Relation Between Neoliberalism and the Rise of Right Wing Populism in United States After Donald Trump Victory

This article attempts to find the relation of neoliberalism with the rise of right wing populism in the US after presidential election which won by Donald Trump. The author will review the phenomenon of neoliberalism and its resulting impacts on the national political formation of the United States. The dynamics of US politics will be analyzed within the framework of the political economy such as political contestation between parties, groups of movements, the rise of identity politics, or strong nationalist sentiments before and during the US Presidential election. This study aims to deconstruct the issues of political identity in the victory and campaign of Donald Trump that have emerged as its main public discourse. It is a descriptive-analytic study which uses qualitative methods. Data are collected through library research which come from books, journals, newspapers, magazines, or from the internet. In accordance with the framework of this study, qualitative data analysis leads to tracing the three main variables, namely, the dynamics of neoliberalism in the US, the right-wing populist movement, and the national political situation of the United State. The result of this research indicates that the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States is not a reflection of the strengthening of political identity or the new wave of populism. Trump’s victory was the result, both directly and indirectly, from the crisis of neoliberalism in the United States since the late 1980s. The facts like economic inequality, stagnation of wage level, and the 2008 economic crisis have become decisive factor in US political map in the last decade. The author hypothesizes that contradiction of capitalism (US Neoliberal economic orientation) opens up the space for identity-based and sectarian-based conflict. Racial or nationalist sentiment serve largely as camouflage against economic-based problems. Thus, the rise of right wing populism is an inseparable phenomenon from the economic-political roots and historical development of capitalism in the United States.