Was the U.S. election the latest eruption of populism across the globe? The Conversation U.S. senior politics editor Naomi Schalit brought this question to James D. Long and Victor Menaldo, two political scientists at the University of Washington who are specialists in comparative politics. They discussed how Donald Trump’s victory mirrors a movement in advanced industrialized countries that are liberal democracies to throw incumbents out of office after a prolonged period of post-pandemic inflation.
Naomi Schalit: It looks like the price of groceries played a big part in the rejection of Kamala Harris.
James Long: The person running against the unpopular incumbent party won this election, just like the person running against the unpopular incumbent won the 2020 election. Trump was the unpopular incumbent then, and although Harris was not technically the incumbent now, she represents the incumbent party. And it’s hard to win as an unpopular incumbent.
I don’t necessarily interpret the election results as a shift in the levels of racism or sexism or xenophobia necessarily. I think it’s just that those types of things probably got packaged up into feelings about immigration policy, and perhaps even anxieties about the economy, like inflation.
Victor Menaldo: I think we learned or confirmed that inflation is radioactive and that folks have a very long memory when it comes to price increases, and they will not simply embrace a reduction in the inflation rate as much as they’ll remember that the cumulative change in the level of inflation was 20% on average since 2021. So even if inflation is trending in the right direction, in terms of its rate, it’s the accumulation of the increased cost of living that I think has a lot of bite for voters.
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