Joe Biden’s victory in the American presidential election, like every one before it, closes a chapter in his country’s history. Donald Trump may have been<\/em> the leader of the free world, but he won’t be for much longer, so maybe we can all move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That will be the view of observers who see the \u2018populism\u2019 of the last few years as a scare rather than a prognosis. Any election that put a deplorable into office or mandated an unwelcome policy change was an unfortunate but temporary setback, soon to be reversed by demographic change as old bigots die and the country becomes less white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n This view is often paired with a hypothesis of false consciousness. Minorities, women and poor people who voted for Trump, Brexit or another \u2018populist\u2019 scheme are assumed to be misled or deluded about where their interests lie. Their lives would be better had the opposite candidate or proposition prevailed, or so the argument goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Making this case in the wake of the American elections is Seth Harris, deputy labour secretary for the United States during Barack Obama’s presidency. Speaking on Matt Forde’s Political Party Podcast<\/a>, he said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have failed to communicate with those folks in a way that makes sense for them, and we’ve left them \u2013 with all due respect to [Trump] \u2013 a flim-flam man. We’ve let a conman communicate with them and sell to them, rather than us go to them and making our case.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n To be fair to Harris, he acknowledges that public institutions failed many Trump voters, attributing similar motivations in British voters’ departure from New Labour and decision to back Brexit. I’d guess he would see the pattern in other countries too:<\/p>\n\n\n\n They feel very strongly that the people that pretended to be their friends actually ended up screwing them with a whole bunch of public policies that didn’t have to be what they were. That maybe begins with globalisation and trade, but [also] tax policy, urban policy, transportation policy, jobs \u2013 you could go down a long list of failures.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Rather than responding to these complaints over policy direction, Harris notes that his centre-left political tribe mocked the people who felt left behind, as well as their representative Trump. And it’s hard to persuade someone while belittling them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n