Christopher Demuth: Trump and the Revolt of the 'Somewheres'

Christopher Demuth of the Wall Street Journal came up with a sound explanation for the explosion we've seen in national ism in recent years. He terms it the Somewheres vs Anywheres:

"The harmed countrymen tend to be less-educated hinterlanders and members of the working class, who find representation in the nationalist movements. The shocked establishments—incumbent politicians, government careerists, media figures, corporate executives and intellectuals—have responded in striking unison. The political arrivistes, they insist, are ill-informed populists, xenophobic if not racist, inflamed by irrational hatred of immigrants, exhibiting authoritarian tendencies. Europe’s leading internationalists, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, have coordinated their actions and policies to keep the nationalist movements at bay. The synchronous counterattacks seem to validate the theory of a global elite.

"These developments have scrambled partisan alignments. The new divide is conventionally described in economic or regional terms, but it is best understood as social and cultural. The British political analyst David Goodhart, in his superb book 'The Road to Somewhere' (2017), describes the divide as the 'Anywheres' versus the 'Somewheres.'

"The Anywheres are cosmopolitan, educated, mobile and networked. Their lives center on communities of affinity rather than locality—friends and colleagues who may be anywhere on a given day. Their attachments to place are secondary; they tend to regard national differences as quaint, borders as nuisances, divergent regulations as irrational. Their politics are liberal, whether progressive or classical. The Anywheres are generally wealthier than the Somewheres, but they include many people of moderate income, such as junior employees of government agencies, schools and nonprofits.

"The Somewheres are rooted in local communities. Their jobs and weekends, their commitments and friendships and antagonisms, are part and parcel of their families, neighborhoods, clubs and congregations. Many work with their hands and on their feet. Whatever their partisan leanings, they tend to be socially conservative and patriotic and less disposed to vote with their feet."

And, of course, the reason for, why now?

"In recent decades, the U.S. Congress has delegated its lawmaking powers: voting by lopsided margins for goals such as clean air and equality of the sexes, while leaving the hard choices—the real legislating—to specialized executive-branch agencies. Lawmakers have abandoned regular budgeting and appropriations, weakening the “power of the purse.” They have stood by passively, often with palpable relief, as courts have decreed resolutions of contentious issues of sexual autonomy and moral obligation that were previously matters for legislative deliberation. National legislatures in Europe and the U.K. have done the same thing, with the added twist that they have delegated considerable powers to the European Union’s supernational bureaucracies and courts.

"The conventional criticism of these developments is that they evade democratic accountability and lead to overregulation and “agency capture” by interest groups. Administrative agencies can make rules—de facto laws—in much greater profusion than elected representatives. Agencies often go to extremes, or cut deals among insider groups, that could never survive a legislative vote. Delegation produces more law than most citizens want, and often objectively bad law. But bureaucrats cannot be voted out of office."