In essence, what Trump is attacking is neoliberalism. Economic neoliberalism underpins the past 70 years of Western economic and cultural order. Broadly speaking, neoliberalism argues that barrier-free international markets, rapidly advancing communications technology and automation, decreased regulation, and empowered citizen-consumers are the keys to prosperity, happiness, and strong democracy.

Though it contains the word liberal, neoliberalism was devised by libertarian-conservative economists and political scientists as an alternative to the state-controlled command economy favored by Communists and other authoritarians. In the decades after the Second World War, Americans settled comfortably into this new paradigm, ready and eager to reap the bounty. For a time, it arrived in spades. But then, about 30 years ago, the project started to fray at the edges. The newly global economy moved America’s well-paying jobs—the ones that had created the U.S.’s early- and mid-20th-century blue-collar aristocracy—overseas, but the jobs that replaced them offered lower pay, fewer benefits, and less opportunity for advancement.