I think the US has ended up with right wing populism like Trumpism because there is no social democratic alternative available in the US. We've gone through all the same de-industrialization in my native Norway as the US has. I come from a blue collar industrial town in Norway which used to produce paper, glass, ships, raincoats/workwear, pots, pans, insulation etc. It felt like every few years as I grew up another venerable old factory closed down for good.

Except people in my town never went through the kind of hardship I see the American working class go through because we had already built up extensive institutions to deal with it. We spend something like 10x as much per capita on job retraining for unemployed people. If they can't get new industry going and retraining people for those industries, they use other means like moving government functions to the towns that have been hardest hit. Keeping unemployment low is a very high priority in Norway, in no small part due to the labour party (social democrats) having "work for everybody" as their slogan since the 30s.

I got an American wife, and I really cheered for Bernie Sanders. I had so hoped he could have brought many of the things we have been able to enjoy for decades here in Norway to Americans. Unfortunately he lost, but I think there was movement in the electorate and openness to new ideas like I've never seen before. I had never thought you could get that many votes in the US saying anything positive about socialism.