduction of complex subjects to simple memes, the willingness to fight, and most importantly, a steady rhetoric of fear.

But Donald Trump and some of our loudest fear mongers on Kaua'i are not the problem-- they are just symptoms of this growing trend.

This isn't about the specific politicians or their policies-- it's about what happens when we let fear and anger drive our political discourse. There will be no end to the line of authoritarian leaders who can successfully channel that emotion towards a clear "enemy;" whether it's Jews, Muslims, "north shore haoles," or "chemical company shills."

We're facing the beginning of a new breed of emotion driven politics. And as campaigns based on fear and resentment proliferate, they will continue to erode our ability to have rational conversations, engage in transactional politics, and reach across the aisle. Our political system was never designed to be a zero sum game-- and if we can't come together then we will continue to fail at solving our most fundamental problems.

In a self perpetuating cycle-- as fear and anger continues to grow, so will the number of politicians who can capitalize on that emotion.


While we might not be able to break that cycle nationally, we can break it on Kaua'i. The island is small enough that, at most, there's only one degree of separation between all of us. We are one community, and we can't be divided by fear.

I was wrong about the rise of Donald Trump, but I don't think I'm wrong about this.