Make America boring again

My first American Christmas was spent in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, visiting the family of a friend at Harvard. He was friendly and easy-going and came from a Christian Republican family. They took their religion very seriously, he said. Premarital sex was forbidden; I soon became the friend whose room he officially slept in when his girlfriend came to visit.

I have some vivid memories of that trip. The pretty little house where all the laundry fits together, like a hotel. Roast turkey, which my Indian palate found fresh off the boat to be bland and dry, and the much-anticipated angel food cake, which turned out to be extremely crumbly but surprisingly bland in a pleasant way. Years later, I discovered that this was because it avoided both butter and egg yolks, the two things that give the humble cake its richness.

We went to church. The sermon was largely flawless, except for the recurring call for “God bless America,” which seemed a little provincial. There were expressions of concern for those less fortunate, which were reflected in the family’s discussion of the many things they did to help those in need. What sticks with me is the very genuine spirit of generosity and warmth that emerged from these conversations – they really seem to believe that God’s love and generosity extends to everyone, even people who may have a little of it the right path, and the implicit need to do something for them too.

I never discussed abortion or homosexuality with them, and I suspect those conversations wouldn’t have gone very far, but they were calm, polite, and generous (for example, to me, an unapologetic heathen). The first meeting was a bit formal, but there was a gentleness to it, a bit like angel food cake.

That was 1983. President Ronald Reagan had recently launched his own plan to “Make America Great Again”: fewer taxes for the rich, fewer benefits for the poor, stronger corporations and weaker unions, private charities and private prisons , abstinence and abortion ban.

I thought of this visit after another Republican won the US election and unexpectedly even won the state of Pennsylvania. My hosts adored Reagan. Reagan was articulate, affable and affable, and had the rare ability to make the many racist things he said sound reasonable and even compassionate. He was divorced but had remarried and appeared to have a stable and loving marriage. He attended church regularly and 1983 was the year he declared the “Year of the Bible.” His strength was his typically American mildness, which hid a ruthless commitment to a right-wing agenda.

Trump is completely different: rude and harsh, with a great talent for making the (very) bad things he says sound even worse. His racism is blatant and extends to all non-white people. He brags about his sexual conquests, claims that as a star he is allowed to physically harass women and that he slept around very publicly during his marriage (allegedly when Melania was pregnant). A jury found him guilty of sexual abuse and he is a convicted felon. Occasionally he mentions God, but mostly to emphasize his own semi-divine status. If Reagan was angel food cake, Trump is a stale rusk in a village tea shop with only his toughness to offer.

Both Reagan and Trump were/are machists, but in very different ways. Reagan saw himself as a wide-brimmed hat cowboy, a role he played in several films (he occasionally confused scenes from a script with actual history). In his mind’s eye he was tough but merciful and fair. Despite his elitist upbringing, Trump is more of a street thug, a persistent and obnoxious whistler. I didn’t like Reagan and still blame him for the disastrous anti-poor turn that the US took in the 1980s, while Trump, at least in his expressed views, is more sympathetic to the US working class (though not for immigrants). But Trump displays a rudeness, dishonesty and violence in everything he does and says that I cannot stand.

Could my hosts (we’ve lost touch – I don’t even know if they’re on our side), with their emphasis on good manners, decency and conservative Christian values, have found in Trump what they loved in Reagan? And yet a large majority of conservative Christians said they planned to vote for Trump and likely did. After all, he gave them the judges who struck down abortion rights in his last term, and they might have feared that Kamala Harris would try to undo all that. And as the hymn says, God moves in mysterious ways, perhaps even to the point of resorting to regression.

But only about a quarter of the population consists of strict religious conservatives. What about the rest? Why weren’t they deterred by his violence and narcissism? Why should they expect anything from this extremely self-centered man?

Part of the answer seems to me to be that Trump’s only talent is expressing hate and contempt (possibly because he really doesn’t like most people, which might explain why so many of his closest aides eventually turned against him) . This made him an effective (evil) boss on The Apprentice, the TV show that made him famous. Perhaps voters upset about their own fate will resonate with the vulnerability of his words and ignore the content.

Viewed from India, the claim that anger drives American voters may seem puzzling. It is, after all, the most powerful country in the world. But when asked whether their country is on the right path, at least 70% of Americans say “no.” The main complaint appears to be about the economy: In most polls, voters blamed Biden-Harris for the weak economy.

The only problem is that the economy is not weak – it is, in many ways, the strongest it has ever been. GDP in 2024 is significantly higher than predicted before the pandemic. Employment rates are near all-time highs and real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) wages for manufacturing workers and other non-managerial employees (i.e., lower-level workers) have never been higher, with a particularly steep increase in the Biden years. And the biggest increases were among the lowest paid workers. Why are they complaining?

Perhaps voters are concerned about the longer-term outlook. It’s true that the last 40 years haven’t been particularly good for the American worker. Reagan succeeded in overthrowing the workers. Real wages fell during the Reagan years and under his Republican successor, George Bush, despite a growing economy. They began to rise in the 1990s, but it was not until 2020 (or perhaps a little earlier, depending on how inflation is calculated) that real wages reached the levels that the current worker’s parents and grandparents enjoyed in the early 1970s. By this time, GDP per capita was twice as high, but almost none of this additional income had reached the working class.

This is happening in a country where, historically, each generation has done better than the last. What made matters worse was that some groups, such as B. male employees with low levels of education repeatedly fell behind the rest. No wonder many low-income Americans (especially low-income men) are angry and think something has gone completely wrong. And many of them blame a (somewhat unclear) perception of elites for supporting what they see as anti-worker policies such as globalization, immigration and Big Tech, although, interestingly, not Reaganomics (Reagan remains a hero). They see Trump as an ally. I think Trump really pisses off the elites because they (unsurprisingly) treated him as a corrupt jerk during his years as a city guy. What also makes Trump credible is that he doesn’t behave like today’s elites. He doesn’t finish his sentences, thrives on racist and sexist jokes, brags about his petty crimes and disregards the law. I’m absolutely not saying that most non-elites behave this way, but I think it goes against the current elite norm so clearly that it clearly expresses Trump’s otherness. This may be why even low-income women believe Trump is closer to them than Harris, a representative of California’s elite. And that’s why they’re grateful when he spews hatred at the elites, at immigrants, at this largely imaginary clique of “woke” feminists and genderqueer people.

If I’m right, there’s both bad news and good news. The bad news is that we may be trapped in the trap of low expectations. Polls show that people in the United States, especially poor people, expect very little from the government. They vote for Trump not so much in the hope that he will do much for them, but because of cynicism about the entire project: Since governments are largely useless, why not choose someone who will at least make your (mostly internal) enemies uncomfortable? But then very little will change and the anger will still be there, waiting to be harvested.

The good news is that anger against trans people, immigrants, etc. may be directed more at the elitist worldview that supports them than at them as people.

The big news for the world (including India) is that Trump reflects America’s crisis, not its greatness. We can’t go for a strongman because the US has one now – loudmouths and bullies only serve themselves – there’s nothing wrong with being boring as long as boring gets the job done. With that in mind, I would like to offer a lovely dessert starting with the (very boring) angel food cake.

Angel Food Cake Recipe

Mix ¾ cup sugar, 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1 cup cake flour very well. Separate the eggs until you have 11/2 cup egg whites (it’s best to just buy egg whites) and let them come to room temperature. Beat with 1 teaspoon vanilla essence and 1½ teaspoons cream of tartar until fluffy and beat at high speed, gradually adding 12 tablespoons sugar until the egg whites form shiny, stiff peaks. Fold in the flour with soft hands, 1 tbsp at a time. Pour into a tube mold and bake for 35-40 minutes. Allow it to cool completely before removing it from the pan.

Serve with a berry or mango compote. To make the compote, braise 3 cups fresh or frozen berries or fresh mango in 4 tablespoons orange juice and 6 cardamom pods for 15 minutes, mashing the fruit with the back of a spoon as it cooks. If the fruit is too tart, add sugar to taste.

Serve pieces of cake with a generous portion of compote.

This is part of a monthly column by Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, illustrated by Cheyenne Olivier.

PHOTO CREDIT: Cheyenne OIivier (France)

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