Gareth O’Callaghan: The cost of living crisis has finally caught up with Donald Trump

Reflecting on a decade of Trump, Gareth O’Callaghan says that rising living costs have finally cut through the political slogans

Just before I sat down to write this column I spoke to Tom. He was out walking in Prospect Park, enjoying the falling leaves and the autumn shades. The mood in Bay Ridge where he lives is buoyant, he told me. 

Just as polling stations were throwing their doors open on America’s east coast for the midterms last Tuesday, a parcel popped through our letterbox. Its contents turned out to be a book called A Short History of Stupidity — a catchy curious title.

There was no note, no return address, except for the USPS postage stamp on the front of the package. As Hemingway once said, there is no friend as loyal as a book. 

It turns out it was originally my book, gifted last year to my old friend Tom in Brooklyn. We were meant to spend Thanksgiving with him and his wife Carmen, as I wrote here last November, but decided to cancel because America under Trump’s iron fist no longer felt as inviting to us.

Instead, I sent him a copy of Stuart Jeffries’ excellent book, with a note which read “this is how we’ll remember the Trump years when we look back someday”. Inside its cover, having posted it back to me this week, Tom had written three words: Ten Long Years. 

For all its economic and military might, for all its technological innovation and culture, and its history steeped in the voice of Abraham Lincoln, the hand of stupidity grabbed the “greatest country in the world” by its throat this week in 2016 as Trump was elected.

That night, Tom called me. He almost cried. “It won’t be as bad as you think, Tom,” I recall myself saying. Then I watched ABC’s brilliant Martha Raddatz tearing up in shock during the network’s election coverage. “We didn’t think forward,” she said to her studio panel. Trump later mocked her for getting upset.

Oh boy, was I wrong.

Tom is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat — as loyal as they come since he set foot on American soil. That said, he doesn’t hold much regard for the Biden years. “Bad choice,” he often said. “Biden’s problem was Trump, hovering like the Ghost of Christmas Past.” 

He texted me on Wednesday morning while it was still dark: “The chickens have come home to roost. It’s all over. Ten long years”. I checked my phone. A tsunami of blue was sweeping across America. At last, I thought, they finally got sense.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity is worth reading, if only as a reminder that we can all fall stupid. He despised Hitler’s regime so much he became active in the German military resistance movement in its attempts to destroy the Nazi leadership.

One of his crimes was smuggling Jews to safety in Switzerland. He was hanged in Flossenburg concentration camp in April 1945, barely weeks before the end of the war.

In a lengthy essay (featured in the book After Ten Years) he wrote from his prison cell in Nazi Germany in 1943 to three friends on the tenth anniversary of Hitler’s accession to chancellor. 

He said: 

It becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity.

He called it a societal and moral condition — not aimed at any particular group, but more as a failing that we’re all inclined towards, especially in times of seismic change.

He witnessed how ordinary well-educated Germans vetoed their critical thinking and consciences as millions fell under the spell of Hitler’s rhetorical promises to restore German pride and eliminate foreign interference, including immigrants.

Of course there’s no comparison being drawn here between Hitler’s regime and Trump’s governance as president. Any such likeness or correlation would be both contemptible and absurd. However, Bonhoeffer’s theory stretches timelessly across the decades, and finds itself reflective of many historical events, including the re-election of Trump in 2024.

Just over a year before, in May 2023, as the Republican frontrunner for the White House, a civil jury of three women and six men found that he had sexually abused magazine writer E Jean Carroll in a New York department store changing room in 1996 and then defamed her by calling her a liar. Carroll was awarded almost $5m in compensatory and punitive damages.

Trump reacted to the verdict on his Truth Social platform: “I have absolutely no idea who this woman is. The verdict is a disgrace — a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time.” 

This was the same man who had previously been accused by more than two dozen women of sexual assault or misconduct but has not been charged or convicted in a criminal court for any of these allegations.

And yet, despite mammoth publicity surrounding Carroll’s case against Trump, 18 months later he won his second term in the White House. It wasn’t quite the “landslide” victory he described, but enough to give the impression that Americans weren’t reluctant to vote for a man who by then was a legally defined sexual offender. 

Making America gormless

What were they thinking? And what has caused them to act so radically different this week in such gargantuan numbers as to soften his cough for the remainder of his time in office? One word: affordability.

“The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other,” Bonhoeffer wrote. He believed that a rising power creates an overwhelming effect on people’s judgements, often depriving them of their independent thought process. 

It’s as though they get swept away on a wave of hysteria, just like the one Trump created when he erupted onto the campaign trail in the run-up to 2016.

He made titanic promises and gave guarantees. Looking back, he immersed himself in the role of the consummate game show host, dangling the carrot in front of the starry-eyed contestants. Win big if you walk with me was the loud and clear message.

And so they walked, only to discover he was lining the pockets of billionaires while depriving those on the poverty line of critical healthcare. He was making America gormless, not great. There would be no “golden age”.

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I baulked at his vitriol and his ability to react like a slithering sidewinder; but then I was reminded that, like many others, I voted for one of our own who also cast more than just a long shadow, namely Charles Haughey. 

For my sins, I still own a copy of that cringeworthy 1981 campaign anthem ‘Arise and Follow Charlie’.

As former BBC Ireland correspondent Leo Enright famously said of him at the end of his career, “I have a theory about Charlie. If you give him enough rope, he’ll hang you”. And still we loved him. Call it stupidity.

Affordability

Finally Bonhoeffer says “at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity”. Maybe that liberation came this week, proving Bonhoeffer’s theory that the majority of the people are not stupid in every situation.

A conscience that’s blinded by money is rarely a charitable one. Food and fuel prices were never issues that affected Trump personally, or so he thought. 

His war with Iran became the tipping point of a cost of living crisis that has crippled America, catapulting red voters into the blue corner this week. Slogans and catchwords don’t put food on the table. Affordability is the new party loyalty.

Just before I sat down to write this column I spoke to Tom. He was out walking in Prospect Park, enjoying the falling leaves and the autumn shades. The mood in Bay Ridge where he lives is buoyant, he told me. 

“It’s barely days but people are talking to each other again. It’s like a new beginning.” But for how long? I was about to ask. But then, Tom’s not stupid.

Trump is at his happiest operating alone. A year into his first term, the New York Times described him as a “solitary cowboy”. It’s likely the solitary time might no longer be his choice as the Democrats start to shred his political roadmap. What happens then? Only time will tell.

At least the residents of Brooklyn, like millions of others, will have much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. Ten long years indeed.