Trump: Harsh lessons for the British left

Neither identity politics nor ‘neoliberalism in rehab’ will defeat the far right

There have been some ridiculously bad takes on Trump’s victory, especially from the “anti-imperialist” left — both here and in America. In their alternative universe, Trump won because Kamala failed to back students waving Hamas flags on the elite campuses of America.

Closer to the truth is Bernie Sanders’ analysis, which says Harris lost because the growth achievements of Bidenomics just didn’t translate into economic wellbeing for the majority of households. But it’s not the whole story.

Despite a roaring stock market and historically high employment levels, the facts show median real wages fell under Biden, homelessness soared to record levels and so did poverty and food insecurity.

If you want a single graph that shows why all the boosterism from the US Treasury and White House didn’t work, this one — showing the ratio of wages to profits — does it for me:

But the explanation does not lie in the income statistics, nor in economic dissatisfaction alone, and the left…