The politics of martyrdom and what Trump’s conviction will really mean

Anyone who tells you they know what effect Trump’s conviction will have on the 2024 election is lying. America has never been here before.

My guess is that the conviction will push some wavering independents toward Biden. And push some Trump loyalists toward even more fanatical loyalty.

Although no direct relationship has been shown between Trump’s rise and the stagnant wages and economic abandonment suffered by a large swath of America, the relationship is clear if you see economics through the prism of social status and pride.

I’ve just finished reading the page proofs to a wonderfully insightful book titled Stolen Pride, by the eminent sociologist Arlie Hochschild. In her in-depth interviews in the Trump country of eastern Kentucky, Hochschild finds that Trump speaks to the shame and anguish of Americans who have been left behind.

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Trump has fused his fake victimhood with their feelings of real victimhood. His assertion of a “stolen” election fits into their sense of what has been “stolen” from them — their jobs, their communities, their land, and their pride.

When Trump lost the 2020 election, he blamed his enemies — akin to what his followers have felt as they lost pay, dignity, respect, and pride — and moved from shame to blame.

Younger working-class men in particular, who have been marginalized in an economy that no longer rewards their work, have found in Trump a macho-man bully who acts the way they’d like to act toward a system that has bullied them.

When he announced his candidacy in March 2023, Trump told his supporters, “In 2016, I declared: I am your voice. Today, I add I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

After being charged with retaining government secrets, he told a gathering in Michigan: “I’m being indicted for you.”

On August 3, 2023, the day of his indictment for seeking to overturn the 2020 election, he posted, in all caps, “I AM BEING ARRESTED FOR YOU.”

A week later, at a campaign event in New Hampshire, he said, “They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom. They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you.”

On Thursday, when Trump was found guilty, he asserted that the criminal justice system had been rigged against him — and, by implication, against his followers.

In their eyes, Trump has never been wrong. He — and they — have been wronged.

That fusion of identities — his and theirs — is at the core of the growing anger and potential violence that haunts America as we get closer to the 2024 election.

We are at a perilous juncture. A demagogue is exploiting those who have been left behind in a society that has left behind tens of millions.

We must dedicate ourselves to two related goals: (1) prevent Trump or any other authoritarian or neo fascist from getting near the Oval Office, (2) restore prosperity and opportunity to all Americans, including the poor and working class.

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Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.