Trauma and Trumpism

Since 2001, Americans seem to be struggling to cope with shocks in a way that they did not during the 20th century, causing the political instability of the 2020s.

Nov 27, 2024

What is wrong with Americans? Much of the world is asking itself some variation of this question since the presidential election. Many dismiss Trump out of hand as a serious candidate, and view him as a candidate of pure nihilism, and further wonder what accounts for the wide political appeal of a nihilist. The germ of Trump’s victory may be found in a New York Times-Siena College poll conducted in the run-up to the election, which found that 58% of Americans want a thorough overhaul of the country’s political and economic system. That same sense of disgust at the political system is what makes around half of Americans ready to accept calls to “terminate the Constitution,” or to use the military to force more than ten million aliens into deportation camps, or to impose draconian import duties that would undermine the economy. It leads the social scientist to dig deeper, to ask what fundamentally is eating at Americans that would make such deeply unserious policy have such appeal, why the United States has not been particularly resilient in the face of disruptions, and why the United States has become an erratic interlocutor for the rest of the world.

The roots of what is ailing the United States run deeply, not merely back to the unrest of the 1960s, but further back in American history, going back to the founding of the country, and the internal compromises needed to finalize the Constitution in the late 1780s. However, the immediate impulse for what is presently ailing Americans began at the turn of the present century, in a series of shocks, or “black swan” events, that have had a cumulative effect in destabilizing the American economy and polity. The political scientist Brian Klaas has developed a theory of the importance of “flukes,” relatively random events that develop second and third order effects. The series of events of the last quarter century has combined with what historian Adam Tooze calls a “polycrisis,” a series of events broadly connected to the decline of the neoliberal model first implemented by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and the lack of an emergent alternative or successor framework, made worse of successive shocks to the system.

When we look at the United States, we can see that the twenty-first century had delivered a series of shocks to the system, ranging from the Iraq War to banking crises, severe weather events linked to climate change, housing crises, and political upheavals including the election of the first African-American president and the political rise of Donald Trump. While it is tempting to create an even longer laundry list, most of the upheavals trace back to three exogenous shocks to American society, all of which continue to reverberate in 2024. Those shocks are the September 2001 terrorist attacks, the 2007-2008 financial crisis and “Great Recession,” and the 2020 SARS-CoV2 pandemic. Between the end of the Second World War and the turn of the millennium, there were few such sudden shocks, and the era is now remembered as by and large stable and prosperous.

Since 2001, Americans seem to be struggling to cope with shocks in a way that they did not during the 20th century, and the political instability of the 2020s appears to be rooted in a society-wide counterpart to post-traumatic stress disorder. The collective traumas of the September 11 attacks, the Great Recession, and SARS-CoV2 have profoundly shaped American politics, deepening polarization, shifting economic and social priorities, and altering the role of government in public life. As Tooze puts it, “in the polycrisis the shocks are disparate, but they interact so that the whole is even more overwhelming than the sum of the parts. At times one feels as if one is losing one’s sense of reality.”

The 2001 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania undermined the belief that the United States was largely shielded from any attack from across oceans, other than by ballistic missiles from a handful of known sources. The sense of violation from the attack struck Americans more deeply than the material fears of further attacks. After September 11, national security became a dominant concern, leading to expanded federal powers, particularly through the Patriot Act. The focus on combating terrorism, underpinned by a sense of violated security, led to heightened acceptance of government intervention in certain areas but in time led others to say that civil liberties had been violated and that the attacks had been an excuse for government overreach. The initial post-attack unity quickly gave way to partisan conflict, particularly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the increasing use of the “Global War on Terror” for domestic political ends. These divisions set the stage for a more polarized political landscape that persists into the 2020s. Fear and suspicion of outsiders grew, fueling anti-immigrant sentiments and Islamophobia, which became political rallying points in later years, particularly for populist movements. In many ways, the anti-foreigner push that populist movements around the world seem to have in common would not have garnered the same strength without September 11. (This newsletter usually focuses on Canadian politics, and we note that Quebec secularism law, Bill 21, and the Bouchard-Taylor commission that preceded, were themselves consequences of September 11.)

According to the National Institutes of Health, the most common health effect of September 11 was post-traumatic stress disorder, which affected up to 20% of adults directly exposed to the disaster. Other mental health problems included depression and substance use disorders, even among those far from the attacks who only read news reports. The emotional impact of September 11 was particularly long-lasting, long enough for it to combine with the effects of new traumatic events into the polycrisis.

The effects of September 11 and the Iraq War were still washing through American society when increasing subprime mortgage defaults began to destabilize many banks in 2007. During 2007 and 2008, over 2% of all outstanding U.S. mortgages underwent foreclosure, and a far greater number underwent forced sale, often at losses to the owners, as they were also unable to make their payments. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, and many of them, in particular middle aged men, left the labor force permanently. Credit reporting agencies say that median credit scores never recovered their pre-2007 levels. Shortly afterwards, the rates of “deaths of despair” from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism began to soar, as Anne Case and Angus Deaton documented. Barack Obama likely owed his 2008 election as president to the twin effects of anger with the outcome of the Iraq War combined with rejection of the party in power when the trauma of the financial crisis began. The financial crisis and the Great Recession eroded faith in institutions, particularly financial and government regulatory bodies, as many Americans lost homes, jobs, and savings. Economic disparities highlighted by the crisis fueled populist movements on both the left (Occupy Wall Street) and the right (Tea Party). This populism laid the groundwork for figures like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders to channel widespread discontent. The government bailout of financial institutions deepened resentment among those who felt left behind, while the election of an African-American as president planted the seeds of populist backlash.

Donald Trump owed his 2016 presidential election to a number of factors, not just the backlash to Obama’s victory (which itself fed off the lingering trauma of September 11), but also to the lingering trauma of the financial crisis. He also owed much of his 2020 defeat to the way his administration mishandled another black swan traumatic event. The SARS-CoV2 pandemic erupted on American shores in full force in March 2020, and the months between the outbreak and the development of the first vaccines saw American society torn apart in ways beyond the direct effects of the virus, which itself killed one million Americans. Schools were closed and students reduced to online learning, large parts of the economy that depended upon face to face interactions shut down, and core social events ranging from school graduations to major sporting events simply stopped, while public health efforts to contain the virus often felt like failures. As the virus receded somewhat in the face of vaccines and infection-induced immunities, public opinion largely concluded that elites overreacted to the virus, that life should not have been interrupted, and that perhaps a million deaths were acceptable after all.

The pandemic exacerbated mistrust in government, science, and media, as mixed messaging and political disagreements over public health measures like mask mandates and vaccines became flashpoints The pandemic highlighted and deepened existing inequalities, particularly regarding access to healthcare, job security, and education, which have become central political issues. Massive federal interventions, such as stimulus payments and expanded unemployment benefits, rekindled debates over the role of government in providing a social safety net, especially as the public started to blame them for fueling inflation after 2022. Disruptions to patterns of supply and demand in the economy increased the sense of lingering disruption to normal life. Public health itself became politicized, with partisan divides influencing how Americans responded to vaccines, lockdowns, and public health mandates. This further entrenched cultural and political divisions.

Each of these traumatic crises contributed to a more divided political landscape, with trust in institutions declining and debates becoming more ideological. Economic and cultural anxieties fueled by these traumas have empowered populist and nationalist movements, which challenge globalism and the traditional political norms underpinning liberal democracies. These events in turn have intensified debates about national identity, with issues like immigration, race, and cultural values taking center stage and providing fuel for authoritarian populism.

In sum, these traumas have left an indelible mark on the American political psyche, fostering a mix of resilience, division, and transformation as the country navigates a more complex and interconnected world. It is impossible to understand American society in 2024 without understanding the lingering impact of these traumatic events. American society is not going to return to normal until this lingering “social PTSD” plays itself out, and that assumes that no more black swan events occur, hardly a given as Tooze’s polycrisis continues.

References:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fluke/Brian-Klaas/9781668006528

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/01/fluke-brian-klaas-chaos-theory/677111/

https://www.ft.com/content/498398e7-11b1-494b-9cd3-6d669dc3de33

https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/9-11-twenty-years

https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/remembering-9-11-and-what-weve-learned-about-its-impact-mental-health

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/09/02/two-decades-later-the-enduring-legacy-of-9-11/

https://news.virginia.edu/content/what-911-changed-reflecting-cultural-legacy-attacks-20-years

https://www.cfr.org/timeline/how-911-reshaped-foreign-policy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/interactive/2021/911-books-american-values/

https://adamtooze.com/crashed/

https://hbr.org/2018/09/the-social-and-political-costs-of-the-financial-crisis-10-years-later