THE first question that came to mind while perusing this brilliant, page-turning book by veteran foreign correspondent Nirmal Ghosh was: Whence the name, “Backlash”? I will come to his response in a minute but before that, here’s a point-blank recommendation: Every American individual, corporation and institution in Asia and beyond should read this book. It will help them prepare for the growing and unstoppable counter-backlash against the Trump regime and US body politic at large, especially its business interests.
Mr. Ghosh is a 65-year-old veteran journalist who works for The Straits Times, Singapore. He reported from Thailand for many years before being transferred to Washington DC in Oct. 2016. Before he departed Thailand, he authored a book called “Unquiet Kingdom”, which probed the psychedelic socio-cultural, political and economic complexities of Thai society, warts and all.
In the same fluid, crystal-clear prose, free of academic mumbo-jumbo, he has now dissected the US body politic, especially the mother lode of journalism, covering the US national elections. After reporting on Mr. Trump’s first term, and then the Biden term, Mr. Ghosh has chronicled the return of Donald Trump following what history will record as a game-changing election, for both the US and the world at large.
So how exactly did Mr. Trump achieved that in spite of being convicted, reviled, ostracised and hounded? Mr. Ghosh’s conclusion: He rode the “Backlash.” Here’s Mr. Ghosh’s response to my question:
“The title (of the book) comes from a line from an essay by Seymour Martin Upset written in 1969, in which he spoke of the repeated phenomenon in American history of political “backlash” — which he described as the politics of prejudice, whether directed against an oppressed minority (such as Jews or black people) or a favoured minority (such as an urban elite). Upset wrote that for this kind of backlash to emerge, there must be social strain or decline which is somewhat ambiguous but creates widespread anxiety. The phenomenon is thus as old as the hills. Trump channelled this backlash — to globalised free trade, progressive gains (abortion, same sex marriage, LGBTQ rights, wokeism), immigrants, and futile foreign military interventions.”
In a sweeping, panoramic look covering the depth and breadth of the US, Mr. Ghosh taps into each of these strains to show the disconnect between the supposedly well-informed elites who control the decision-making apparatus in the US and people at the bottom of the ladder who face the brunt of those decisions. Those supposedly voiceless and clueless people then wait for the opportunity to unleash this Backlash.
The book captures in meticulous detail how this “widespread anxiety” was either arrogantly or inadvertently dismissed by the elites, leading to the Backlash at the Nov. 2024 polls.
All the writing was on the wall. In dear, smooth-flowing prose, all nicely packaged, Mr. Ghosh has simply connected the dots — from guns, abortions, media control, oligarchy and the rich-poor income gap to foreign adventures, national security to the “End of Exceptionalism.” (Excerpts from the book are reproduced at the end of this post).
Which brings me to the second part of this review — what can the book tell us about what is likely to happen next?
Backlash was published in January 2025, just as Mr. Trump was being inaugurated. In the immediate aftermath, Mr. Trump rolled out dozens of Executive Orders to do exactly what he said he would do. The final chapter of Backlash is aptly titled, “Bracing for Turbulence.”
One of the core members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle is Elon Musk, the South African-born billionaire who did not feature prominently during Mr. Trump’s election campaign. Mr. Ghosh mentions Mr. Musk very briefly only twice in the book. Today, Mr. Musk is very much at the forefront. His highly-publicised, arbitrary, draconian actions are now facing a growing Backlash. So are Mr. Trump’s.
This dual backlash shares a common linkage. Mr. Musk is unelected by the American people who are mighty unhappy about the power he wields over their destinies. Similarly, Mr. Trump is unelected by the global public which is also mighty unhappy about the power he, Mr. Musk and the entire Trump Administration wield over their destinies.
Now experiencing a high level of “widespread anxiety”, both the American and global publics are demanding accountability.
Just as Mr. Musk is facing a backlash against his private corporate interests, such as Tesla, so too are Mr. Trump’s corporate interests, US businesses and US interests at large at a global level.
This counter-backlash is now raging full steam ahead on both fronts. Which is exactly why every American should read this book.
The path to Making America Great Again involves U-turning everything the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave” has preached over the last 40 years since the end of the Cold War — Freedom, Democracy, Human Rights, Free and Open Markets, Rule of Law, Good Governance. To millions of people suffering under unaccountable dictatorships all over world, those values were beacons of hope that America would come to their rescue.
No longer. Values have been replaced by interests. As Mr. Ghosh’s narrative makes aptly clear, that amounts to a monumental violation of trust.
Perhaps the only thing that Mr. Ghosh gets wrong in the book is his concluding remark: “It may take years to conclude just what the winter of 2024-25 portends for the American Century.” In fact, it is taking just a few weeks.
Mr. Ghosh is giving a talk at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand on March 19, 7 p.m. A great opportunity to hear his thoughts on both the Backlash as well as the sequel counter- backlash, and what it could mean for Thailand, Asia and the world at large.
Here are some excerpts from the book.
The polarisation that has entered American politics — which Yale law professor and writer Amy Chua postulated (accurately in my opinion) to me back in 2021 is beginning to resemble ethnic divisions in other older societies – was already so great, the atmosphere already so toxic, that in social situations with strangers one had to feel out the others’ political and ideological positions before getting involved in conversation.
little in between. There is no middle ground left in America – the middle has fallen out. Too often the world today – and not just in America – is divided between heroes and losers, traitors and patriots. Today in America, if you give any credit to China on any issue, you are a “panda hugger”. At least in the opening months of the Russia-Ukraine War, any attempt to examine Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motivation for invading Ukraine instantly branded one a Putin apologist. If you criticise Zionists, that makes you anti-Semitic. If you criticise American policy, you hate America.
One does on occasion feel vulnerable in the United States, particularly in inner city environments where anger is just a thin layer away and situational awareness is important. Who is that person standing on the sidewalk under a tree way up there on the next block? Who is that yelling on the next street? I once saw two people who appeared to be struggling, on the sidewalk a couple of blocks up from me, just around the corner from the condominium. As I wondered what was going on, one of them broke away and ran, seemingly carrying a bag. The second person kept walking towards me, and as she drew closer it turned out to be an old lady. I asked her what had happened. “He took everything,” she said, her hands palms up, helpless. “He had a knife.”
The NRA, the leading champion of guns in America, took umbrage when, in early 2024 a PhD scholar argued in an article that while guns have been part of the United States’ tradition, the ways in which they have been “weaponized” against others (rather than for hunting or leisure) is a modern phenomenon.
“Americans own guns,” the NRA wrote in a typically immodest counter-article on its website. “They’ve always owned guns, even before they were officially Americans. The British subjects who lived on this continent back in the 18th Century eventually used their guns to help expel British soldiers and establish what would become the greatest nation the world has ever known.”
It is easy to see why the NRA reacted; the argument could open a chink of an opportunity for those advocating for more gun control legislation, something the NRA deploys millions of dollars to lobby against in Washington D.C.
It was in the 1960s, culminating in the now iconic Woodstock music festival in Bethel, New York, in August 1968, that music became an expression of counterculture.
Freedom, love, sex, drugs and music channelled the rebellion of youth against the mounting horrors of the war in Indochina;
It was in March that year that the My Lai massacre had taken place in Vietnam, in which American troops killed at least 347 and possibly up to 504 civilians, almost all women, children and elderly men, in the largest massacre of civilians by United States forces in the 20th century.
American Pain
“Were you taking photos?” he demanded. “If you were taking photos I’m gonna fuck you up. I’m gonna fuck you up,” he warned me, his face just a foot from mine; I could smell his sour odour as I backed away.
His eyes green and a greyish yellow around the irises, his face sallow with a hint of yellow, skin stretched taut over high cheekbones, his wiry body taut with sudden anger, he was right in my face.
He was a fentanyl addict, his clothes slept in for days, and this was Philadelphia’s infamous “zombie street” where the pain and misery of America is distilled into a particular kind of hell.
American Oligarchy
In contrast, the political system is awash with money.
One of the false premises of free market capitalism is that money is a great equaliser – false, because a free market does not imply a fair and just market.
Money in politics got a shot in the arm in January 2010 when in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Supreme Court ruled to strike down a prohibition on corporate independent expenditure.That spawned the notorious Super PACS and enabled corporations and other groups and individuals to engage in unlimited amounts of campaign spending.
The Court reasoned that there would be transparency, with disclosure enough to prevent wealthy special interests from dominating the political process. That voters could see who was paying for ads and “give proper weight to different speakers and messages” was the contention.
The United States is today at war with itself, Ian Bremmer, president of The Eurasia Group, remarked in Japan in 2024. “Its political system is far from the envy of anyone else in the world. Deep pocketed interest groups are distorting law and policymaking to create a system that represents dollars over its own citizens. And no matter who wins on November 5th, tens of millions of Americans will find evidence that their political system is broken. And they are not wrong about that.”
Perhaps the pinnacle of the plutocracy was reached in 2024, when the richest man on the planet, SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, began to give out one-million-dollar checks randomly every day in October to people who signed his petition in support of the constitutional rights to free speech and bear arms.
Whether the United States’ democratic system can withstand the combined onslaught of money and disinformation remains to be seen.
One of the best books on money in politics is Jane Mayer’s 2016 Dark Money on uber rich political donors. In that book, she recounts how over years, American economists tended to downplay the importance of economic inequality, arguing that equality of opportunity mattered more than equality of results, and that over time a rising tide would lift all boats.
But contrarians like Thomas Piketty warned that this would lead to “patrimonial capitalism” that would widen the chasm between the haves and the have nots to levels mimicking the aristocracies of old Europe and banana republics.
