It’s really happening: businessman Donald Trump officially becomes President of the United States on Friday. The driving force behind his election, as well as behind the rise of populism in Europe: the ‘angry white male’. Who is he? Why is he angry? And what can we do about it? Professor of developments of public opinions Henri Beunders explains.
‘The heart of the matter’, says Beunders, ‘is that the politically correct and the college-educated people in America despise people who are the losers of globalization. They didn’t even look at those people for the past decades.’
They’re accused of being racists, they feel unrecognized in the country they thought was for everyone. They feel unheard, unseen by the elites. That’s the psychological side to it. And there’s a material side too: the white working class has not profited from globalization. ‘Almost half of the American households only have 400 dollars in savings. At the maximum.’
The only thing that they feel they have left is their opinion, says Beunders. And their right to vote.