It is the same pattern with the “United States of America” (USA), as it is in Europe. People feel the pressure from a globalised economy and feel the influence from a globalised society. They might not fully understand all the very complex correlations, nevertheless they do feel affected, attacked, targeted, and threatened. This pattern is certainly not new in human history (e.g. during the 1930s in Germany). New is the root cause for this insecure and inconvenient feeling – it is the “economic globalisation” without a balancing “political globalisation”.
Since we are so far not able to develop a strong “political globalisation” by building up a collaborative “Global Democratic Republic”, the “other solution” is not surprisingly nationalism by protecting the national economy and the national social norms & traditions. The proposed solution is very simple and obviously very convincing: As long as we stay within our nation, as long as we do, what we are used to do within our culture & society, and protect this from foreign influences, everything will be fine and “we can make America/Europe/France/Germany/Austria/Netherlands/Hungary, etc. great again”.
And there are two essential reasons why this “solution story” is working with more than 50% Americans and with almost 30% Europeans: (1) The (global) threat (competition) is felt so strong & is hardly explained and/or understood, and (2) the “established” political parties are not able to come up with convincing solutions, because they are not able to build up strong global collaborations, institutions, and negotiate global binding solutions.
But even the “simple” people these days understand, that e.g. the issue of global warming, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity can only be resolved with a global solution approach (including China and India). If this is not possible, nationalism is the “only” other “option”.
They are looking for an “island of bliss”
People expect mitigation of their feeling of insecurity & inconvenience by protection from internal and external “threats”. It is a feeling and this feeling constructs their reality. The basic demand they are looking for is security, a very – probably the most – powerful demand a human being can have and this feeling and demand is badly understood and satisfied by the “establishment”.
After a short decrease of only 4% during the global COVID-19 pandemics, global annual Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions are still increasing and reached ca. 54 billion t in 2022 (see graph from Our World in Data).
To stay save and keep global warming, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity “under control”, we need to reduce annual GHG emissions to ca. 22 billion t (minus 43%) till 2030 and to 0 (minus 100%) till 2050 based on IPCC. To actually reach this goal, a gigantic transformation process within the society and economy, especially within energy supply (coal, gas, oil) and food (meat) production, would be necessary within the upcoming 5 years (with the new US president elected, with very high probability, the annual GHG emissions at least within the United States will do the opposite, the will further increase).
During the entire presidential election campaigns, both sides did rather reserved stress the fundamental issue of global warming, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity. Although based on (current) scientific evidence, this is by far the most pressing (real) threat to humanity within the 21st century, also or especially for Americans (and Europeans).
We need global solutions
Democrats within the US and elaborated parties within Europe are not able to propose a feeling of mitigation for that (real) threat. Even with COVID-19, a clear global threat, the reaction was nationalism (e.g. shutting down Schengen and building up boarder controls within Europe) instead of international collaboration. International collaboration by far would have been the much better mitigation approach for COVID-19 and international collaboration is necessary to actually mitigate global warming, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity. The latest “2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference” (CBD COP16, https://www.cop16colombia.com) just proved once more, current political structures with national states and multilateralism is very hardly able to negotiate a global collaborative solution approach. We expect the same disappointing result for the “2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference” (COP 29, https://cop29.az).
To actually give back the (simple) people a feeling of security & prosperous outlook, we need impacting & convincing global solutions (simple) people believe in. Whoever wants to win national elections, and thinks global trade is fantastic, we suggest to advocate for a corresponding “political globalisation” within a “Global Democratic Republic”.
Paradoxically, the “United States of America” (and the “European Union”) showed over the last decades the outperforming and peacebuilding force of international collaboration within the “United States of America” (and the “European Union”).
Times have changed, the economy is strongly globalised within the beginning of the 21st century, does basically not care about national boarders, and thus we need a balancing “political power” on a global scale and bring back the unleashed global economic power to a balanced situation with strong and binding global legal, social, health and environmental standards.