A Reading of a Future: Sanders, Trump and Romantic Politics.
The future cannot be measured, probed or scanned. It’s the only place (and time) where the arts, the crafts and the sciences are on equal ground, and where fact and fiction meet. Nevertheless, thinking about it helps us to understand our time and how we may position ourselves. So here’s my thought: Sanders and Trump are Romantic politicians and their political imagination is as much about today as it is about the rest of this century.
Let me explain…
At Monnik we work with the World Tree Model (WTM), a historic-futuristic model that traces the socio-cultural dynamics of modernity back to its roots, the early modern age (starting roughly in the 16th century). This model works as a lens that allows a certain reading of history and the future as a dialectic between the values of the Enlightenment and Romanticism that have shaped modern society and its psyche (of course many other readings are possible an valid as well). Nonetheless this lens provides a particular narrative about where we come from, where we are and where we are going. The model is (like every model) a simplification, but in general terms you could say it mostly applies to developed economies and to Western cultures. In Asian societies for instance the values of Romanticism are very underrepresented.
What happens if we look through our WTM lens at Sanders and Trump. While observing the primaries in the U.S. this year we could not help but see the two future scenario’s our WTM suggests were quite well represented by the values embodied by Sanders and Trump. In short:
The Trump Scenario
Economic paradigm: Artificial Scarcity (“there is not enough for all of us”)
Goal of economic policy: Protect production (i.e. protectionism)
Social status: I have access (privilege, gated communities)
The Sanders Scenario
Economic paradigm: Abundance (“there is enough”)
Goal of economic policy: Distribution of production (i.e. tax capital)
Social status: I am (authenticity, personal growth)
To complete the historic-futuristic timeline of the WTM lets include today and the past. The scarcity scenario that is dominant today, and has been for roughly the last century or so is:
The Status Quo Scenario
Economic paradigm: Scarcity (“there is not enough”)
Goal of economic policy: Grow production (i.e. grow the economy)
Social status: I have (buying power, accumulation of wealth)
Surely it is not as clean cut as presented here. But bare with me, it is a useful way to read some of the dynamics in today’s society and political discourse.
Romantic Politicians
Trump and Sanders have both been described as authentic. What they say and how they come across doesn’t seem to be construed by spin doctors. Sanders is a consistent idealist, he holds his believes and truths high and hasn’t wavered from them his entire political career. He is true to himself. Trump says what he thinks, expresses his sentiments however politically incorrect, amplifying emotions of his electorate. He is not ‘reasonable’ he is ‘emotional’.
Authenticity, ‘being real’ and ‘being yourself’ is very much a Romantic value. Where Enlightenment values focus on the universality of man, man as a rational being, while Romanticism values subjectivity, the unique individual experience of the world. Our individualist side has its roots in Romanticism. Both Trump and Sanders are in that sense Romantic politicians, although very much on opposite sides of the political spectrum. They are both true to themselves. And although we, modern man, appreciate this Romantic trait on a personal level, when we look at their agenda’s it is a more mixed bag.
The More or Less Romantic Electorate
Sanders appeals to the younger urban generation. Those who sympathized with Occupy, who believe the lifestyle of their parent’s generation is out of reach financially and boring socially. Their ‘I Am’ social status is economically determined, but in a different way than their parents’ ‘I Have’. They seek a basic form financial stability, ‘to have enough’ instead of their parents social status rationale ‘to have more’ and to keep up with the Joneses.
Trump appeals to a very real anxiety and uncertainty with those left behind by the globalized free market world. Those who exist at the peripheries of globalization in rustbelts, shrinking towns and food deserts. Where Sanders supporters enjoy global culture and can identify with it, Trumps supporters experience much of it as alienating and threatening. ‘I Have’ is not adequate, access to property needs to be a privilege. It should be ‘I Have Access’ (and you don’t). Working hard and accumulating wealth is not a universal right, it is for true American’s only.
Both Sanders and Trump address Romantic sentiments in their electorates. Trump appeals to the desire to understand and relate to one’s environment. To reverse alienation, to heal the world that is broken by the fragmenting and abstracting forces of globalization and economic growth. i.e. Mexicans and Chinese stealing jobs. He does so through appealing to the American imagined community. To a glorified past that can be reinvigorated. His rhetoric taps into Romantic Nationalism and Fascism, pointing out that all the ‘outside’ forces that are over our heads and out of reach, are destroying what is American. Trump’s solution: make America into a giant gated community.
Sanders appeals to very similar desires, but in the context of a very different environment. Culturally speaking his electorate inhabits not the periphery but more or less the center of globalization. In terms of community they are more comfortable with the fluid social life of cities. They seek to relate meaningfully to the natural environment and themselves, healthy and sustainable lifestyles and expressing their selves. They see Sander’s proposed policies as a platform that can provide more time and space for pursuing these. They see in Sanders the promise of levelled playing field. Since the promise of ‘more’ does not appeal to them, what they need is ‘enough’, since social status comes from ‘stories’ not ‘stuff’.
Finally to contrast the above, the status quo. In terms of electorate one could roughly align it with the values of the middle class. The middle class is a hybrid of Enlightenment and Romantic values. Privately much of the middle class is Romantic, they believe and consume sustainability, fair-trade, solar-panels, artisanal bread etc. But professionally they operate along the lines of self-interest, efficiency and profit-maximization. And in the process of doing business their privately held concerns for the environment and fellow human beings is often marginalized. The middle class is unstable, the rise of outsiders like Trump and Sanders show this. They appeal to a middle class which also feels that their is a real ambiguity or even contradiction between the values held in private and professional domains. The middle class may silently hope that these contradictions will eventually be fixed, and that they won’t have to make sacrifices in terms of their lifestyle (at work or privately). But in the long-run also awareness will grow gradually that something’s gotta give at some point.
What will happen?
Despite who wins the election in November, these scenarios have a longer timeline. De-facto the United State already has abundance, it is just extremely unevenly distributed. The middle class is eroding, and the rise of advanced robotics and artificial intelligence will aggravate this. This means that the economic realities of today, or rather our socio-economic mind-sets, are outdated. The problem the economy needs to solve is not to grow and make more at the expense of the planet. The problem it needs to solve how to distribute economic production fairly, halt accumulative growth and save the planet. We are becoming more Romantic, this means our social status sensibilities are ripening for a system that is not based anymore on perpetual economic growth and accumulation. The routes through which we may arrive at this socio-economic reality may involve a harsh detour, But ultimately you can not sustain political stability with a society ridden by structural technological unemployment and without a strong middle class.
This is all just one way of reading of where we are going. There are many more factors at play. But nonetheless, once you start to see the world in a certain way, the way you act (and vote) might change as well.
