DONALD TRUMP has dominated the American right for nine years and yet, even after a decade of study, many observers still cannot fathom why. But voters are certainly not tired of Mr Trump. Even after the scandal and mayhem of his first term, culminating in his attempt to cling to power after losing the election in 2020, around half of the electorate, or some 75m Americans, will vote for him this time.
What accounts for his enduring strength? At first it was common on the left to point to racism, misogyny and xenophobia, sustained by misinformation and lies. Hillary Clinton infamously summarised this thesis. “To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” she once said.
The early explanations from Mr Trump’s sympathisers could be equally simplistic and hysterical. In 2016 Michael Anton made the most prominent intellectual case for Mr Trump. He wrote that Americans needed to register a populist primal scream before their way of life was permanently extinguished, and called 2016 the “Flight 93 election” (referring to the plane hijacked on September 11th 2001 that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after a passenger revolt). Mr Anton elaborated: “A Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.” Most Americans did not think 2016 was a Flight 93 election. In fact, 40% of eligible voters didn’t bother to express an opinion.
Calmer analysis is more helpful. Social scientists provide three kinds of explanation. Political scientists point out the importance of institutions; political economists put stress on material conditions; and political sociologists emphasise the cultural divide between elites and the self-described populus.
The first explanation, the political-science one, sees Mr Trump as a lucky beneficiary, or perhaps even a canny exploiter, of America’s peculiar political system. First-past-the-post voting, which awards elections to the candidate who commands a plurality, encourages a two-party duopoly. (When Mr Trump applied his talents to seek the nomination of the Reform Party in 2000, it did not end well.) Open primary elections have meant that rank-and-file members wield more power than party elites when selecting the presidential nominee. That allows a faction, as the Make America Great Again crowd could be called, to seize control of a major-party apparatus if it is successful enough.
Democrats had their own insurrectionary movements from the populist left in both 2016 and 2020, led by Bernie Sanders and then by Elizabeth Warren. But neither of them managed to capture the consistent 25-35% of primary voters that Mr Trump did in the early Republican primaries in 2016. Were European-style multiparty democracy to be transplanted to America, a Trump-led MAGA party might draw a lot of support without attracting a majority—like the hard-right Alternative for Germany.
Once in charge of the party, the two-party system works in favour of the rebellious faction, forcing co-partisans to make their peace with the new leadership. This explains a lot of Mr Trump’s support now. But the political-systems approach is less satisfying as an explanation for why his hold is so enduring, making him the first person to win a major party’s nomination three times in a row since Franklin Roosevelt.
Political economy—explanation number two—could throw light on part of this longevity. The American economy boomed during Mr Trump’s first term in office, up until the covid-19 pandemic. Although voters did not approve of Mr Trump’s conduct in office, and especially on January 6th 2021, when his supporters violently breached the Capitol, their anger over inflation and pessimism over the economy are pushing them to rebuke the incumbent Democrats, to the benefit of Mr Trump.
Evidence from outside America suggests there is a lot to this. Voters are in an anti-incumbent mood everywhere, rejecting the ruling parties in Britain, France, India and Japan (and presumably next year in Canada and Germany). But the idea that the economy is making people cross does not fit with what’s actually happening in America. The gap in output per person between Canada, western Europe and Japan on one side and America on the other has doubled since 1990. America’s economy is the envy of the world, with fast increases in real wages for the poorest workers. If inequality is the cause, that is hard to square with data showing wages rising in “left-behind” places and no increase in income inequality in the past decade.
That leaves a third genre of explanation: political sociology. Even though American politics has remained almost perfectly divided over the past decade, it has not been static. Voters are less divided by income or race than before; instead a striking new dividing line is educational class. Democrats increasingly attract the support of the professional, suburban managerial class who find Mr Trump repulsive and unfit for office; the working classes, including an increasing share of the non-white working class, admire that Mr Trump has made the right enemies, talks like them, talks to them, and promises them a future in which they receive dignity and their just financial desserts—even if they know that these promises are unlikely to be kept.
Visiting an area in North Carolina hit hard by flooding a few weeks ago, Mr Trump promised that under his rule every property that had been destroyed would be rebuilt, and more beautifully than before. Never mind that some of them are in areas prone to flooding and so will not be rebuilt. It was what people wanted to hear. One speaker who welcomed Mr Trump described his visit as the shot in the arm of hope that people needed, and said his visit guaranteed that people there would not be forgotten. To use the language of pop psychology, Mr Trump makes a lot of Americans feel seen. That he is happy to dress up in the uniform of a McDonald’s worker or a garbage-truck guy, despite being worth several billion dollars, helps too. Kamala Harris, who actually worked at McDonalds, seems to cringe at such stuff.
Chart: The Economist
The realignment according to educational qualifications means that the most serious divide in America is over culture rather than money. Under Mr Trump, the Republican Party looks increasingly left-labour in its economics, advocating protectionism, working-class tax giveaways and preservation of the existing entitlement system. To many Americans without a college degree, Democrats no longer talk to them but down to them. That is why, despite being showered with dollars from the federal government under President Joe Biden, members of America’s industrial unions are moving towards Mr Trump this year. And it is why the Trump campaign seized on remarks by a befuddled Mr Biden a few days ago, in which he appeared to call Trump supporters “garbage”. “See: Democrats still think you are deplorables,” was their message.
Democrats—and a good number of former members of the Republican elite—genuinely wonder how it is that Mr Trump’s supporters so quickly dismiss his efforts to overturn a democratic election, or his poor record of achievement on policy in office, or the undermining of abortion rights which he engineered. Mr Trump’s supporters see these criticisms as overhyped. And they see them as hypocritical, pointing out that the legal system has in fact been weaponised against Mr Trump in a way that he merely threatens.
Culture means Democrats and Republicans live in different countries. Tens of millions of Trump voters (mistakenly) believe America is in a recession. They think Democrats brought on inflation when they managed the economy, which boomed under Trumponomics. They observe that there were no new wars launched when Mr Trump was in the White House. Under Mr Biden’s watch, there are security crises in the Middle East and Ukraine. Trumpism is a simple heuristic, just as Trump-loathing is. It could be powerful enough to take him back to the White House.
Guests and attendeess mingle and walk through the atrium during the IMF/World Bank Group Spring Meetings at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2025.
Jim Watson | Afp | Getty Images
After years dominated by the pandemic, supply chains, energy and inflation, there was a new topic topping the agenda at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings this year: tariffs.
The IMF set the tone by kicking off the week with the release of its latest economic forecasts, which cut growth outlooks for the U.S., U.K. and many Asian countries. While economists, central bankers and politicians have been engaged in panels and behind-the-scenes talks, many are attempting to work out whether trade tensions between China and the U.S. are — or perhaps are not — cooling.
These were some of the main messages from ECB members this week.
Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank president
On inflation and monetary policy:
“We’re heading towards our [inflation] target in the course of 2025, so that disinflationary process is so much on track that we are nearing completion. But we have the shocks, you know, and the shocks will be a dampen on GDP. It’s a negative shock to demand.”
“The net impact on inflation will depend on what countermeasures are eventually taken by Europe. Then we have to take into account the [German] fiscal push by the defense investments, by the infrastructure fund.”
“We have seen successive movements, you know, announcement [of U.S. tariffs], and then a pause, and then some exemptions. So we have to be very attentive… Either we cut, either we pause, but we will be data dependent to the extreme.”
On market moves:
“When we had done our projections, we anticipated that… the dollar would appreciate, the euro would depreciate. It’s not what we saw. And there have been some counter-intuitive movements in various categories.”
“The German market has obviously been shocked in a positive way by the program soon to be put in place by the German government, with a commitment to defense, with a commitment to a big fund for infrastructure development.”
Klaas Knot, The Netherlands Bank president
On tariff uncertainty:
“If I look back over the last 14 years, in the initial days of the pandemic I think that was comparable uncertainty to what we have now.”
“In the short run, it’s crystal clear that the uncertainty that is created by the unpredictability of the tariff actions by the U.S. government works as a strong negative factor for growth. Basically, uncertainty is like a tax without revenue.”
On the inflation impact:
“In the short run, we will have lower growth. We will probably also have lower inflation. As we also see, the euro is appreciating as energy prices have also come down. So together with the sort of negative factor uncertainty in the short run, it’s crystal clear that it will accelerate the disinflation.”
“But in the medium term, the inflation outlook is not all that clear. I think there are still these negative factors. But in the medium term, you might get retaliation. You might get the disruption of global value chains, which might also be inflationary in other parts of the world than the U.S. only. And then, of course, we have the fiscal policy coming in in Europe. So this is actually a time in which you need projections.”
On a June rate cut and market pricing for two more ECB rate cuts in 2025:
“I’m fully open minded. I think it’s way too early to already take a position on June, whether it would be another cut. It will fully depend on these projections.”
“I would need to see a more structured analysis of the impact on the inflation profile ahead of us, and only then can I say whether the market is pricing fair or whether I don’t.”
Robert Holzmann, Austrian National Bank governor
On the need to wait for more data and news on tariffs:
“We have not seen this uncertainty now for years… unless the uncertainty subsides, by the right decisions, we will have to hold back a number of our decisions, and hence, we don’t know yet in what direction monetary policy should be best moved.”
“Before looking at data in detail, the question is, what kind of political decisions will be taken? Is it that we will have some tariff increases? Is it that we will have strong tariff increases? Is it that we will have retribution by high counter tariffs?”
On the ECB’s April rate cut:
“I think there’s a broad consensus [on rates]. But of course, at the margin, people differ.”
“My assessment is that at this time, it wasn’t clear yet to what extent [tariff] countermeasures were being taken. Because with countermeasures in Europe, prices may have increased. Without countermeasures, quite likely the price pressure is downward. And for the time being, we don’t know yet the direction.”
On the direction of interest rates:
“I think if the recent noises about an arrangement [on trade] were to be true, in this case, quite likely it is more towards the downside than the upside with regard to prices. But this can be changed with different decisions and the result of which, we may even imagine in [the] other direction. For the time being, no, it will be down.”
“There may be further cuts this year, but the number is still outstanding.”
Mārtiņš Kazāks, Bank of Latvia governor
On opportunity from tariffs:
“With all this uncertainty and vulnerability, this is also the time of opportunities for Europe.”
“It’s a time for Europe to grasp all the aspects of being an economic superpower and becoming a really fully-fledged political and geopolitical superpower, and this requires doing all the decisions that in the past, were not carried out fully.”
“This requires political will, political guts to make those decisions, and to strengthen the European economy and assert its place in a global world.”
On market reaction to tariffs:
“So far it seems to be relatively orderly … but if one looks at the spillovers to Europe, the financial markets are working more or less fine, we haven’t seen spreads exploding or anything like that.”
“But in terms, however, of the macro scenarios, this uncertainty is extremely elevated in the sense that, given the possible outcomes, the multiple scenarios and their probabilities are very similar with the baseline [tariff] scenario.”
US President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Gahr Store in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images
President Donald Trump denied that an aggressive bond market sell-off influenced his decision earlier this month to hold off on aggressive “reciprocal” tariffs against U.S. trading partners.
“I wasn’t worried,” Trump said in a Time magazine interview during which he was asked about financial market tumult after his April 2 “liberation day” announcement.
In the decree, Trump slapped 10% across-the-board duties against all U.S. imports and released list of tariffs against dozens of other nations. The extra levies were based on trade deficits the U.S. had against the respective countries and raised fears about inflation, a potential recession and disruption of long-held trade agreements.
Markets recoiled following the release. Treasury yields initially headed lower but quickly snapped higher. The 10-year yield rose half a percentage point in just a few days, one of its quickest moves ever, as investors also ditched stocks and the U.S. dollar.
Ultimately, Trump issued a 90-day stay on the reciprocal tariffs to allow time for negotiation. But he said it wasn’t because of the market tumult.
“No, it wasn’t for that reason,” Trump told Time in the interview from Tuesday that was published Friday. “I’m doing that until we come up with the numbers that I want to come up with. I’ve met with a lot of countries. I’ve talked on the telephone. I don’t even want them to come in.”
Yields have since moved lower, with the 10-year most recently around 4.28%, about a quarter percentage point higher than its recent low. Trump had said when he made the decision to hold off that the bond market had gotten the “yips.”
“The bond market was getting the yips, but I wasn’t. Because I know what we have,” he said. “I know what we have, but I also know we won’t have it for long if we allowed four more years of the gross incompetence. This thing was just running — it was running as a free spirit. This was — this was the most incompetent president in history.”
Though negotiations over tariffs are ongoing, Trump added that he would consider it a “total victory” even if the U.S. has levies as high as 50% still in place a year from now.
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The Bank of England is focused on the potential impact of U.S. tariffs on U.K. economic growth if there is a slowdown in global trade, the central bank’s governor Andrew Bailey said Thursday.
“We’re certainly quite focused on the growth shock,” Bailey told CNBC’s Sara Eisen in an interview at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings.
Going into its May 8 monetary policy meeting, the central bank will consider “arguments on both sides” around the impact of tariffs on growth and domestic supply constraints on inflation, Bailey said.
“There is clearly a growth issue we start with, with weak growth … but a big question mark is how much of that is caused by the weak demand, how much of it is caused by a weak supply side,” he continued.
“Because the weak supply side, of course, unfortunately, has the sort of the upside effect on inflation. So we’ve got to balance those two. But I think the trade issue is now the new part of that story.”
Inflation could be pulled in either direction by wider forces, with a redirection of trade exports into other markets being disinflationary, but a retaliation on U.S. tariffs by the U.K. government — which he stressed did not appear likely — pushing up inflation.
Bailey added that he did not see the U.K. as being close to a recession at present, but that it was clear economic uncertainty was weighing on business and consumer confidence.
IMF downgrade
The IMF earlier this week downgraded its 2025 growth forecast for the U.K. to 1.1% from 1.6%, citing the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, higher borrowing costs and increased energy prices.
However, economic forecasting remains mired in uncertainty as countries engage in negotiations with U.S. officials over Trump’s swingeing universal tariff policy, currently on pause. The U.S. has imposed 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos and a 10% levy on other British exports.
U.K. policymakers have expressed hopes of reaching a trade deal with the White House, with U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance saying there is a “good chance” of an agreement.
Bailey told CNBC on Thursday that he would be “very encouraged if the U.K. does make a deal,” but that its economy was very open and services-oriented, so it would still be impacted by a wider slowdown in growth or trade.
He also noted that inflation would increase from the current 2.6% in the coming readings due to effects from markets such as energy prices and water bills, but that the bump up would be “nothing like what we saw a few years ago.”
The Bank of England held interest rates at 4.5% at its March meeting, before Trump shocked the world with the scale of his tariff announcement.
Markets now see the BOE slashing rates to 4% by its August meeting.