Dana Blankenhorn

The Power Vacuum in Trumpistan

Consider a typical exurb, or small town, Any Town USA.

The downtown merchants were blown out a generation ago, replaced by a WalMart or, if the town is small enough, a Dollar General. But until recently there was life at the center. There was a bank, and an insurance agent. There were lawyers and doctors, self-employed. There were real estate offices and, near the WalMart, a car dealer. There was a newspaper.

These people had college educations, serious skills, and deep knowledge of the local scene. If someone wanted to move in, they had to go to the local real estate office, and ask the local bank for a mortgage. If someone wanted to move out, the bank was where they went for the money, the auto dealer was the only place to get a car, and the local insurance agent made the car legal. The newspaper knew where all the bodies were buried, and thus so did everyone else.  

These were the gatekeepers of suburban order. The insurance men, the bankers, the mortgage men, were the paper pushers of financial stability. They played golf together. They ran the school board, and the city council. Even when the former factory workers descended into meth addiction, the gatekeepers knew their place was secure. They kept the crazy on the down-low.

Then something happened, in this decade, something that has yet to be given serious consideration by any political pundit.

The gatekeepers were replaced by apps.

The Techland vs. Trumpistan War

With great wealth comes great responsibility.

Some billionaires take this very seriously. Others don’t. The result is that, over time, an era’s billionaires become part of a very small, politically powerful global elite. It doesn’t matter whether the billionaire is in an autocracy like China, a proto-democracy like Mexico or an experienced one like America – money becomes power.

This has always been true. The first decade of a new economic generation is always marked by the new class of billionaires stepping, gingerly or not, into political power. It was true for Wall Street speculators in the 1870s, and for industrial bankers like J.P. Morgan in the 1900s. It was true for manufacturers like Henry Ford in the 1930s, and for oilmen like Sid Richardson in the 1970s. Over time a new political class emerges to serve the new wealth, whose only real priority becomes the maintenance of that political power, leading to excess and another political cycle.

The first steps of a new business oligarchy into the political arena generally looks like a breath of fresh air and reform, no matter the controversy it chooses to take on.

So we come to Marc vs. the Volcano.

 

Techland vs. Trumpistan

In 2016, the political divide and economic divide in America are the same thing.

I live in Techland, and have lived here most of my life. I am a modest citizen in the place, but to other Americans I’m doing quite well.

I have watched technology roll over the industrial economy, and now the suburban economy, like an invasive species. Technology destroys long-standing power relationships. It eliminates friction in the economy, and that’s a good thing, but in doing that it eliminates the jobs, and power, of the people who created the friction.

Those people who create that friction are the nobility in Trumpistan. A lot of analysts talk about Trumpistanis as being blue collar, poorly educated, and ignorant. Some are. But what has made Trump a political force is his support from golfers. Men (and they’re mostly men) who make deals on golf courses because they can, are at the heart of Trump’s support in the business community.

Recycling People

Back in the late 1960s, as the Gods of Technology came for my dad’s TV repair shop with their “solid state” components that didn’t break, he got out ahead of them.

He loaded me into our car, he drove from New York to Los Angeles in three days, and he started to remake himself as a security expert. He ordered cards saying he was in burglar alarms, but when they returned they read only “Fred Blankenhorn, burgler.” 

He used the cards anyway, despite the typo, and the conversation starter got him in. He got into burglar alarms, bought a lock shop, and he kept the family together. (He is pictured near the end of the 1970s, on Balboa Bay in Newport Beach. Dad passed away in 1999.) 

When I drove by the Tower TV 5 years after we moved, the store I had grown up in was gone, replaced by a real estate office. I don’t know what happened to the poor guy who bought it.

The Asphalt Jungle is Trumpistan

Political reporters were caught off-guard by the rise of Donald Trump because it’s not a political story.

It’s an economic story.

The story would be easy to understand if pundits just left their offices and drove into any American exurb. Jobs and whole professions that once gave life to these places have disappeared.

Think for a moment about what people who live in suburban cul de sacs are most likely doing for a living. 

Law schools are closing  Doctors have been hauled out of their office towers and have become wage slaves in street corner shops. 

These are the lucky ones.

Insurance agents have been replaced by apps. Travel agents disappeared long ago, replaced by sites owned by Priceline and Expedia. Teachers have lost their jobs and seniority to charter schools, retailers to Amazon.Com. Sell cars?  You’re an order taker. Same if you’re in real estate.

The skills you spent a lifetime learning are becoming worthless. 

What Was Lost, and What Can Be

The whole Trump phenomenon is misunderstood.

We talk about the Tea Party. We talk about racism. We talk about everything but what we should be talking about.

What we should be talking about is economics and the world technology has led us toward.

When I went to college in 1973, I left suburban living behind. It seemed like a bad idea. The suburbs were the “Sun Belt” (cities were the Rust Belt). It was the era of White Flight, but what did people do for a living in those suburbs?

A lot of them commuted back into town, to work in middle management. Some worked as travel agents. Others sold insurance. Or they stayed back in the suburbs and did things like my dad did, as small businesses. He ran a TV repair shop and, later, a lock shop.