With Donald Trump now the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee, despite Alaska Republicans' March 1 preference for Sen. Ted Cruz, questions abound about explaining Trump's national popularity, and what his presidency might mean for Alaska. Repeated interviews with Trump supporters aired on radio and television elicit a persistent pattern of responses. He is saying what supporters are feeling, respondents say, and is prepared to do something about the things that are upsetting them.
The past Republicans they've voted for have promised to do something about lost and exported jobs and reduced employment prospects, as well as taxes, sex education in the schools, abortion, migrants, gay rights and same-sex marriages, and haven't delivered. They're just part of the Washington, D.C., insider culture, Republicans in name only, as the phrase goes, and they're not listening; they've lost touch. And for all of their denigration of the first black president, they've done nothing to quell rising African-American visibility and power. Trump says what he'll do about these issues, and in addition promises to take care of ISIS and other terrorist and foreign threats once and or all.
These responses are consistent with national data on the shrinking middle class, wealth and income distribution, and on employment distribution -- where the jobs are and of what kind -- as well as the rapid legitimization of lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual rights, the permanence of abortion clinics and counseling, the persistent ethnic diversification of the culture generally, and the continuing liberalization of school curricula. They are also consistent with the growing rates of suicide in lower-income families, and with the epidemic of opioid use, which is being seen now more as a pubic health issue and less as a moral failure. In 2013 a Federal Reserve Board national survey (analyzed by Neal Gabler in the May 2016 Atlantic) found that 47 percent of respondents reported that should they be faced with a $400 emergency, they would have to borrow or sell something to raise the money, or simply would not be able to cope with it at all. That's the same 47 percent that Republican nominee Mitt Romney dismissed as "freeloaders" in 2012.
Trump has successfully, some say brilliantly, tapped into this residuum of smoldering fear, resentment, and frustration in those left behind by the Republican establishment, people eager for a champion. It must be acknowledged, also, that the Democrat establishment has too often been similarly dismissive of the middle class, albeit on different ethnic grounds, repelled by those they have regarded as "white trash." Thus, the rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders, and confusion and dismay in Democrat leadership circles over the populists' appeal.
While the complaints of the social milieu Trump has reached, some would say exploited, are legitimate, his tactics have been highly destructive. He relies on fear, and hatred. His appeal is to emotion, not reason. The fear is of not having enough money to handle the $400 emergency, and of one's children succumbing to opioid abuse, and of being eclipsed in significance by a nonwhite majority. The hatred is of African-Americans, immigrants, and those sympathetic to the causes the left out have come to despise. He has abetted his supporters' violence directed against these. Thus he represents a credible, serious danger to civil stability.
What might a Trump presidency mean for Alaska? Most likely an assault on the huge amount of federal dollars coming into the state. There is nothing to suggest he would be supportive of the budget for management of Alaska's federal public lands or their conservation. Nor are there any indications he would be sympathetic to Alaska Native concerns or issues. Does anyone think he would know what NARF (the Native American Rights Fund) is? It is easy to imagine an all-out attack on Small Business Administration 8(a) sole-source contracting for Alaska's Native regional corporations. And while military spending in Alaska might increase, he'll likely support the Base Realignment and Closure Commission findings on Alaska installations.
Trump's style would be to leave Alaskans to their chosen fate: Wouldn't he say something like, "If you people want to separate from the rest of us and go live on the frontier, you'll just have to fend for yourselves. Isn't that what you claim you want, anyway?"
Steve Haycox is professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
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