It is, as Tom Edsall points out today, both remarkable and dispiriting that so many Americans continue to support Donald Trump. But then he asks:
Has Trump created a broad and enduring Republican coalition out of MAGA supporters, added backing from Republicans hostile to Democrats, a scattering of minority voters as well as white independents and Democrats who reject liberal social justice policies?
I don't mean to downplay the ugliness of what Trump's popularity says about the current state of American politics, but there's really nothing to this notion that Trump has somehow created a new coalition. Consider the trial heats from a recent YouGov poll:
Other polls show slightly different results both up and down, but basically they all exhibit little difference between Republican candidates. The people voting for Trump are the same ones who voted for Mitt Romney and John McCain and George W. Bush. And the main reason is that they hate Democrats:
Trump is, for some reason, more popular among Republicans than other candidates. There's not much question that this represents a destructive and malignant impulse within conservatism. At the same time, Trump hasn't put together a new coalition or created hostility where it didn't exist before. He's merely taking crude advantage of feelings that were already there—created and nurtured since the 1990s by Newt Gingrich and Fox News. As a result, for many years there's been a core of 40-45% of the electorate that hates Democrats no matter who's running.
It's not clear if there's a lot Democrats can do about this. A modest bit of moderation would help among the genuinely undecided, but probably not much among the true believers. They'll vote for any Republican—even if he's not their top choice.
not clear if there's a lot Democrats can do about this
well, we could send a violent mob to overrun mar a lago, smash some windows, break down doors, threaten to hang the occupants, etc.,
after all, trump says it's just freedom of speech so obviously nothing criminal
... recruit the Russians to ratfuck on our behalf, gerrymander the shit out of every state we have control over, engage in every possible trick to ensure Republican presidents can't appoint SC justices, do everything possible to tank the economy when Republicans are in control ...
If the Supreme Court rules presidents have total immunity, Biden could always send a Seal team in to deal with Trump.
He could also tell the Supreme Court now that if they rule that the President has total immunity he will have all of them immediately executed. And inform the Senate of his choices to replace the justices who voted for immunity and tell the Senators he expects his choices will receive 100% support for confirmation. Dark Brandon indeed!
Biden should definitely have the White House counsel file an amicus curiae brief in favor of absolute immunity for Presidents. Alito , Thomas, et. al. would shit bricks.
+1!
Make sure the brief mentions some hypothetical situations, such as one in which a president is committed to the survival of the republic and of the rule of law but is faced with a SC that is standing in the way of those goals.
+1!
There's no sense in gerrymandering states we control. We don't need to gerrymander to win.
WRONG! You gerrymander to maximize your party's seats so you can gain as much power as you can and if you are the Democrats you enact the needed reforms on a nationwide basis. No unilateral disarmament.
I wonder why more people aren’t pointing out that by Trump’s and his lawyer’s reasoning Biden could get Navy Seals to bump Trump off. Democrats control the Senate so Biden might not even get impeached!
I also want to know why the media doesn’t point out that Trump’s claim that immigrants are poisoning the blood of America means he also has poisoned blood because his mother was an immigrant. Ditto for his kids’ blood (TIffany excepted). Both Ivana and Melania are immigrants who got citizenship despite serious questions about their compliance with US requirements.
The only thing Dems can and should do is get out the vote.
I'd also change the messaging, along these lines (from a high-tech Marketing guy):
https://kellblog.com/2024/01/20/messaging-analysis-2024-election/
Frank Luntz worked hand in hand with Newt back in the 90s to openly demonize Democrats:
“ Perot, but he became a household name later in the decade, when he advised Republicans to “talk like Newt” by describing Democrats with terms like “corrupt,” “devour,” “greed,” “hypocrisy,” “liberal,” “sick,” and “traitors.””
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/frank-luntz-helped-the-koch-brothers/
The sanctimonious, hypocritical Luntz was on MSNBC this past weekend bemoaning the state of our politics and lecturing viewers on not demonizing their opponents. He is an evil man but that doesn’t mean he isn’t good at propaganda.
The lesson is that large swaths of the Republican coalition (for example, the anti abortion crowd) would vote for Trump's dog if they got what they want.
That for me is the so called base who is going to vote for whoever they run.
Trump does turn out more of the people who hate Dems than, say, Mitt Romney would. How many more? Enough in 2016 is my answer.
But the real lesson for us is how many millions of people vote for him anyway. Until Trump, one could kid themselves that Repubs were only different to a degree.
After Trump they will vote for anyone. Especially on the hating the Dems issue.
And its 70 million of them.
Enough in 2016. Not enough in 2020. Hopefully not enough in 2024.
2016 was about misogyny, journalistic malpractice and Comey putting his thumb on the scale.
But mostly misogyny.
I suspect misogyny played a role in Comey’s and the pro-trump FBI agents’ sabotaging of Hillary. Don’t forget when Comey was US Attorney for the Southern District of NY Trump Comey ignored the fact that Trump criming right under his nose. Trump’s corruption was no secret, it was well-documented by journalists like the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett and the Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Cay Johnston. Instead Comey decided to put Martha Stewart in jail. After he and the FBI were embarassed to find that Stewart had clearly not committed insider trading they went after her for lying to the FBI. I remember how shocked many in the business community were by the harsh treatment of Stewart. Unfortunately for her she is two things Comey and the NY FBI couldn’t stand — a woman and a big Democratic donor.
This is interesting, but also completely wrong. We can actually compare the Romney votes in 2012 and Trump votes in 2016.....Trump didnt turn out more of the voting public, even though it was a closer election that generated a lot more interest. He also didnt turn out more of the voting age population than McCain did in 2008.
Just because this narrative is established by Trump and his friendly press, doesnt mean we cant make up our own minds based on what actually occurred.
That's a great point. I am going to now go look up "percentage of eligible voters" and see where that goes.
One thing is clear, with so many non voters, the analysis muddies. That's because there is a big difference between retaining a "voter" (did you perform on something that voter cared about?) vs. getting someone who didn't even vote to vote for you (why did they not vote in the first place?).
I used to live in the district represented, at the time, by Michelle Bachmann. I would say that there were a lot of voters who, if faced with the choice of Jesus Christ (D) vs Adolph Hitler (R), would vote for Dolphie and shout "Praise the Lord!" on the way out of the voting booth.
At the time the Protestant and Catholic Church establishments in Germany largely supported Dolphie. Traditional values and all that.
I always found that support weird since Hitler was pushing a blatantly pagan ideology.
I prefer there to be mix of the parties in government. Helps keep people honest. But it requires that their be two viable parties. Or at least a few reasonable candidates.
I'm sure the Republicans feel the same way.
If they think there should be two viable parties, why are they still Republicans? This is not your grandpa’s Republican Parry. They have no problem trashing democracy and replacing it with some kind of authoritarianism.
"created and nurtured since the 1990s by Newt Gingrich and Fox News"
Oh, hey! Fox News - which is virtually never mentioned in NPR/PBS' staid coverage of politics. Why? Either they think it's beneath them, or they are fearful of getting into a media-on-media fight. Either way, kudos to everyone over there.
And that goes for the other bigs, CBS, ABC, NYTimes, WaPo. But NPR/PBS is supposed to be free of commercial influence and a source for objective analysis, which it definitely is not.
Yes, the coalition is the same as it has been for the last fifty+ years - big-money and business interests, plus White Christian Supremacists. Trump intensified the racism and in particular emphasized racist xenophobia, but there are really no new groups or new motivations. The tribal identity of the people who are now MAGAs was being built up by Republican politicians and the right-wing media long before Trump and now it is at the point were partisanship supersedes rationality and economic self-interest.
People on the left have also become more partisan in response, but Democrats do not rely for votes on dividing the country on racial/religious lines.
> It's not clear if there's a lot Democrats can do about this. A modest bit of moderation would help among the genuinely undecided
The problem here is that it's a question of moderating morals. The Republicans are appealing to inequality. Asking Democrats to treat people differently based on skin color, or sex, or private sexual activities, or ... is asking Democrats to become what they most abhor about Republicans.
"A modest bit of moderation would help among the genuinely undecided, but probably not much among the true believers."
Or you could say, "Something will potentially but not necessarily help among true believers."
If I assume I won't catch a fish, then I won't fish, then I won't catch a fish, then I can feel justified when patting myself on the back for how good I am at making correct assumptions.
There's a modern myth about an ancient myth. The modern myth is that Agamemnon failed to heed Cassandra's warning because she was indecipherable. The Greek myth is the story of Agamemnon failing to heed Cassandra's warning because she was telling him to take a good look at himself in the mirror.
The moral of the story? Assume. To assume is to think, and vice versa. Just assume that your assumptions are potentially but not necessarily correct.
Defeating President Donald is good, but it is far from being good enough. Republicans are responding badly to their anger, but they're angry for a good reason, which is that they get the impression that Democrats don't care about the things they care about. The solution is simple. We don't have to agree, but we do have to say in word and in deed that we care about them. Worst case scenario is you haven't made the possible impossible.
Tell them you agree with Republican principles like: "Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." - Theodore Roosevelt
Is there a Trump coalition? Yes. It's a coalition of people that are so angry they stopped thinking.
Thanks for the TR quote; liked
This is why the best possible scenario is for those Big Macs to finally do the job.