The May 2017 issue cover of Australian Book ReviewWhilst Hillary Clinton dreamt of a global free market of ‘open trade and open borders’, extolled the wonders of multiculturalism, and stigmatised sixty-two million Trump voters as ‘a basket of deplorables, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it’, it was Trump who appealed to a largely white working class which had had a gutful of being screwed over by global capital and its divisive adjunct of identity politics. Trump’s triumph is neither surprising nor shocking.

The liberal élite (and the socialist left, my left of four decades), however, missed the boat on candidate Trump. As exemplified by McNamara, the progressive self-elect errs by its schoolyard personalising of politics, its retreat from class to the political ghettos of identity, its disdain for the demos (especially its non-coloured bit), and its disrespect for democracy when the plebs’ electoral verdict is at odds with élite values. This may be consoling therapy (‘we are right, the people aren’t’), but all it does is wrap another layer of protective bubble-wrap around the élite’s insular world.

McNamara concludes by hoping that the ‘just fury’ at Trump’s election ‘is already redefining American politics’ for the better. This is delusional. Until liberal progressives, including ABR, learn to re-engage with the legitimate concerns of the working class through a left-wing economic nationalist policy, a recognition that it is possible to have non-racist objections to immigration, and that ‘diversity’ is not all that it’s cracked up to be, more Trumps will be the future – for the environment-trashing, corporate-tax-cutting, military-loving worse.

Phil Shannon, Pasadena, SA

James McNamara replies:

I enjoyed Phil Shannon’s caricature of me – most inventive. But his letter mischaracterises my positions.

Shannon argues that by criticising Trump, I join a ‘torrent of rage and resentment’ towards ‘American voters’. That might fit Shannon’s straw man of the braying ‘liberal élite’, but it is not my view. I don’t accept that strong disagreement with a politician necessitates personal animus toward their voters.

Still, according to Shannon, I represent a ‘progressive self-elect’ that shows ‘disdain for the demos’ and ‘disrespect for democracy when the plebs’ electoral verdict is at odds with élite values’. Leaving aside Trump’s loss of the popular vote and his thirty-eight per cent approval rating: respecting democracy after an election means ensuring a smooth transfer of power. It does not mean that pluralist, dissenting views become invalid or disrespectful. The ‘we won, shut up’ argument, in vogue in the United States and post-Brexit Britain, is a pernicious, authoritarian piece of rhetoric. I reject it.

Shannon admonishes me for making ‘ad hominem anti-Trump jabs’ and exemplifying liberals’ ‘schoolyard personalising of politics’. That’s rich, given that Trump has slagged off everyone from Kristen Stewart to the pope. It’s also wrong. An ‘ad hominem’ attack ignores an argument’s substance in favour of irrelevant personal slurs – for example, if I wrote that Trump’s hair looks like a fox discovering a hair-dryer. But to criticise a politician’s character and temperament is valid because the just exercise of power depends on it. Where this is lacking, political writers should comment.

To substance: Shannon claims that I fail to mention ‘Trump’s major policy theme of the malignity of neo-liberal globalisation’. This mischaracterises my brief. I am not writing an analytic feature on the causes of Trump’s win, but reviewing two books of other writers’ campaign journalism. I raise Taibbi’s argument about the ‘laissez-faire capitalist policies that hurt ... constituents’. But, given how scathing Taibbi is of the insular ‘élites’, I wonder if Shannon read the book before critiquing a review of it?

I can’t agree with Shannon’s simple explanation for Trump’s win: ‘a largely white working class which had had a gutful’. It was surely a factor, but the electoral data shows Trump’s support defined more by race than income. And I raise an eyebrow (into my hairline) at his claim that ‘the Russians, misogyny, Fake News, James Coney [sic]’, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are ‘largely innocent...suspects’. This was a complex election that commentators and Congress are still investigating.

Finally, Shannon says I’m ‘delusional’ to claim that ‘the ‘just fury’ at Trump’s election ‘is already redefining American politics’. Maybe the view is clearer from South Australia, but in Los Angeles our streets are full of protests. Across the country, we see an historic re-engagement with grassroots political activism: the Women’s and Scientists’ Marches, angry town halls, floods of calls that partly stymied the repeal of Obamacare, and huge swings left in bellwether congressional elections for traditionally Republican seats.

Ultimately, I agree that progressives must re-engage with the working class. But I don’t accept that I must ‘learn’ Shannon’s solution, or that to disagree with Trump counts me out as an ‘élitist’. We should cultivate a political discourse where we can differ vehemently without shoving each other into dismissive little boxes.

James McNamara, Los Angeles, USA