Trump’s victory shows the authoritarian right can win even with rising GDP and supposedly ‘good’ economic figures. If we don’t want them to win here, too, we must do three things:

1. Accept that ‘growth’ alone is not a panacea. It has to be fairly distributed. That means significantly raising living standards and fixing our public services. The quickest and fairest way to do that is to tax and redistribute excessive wealth and profits and find ways to stop profiteering on essentials like housing, energy, and food.

2. Tell a story. Whether we like their story or not, the authoritarian right has one/several, and they work. Even if you can get economic activity redistributed, you need a narrative which explains to people what has gone wrong (neoliberalism), how you’re fixing it (see 1) and what the future will look like (narrative vision). It also needs villains and heroes: extractive, price-gouging corporations, banks, and exploitative employers vs institutions that can rebuild social cohesion, devolved democracy and a sense of empowerment.

3. Invest in care, health and welfare. The Biden administration scrapped much of the health, welfare, and social components of its 2020 Build Back Better (BBB) campaign. By 2022, BBB had become the Inflation Reduction Act, pouring vast trillions into a growth agenda that overwhelmingly benefitted big corporations and the rentier economy. Those were the opposite of the transformative economic policies that were really needed. Institutions and a state that enhances social cohesion and cares for its citizens are crucial to combatting the sense of betrayal and abandonment so many feel. We – all of us – are actually the economy.

If we learn the right lessons from the Democrats’ defeat, we can turn this dark chapter to our advantage. But failing to do so will open the door to the same catastrophic defeat.