How Trump Wins By Losing
Conventional wisdom suggests that if Republicans continue to lose with Trump as they have in 2018, 2020 and 2022 then the GOP will dump him.
This belief is based on the belief that political parties want to win and govern. All of this makes sense, of course, because in the recent past political parties were set up to win and they were willing to do what they needed to do in order to be an electorally successful party.
But does that make sense now? Does that make sense in a super-polarized environment? And does this make sense with today’s Republican Party?
My counterfactual is that in this time of tribalism, losing doesn’t matter as much. What matters is the tribe. One of the reasons Trump continues to have such a hold on the GOP is that Trump allowed Republicans to accept losing. Why would a political party, especially one that hasn’t won an outright majority in a Presidential election since 2004 no longer care about losing? The reason is that Trump has flipped the script: he helped Republicans stop worrying about losing actual elections and feel good about themselves.
To understand this, you have to understand how conservatives have been treated within the wider society. To be in the center-right in this culture is to be viewed by the larger society with suspicion. I’ve seen that in my own life and I’ve read it among conservatives even if they aren’t Trumpists.
In more recent years, Conservatism has been viewed over the years as more of a pathology than a legit political tradition by the wider society. Linguist George Lakoff’s theories on conservatives were all the rave 20 years and Aaron Ross Powell likens social conservatism to suffering.
Let’s think about how the last two presidential candidates were viewed by the media and Democrats. In the years following the 2008 Presidential election, John McCain has been lionized especially after his death in 2018, but that wasn’t always the case. When he ran against Obama he was viewed by some on the left as a racist or weak in not stopping racial attacks against Obama. I can remember how his slogan “country first” which was a call to duty and a call beyond partisanship was viewed as somehow bigoted and racist.
But McCain wasn’t racist. In fact, I remember him shutting down a woman who called then-Senator Obama a Muslim. McCain defended his opponent reminding people that Obama was a man who loved his country as much as Mc Cain did.
Then there was Mitt Romney in 2012 who was painted as an uncaring rich man. Joe Biden, who was then Vice President once told a crowd that Romney wanted to put Black people back in chains.
For a long time, conservatives put up with this even though they hated it.
At the same time, the GOP electorate was changing. The party became more working class as that group left the Democrats. Over time the Democrats have become a more upscale party. Mix into this is how the economy has weakened the working class and how upscale Democrats and Never Trump Republicans seem to look down on the working class and end up with this stew of people who feel like losers and who see leaders who act like losers.
Then along comes Trump, a man that swims in resentment and unlike conservatives at the time punched back and was all around mean. He is considered a fighter and takes the fight to Democrats.
He comes around and tells them that conservatives lost all the time. He tells them that he will make them feel like winners. Of course, the party hasn’t really been a winning party in elections. But what matters is that conservatives didn’t feel like winners even if they won. Trump makes people feel like they are winners even if they lose elections. What matters is how they feel.
Anti-Trump conservatives don’t get it. How can someone who loses be viewed as a winner? How can winners be considered losers?
Case in point: I remember McCain’s concession speech. Many people, myself included thought it was a great sign of humility and civility.
But I think for a lot of people that was a sign of weakness. When Trump refused to concede in 2020, it was viewed as a sign of strength. McCain was a loser, but Trump was a winner (even though he lost).
Trump made conservatives and Republicans no longer feel like “Losers” because they were able to make liberals angry.
There’s a saying that it is better to be feared than loved. For years, conservatives had leaders that wanted to be loved. Trump wanted to be feared and that excited conservatives. Trump helped Republicans see that it is far better to be feared and act like a jerk than it is to love and show civility. That’s being a chump.
I think for many conservatives, it doesn’t matter if they lose elections because that no longer matters. What really matters is not FEELING like losers. Trump made it more important to not feel like a loser instead of trying to win an election.
This means that it no longer makes sense to say that voters will not tolerate electoral losers. Waiting for a massive loss to turn things around won’t change things.
How do you reach people who think they are winning even as the party is losing? How do deal with someone who can spin reality for his own benefit?
To be honest I don’t really know how to best counter Trump. The challenge in trying to wrest control of the GOP from Trump is that he is offering voters all the ice cream they want believing they won’t gain a pound. Everyone else is offering broccoli.
The reason Trump is so successful in the GOP is because he is able to reach people emotionally. Most of us don’t understand why someone who has no moral compass, who has assaulted women, encouraged crowds to riot and stop the peaceful transfer of power is able to hold a place in people’s hearts. It doesn’t make sense. But Trump was able to connect with people who felt powerless and felt like losers and reached them at an emotional level.
So, how do you beat Trump?
Again, I’m not sure. Though I’m starting to think the answer lies in persuasion and empathy. It means countering emotion with emotion.
For those of us who see Trump as a threat to democracy, we must be more thoughtful in how we engage Trump voters. The “deplorable” approach of shaming and dismissing people doesn’t work. In fact, it strengthens Trump.
I’m not saying that conservatives are innocent in choosing someone like Trump. But we have to understand why they chose Trump and then engage conservatives in a way that might allow them to move away from Trump.
But I’m not optimistic. I think Never Trumpers and Dems are not willing to be introspective here. The years of Trump’s rule and antics post-presidency have hardened their hearts and many are more interested in punishment than understanding.
Anti-Trump conservative Peter Wehner wrote a good article in light of Trump’s speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) where he told his supporters he was their “retribution”. Wehner is correct about the anger that conservatives are feeling. But what is missing is any introspection. Trump’s supporters have to give up their hatred, but there is no interest in finding out why they are angry. It’s representative of not understanding Trump supporters and not wanting to understand
Because the lines between left and right are hardening, America is going to go through some dark times in the coming years. I can see our political process freezing up and political violence ramping up.
A year from now, we will see the GOP primaries finishing up and we just might see Donald Trump have the votes needed to win the nomination…again. Some Democrats will smile. They wanted Trump to be the nominee partially because he is such an electoral loser for the GOP that this will give Joe Biden the glide path to a second term.
But here’s the thing about losers like Donald Trump: sometimes they win. It’s not because they’re great politicians, but because of the incompetence of their opponents. That’s what happened in 2016. Back then, Trump ran a shambolic campaign against Hilary Clinton. He shouldn’t have won. But Clinton didn’t work hard enough to shore up the working class vote, and she took battleground states like Wisconsin and Michigan for granted. Her negligence ended up with Trump actually winning.
The reason Trump lost in the last three elections is because the Democrats had a better message and because of Trump himself. That was especially true in 2020 when voters were frustrated with Trump’s handling of COVID. If the economy is bad in 2024, or if the working class feels ignored, or the Democrats focus too much on culture issues over bread and butter issues, the guy that made losing feel good, actually might win.
If that happens, then we are all losers.
But Hillary won the popular vote!
In any case, one of the takes that I saw yesterday that made sense to me is that journalists *HATE* Trump. They *HATE* him. It’s obvious how much they hate him.
And that’s a proxy for a *LOT*.Report
Ehhh they hate him all the way to the bank. Not that Trump isn’t responsible for Trump and his voters responsible for voting for him but I think that’s more the dynamic.Report
Sure, CNN’s show last night shows how dependent they are on him. But it’s the barely disguised contempt that has the semiotics that moves the previously apathetic in ways we’d never considered before.Report
Part of the fun is definitely that the news personalities don’t understand that for a significant set of the audience they are the heel, and for another, maybe bigger set, they’re the over confident braggarts who don’t realize they’re about to be beat by the baboon they unleashed on themselves that they said they’d squish like an insect. But those people aren’t the decision makers.Report
A lot of our fellow commenters *HATE* him, and the only bank involved deals in social currency.Report
I think our commenters hate him because he is in fact very hate-able. The media on the other hand I think can’t help itself. He’s the story that never ends and he graciously even makes them a participant in it. It’s why they’ll keep bringing him back no matter how many times he makes asses of them all, the legacies by showing time and time again that they can’t upstage him with any amount of fact checking and indignant corrections, and the conservatives by being made the ultimate betas in the relationship, to whom he gives no gratitude or grace no matter how much they kiss his butt.Report
“My counterfactual is that in this time of tribalism, losing doesn’t matter as much. What matters is the tribe. ”
As I’ve said elsewhere, these days victories are more important than winning.Report
Respectfully I think there is some revisionist history going on here. The center right as I see it had a really strong run from 1980 to roughly 2006, until the wheels finally came off virtually all parts of their policy agenda. Yea, the culture has evolved, and there has been some realignment based on economic interests. But this idea that conservatives have always been pariahs, victims of the mean ol’ liberals? Come on now.
What Trump represents is the ultimate dodge of the hard work of reinventing what conservatism is after the cascading catastrophes during the Bush years. In fairness this is made more challenging by the nature of our federal, presidential system. Parties don’t get quite the break in the wilderness like they do in Westminster style governments. But it can be done, it just takes work and ingenuity. What we are seeing is what happens when the work is refused, and that’s total takeover by opportunistic charlatans and idiots.Report
That’s not reinvention, that’s reversion. I’m not a betting man, and I certainly don’t think the Democrats can afford to take anything for granted with their own coalition problems, but there’s a decent chance we’re already passed the high water mark of what right wing lizard brain politics can achieve.Report
I’m not sure why we are hearing this, yet again, about how we must “understand” the Trumpists.
Of course we understand them. Ethnic and cultural resentment are common ordinary facts of political life in almost every nation and time.
What’s implicit in all these essays about “understanding” Trumpists is that somehow they are the unmarked category, the default which is to remain, while the rest of us change and adapt and cope with their pathologies.
Which is perverse, since no one is persecuting them, no one is asking them to do anything other than accept their fellow American citizens as equals which is the most basic requirement of a liberal democracy.
“We must understand them” implicitly accepts that their refusal to accept liberal democracy is somehow a legitimate point of view, it puts on the table for discussion whether their hated outgroups are entitled to equality and dignity.
Trumpism isn’t a legitimate political ideology because it rejects the founding principles by which we can engage as free citizens.Report
See? You can’t buy that! You can put an ad team in a room for a week and only slide pizzas under the door and you still won’t get pro-Trump copy half this good.Report
Malarkey. Although Chip’s is nearly as bad as “Your son died. Have a coupon for shampoo.”Report
Please tell me you aren’t going to resurrect your post-2016 analyses again.
The 2018, 2020, and 2022 election returns demolished all the “Inscrutable Trump voters” stuff.Report
This is a pre-2016 analysis, Chip.
I am not saying that Trump will win. I’m not saying that I think that Trump is a strong candidate.
I am saying, however, that you can’t model why he’d be attractive to people who don’t otherwise vote.Report
Of course we can.
Everyone knows why Trump is attractive. Grievance, resentment, petulance, sulking rage…everyone, every single one of us, understands that keenly.
There is nothing mysterious here, nothing to figure out.
“Powerful men have been sexually assaulting women since forever” is the most universally understood attraction for a certain group of people.
We get it, we really do.Report
I grew up among people who would eventually become Trump voters. It was not surprising that they became Trump voters. I think I understand it, though my understanding may not match with their self-understanding.
Since my understanding may not match the Trump voters’ self-understanding, I think it would be more productive if people who so strenuously urge us to understand the Trump voters, and claim to understand them themselves, would enlighten us.Report
I’m not asking you to understand them.
I’m just saying that folks like Chip can’t model them.
Maybe you can. I dunno.Report
What do you mean when you differentiate “understand” and “model”?Report
The ability to accurately predict responses under different circumstances.
“They are going to do X.”
(Y happens.)
“Well, you have to understand… they were even more ignorant than I gave them credit for.”
“They are going to do Y.”
(Y happens.)
“Now I think that Z will happen.”
The former example “understands” those people.
The latter can model them.Report
OK, now apply it.Report
You mean like setting up something like prediction threads where people can post their predictions about what’s going to happen and then we can go back to these threads to see how people predicted later?
I can do that.Report
If that’s what “model” means ,then people been accurately modeling Trump voters since 2017, when he stated “I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose a voter”.
It was roundabout 2017 when it was first noted that no matter what Trump did, his base would stick with him- He could brag about sexual assault, insult Gold Star families or whatever, and his base would predictably continue their support.
So yeah- We not only understand them, we can accurately model their behavior.Report
But you don’t understand Chip, if JB acknowledges 2018, 2020, or 2022, it would mean he has to acknowledge all those winemoms who made fun of him in high school have power and influence. It would also mean that he has to acknowledge Democrats and somethings are just not done.Report
What is the name of wine moms before they reached the legal drinking age and became moms? I mean they could technically be wine moms in high school but they weren’t for the most part. What is the larval form of a wine mom? ;).Report
An English Lit major.Report
Saul, I know *EXACTLY* why Trump had negative coattails in 2018, 2020, *AND* 2022.
Trump proved to be an awful, awful candidate.
It’s just that he was better than the awful, awful, awful candidate that was there in 2016.Report
2020 demolished this argument too.Report
No, not really.
There are people who thought that Biden was awful that couldn’t tell that he was electable to a bunch of people.
See, for example, the elevator lady.
Some people thought that the elevator lady was indicative of something important.
Some didn’t even notice her.Report
You realize the elevator lady probably was happy to vote for Hillary in 2016, right?Report
Happy? I dunno. Definitely did, though.Report
Jaybird will never admit someone was happy to vote for HRC because he is a Gen X libertarian dude. It is impossible!!!Report
There were tons of people who were happy to do it.
NYT Editorial, for example.Report
Right, only people you don’t like were excited about it.Report
There were also the pink knitted hat folks.
Though I will grant that most of my acquaintances were either Trump people or Bernie people (who switched to “Trump is worse!” people).Report
It’s always amuses me that you always try to claim you think Trump is worse than Hillary or Biden, but you’re always seem to look down your nose at people who actually strongly believe it.
Why would you be shocked that somebody who supports Bernie thinks would affirmatively and strongly think Trump is worse, especially with his stated opinions that are against many thinks Bernie and Hillary both supported?
In shocking news, the median Bernie voter, in both 2016 & 2020 was closer to this girl –
https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/boston-woman-voting-fenway-dunkies
“I wanted to vote at Fenway because we’ve all been cooped up inside for a little bit, and I’ve got my Dunkies,” she told the TV crew. “I’m ready to vote for Joe Biden, but I wish I was voting for Bernie Sanders, but it’s a team sport.” –
– than cynical 20-something dudes who run a podcast or post on Twitter a lot. Because the reality is in, 20-30 years that woman above will still be supporting the Democratic Party and left-leaning causes while the cynical podcast dude will either be out of political totally or become contarian a-holes. Hell, we’ve already seen that happen to a certain extent.Report
I’m one of those “they’re *ALL* awful” guys, Jesse.
I prefer to vote “for” people rather than merely “against” people.
But, and we can come back to this, there are a couple of policies that a guy can adopt and get me to vote for him even if he’s from one of the two “real” parties!
1. Weed.
2. DST (ending it, that is)
And I’m still here waiting.Report
Lol. Trump sucks so bad he even got fewer citizens to vote for him then that awful awful candidate. Holy F balls trump must really be truly unpopular.Report
See, for example, 2018, 2020, and 2022.
But if you can’t tell that Clinton actually lost to Trump in 2016, that’s the crack through which Trump somehow manages to win again.Report
Oh did Hlliz lose??? Gosh darn i never heard that . THE MEDIA HAS BEEN LYING TO ME.
The entire point is that trump does suck. He sucks so bad he lost the pop vote to Hilldog. I think remember hearing about the Electrical Collage or something like that.
You: Trump sucks
Me: Yes indeed he does. We agree.
You: No no no. Not that way.
Trump has always been deeply polarizing. And he has always been more hated then liked. He was less popular then Hilly. And what in Gosh’s name is so hard about that.Report
The argument isn’t that Trump is good.
Just that he was better than Hillary.
And we can argue over what “better” means for a while.
But if you are more invested in explaining that Clinton was a much better candidate than Trump, that’s the crack that Trump needs to win an election (but I’m sure you’ll be able to explain, after the fact, how, seriously, your candidate was a lot better).Report
2020 was an exact re-run of 2016, with the D variable changed from Unlikable Hillary to Likable Biden and the result was virtually the same. A few tens of thousands of votes across the country, and either election could have swung the other way.
No one was voting for Trump because of anything other than they wanted to vote for Trump.
Which is what the conventional pundits refuse to accept, that there is about 45% of the American electorate that will enthusiastically vote for an authoritarian, regardless of who the other choice is.Report
and the result was virtually the same
If you can’t tell the difference between Clinton’s win in 2016 and Biden’s win in 2020, that’s the crack that Trump needs to win an election.Report
Oh god, not “But the popular vote!!” still. It’s like talking to a guy whose team lost a close Super Bowl six years ago insisting that his team was still better because they had way more total yardage. “She won on a completely meaningless metric!!”Report
The problem with the electoral college besides being anti-democratic (small d) is that it creates a distortion field that makes a politician look more popular than they really are.Report
You don’t understand — the popular vote total is *meaningless*. Not every citizen in the country voted, and many of those who didn’t decided not to because they were in a deep red or blue state where there was no question of the outcome. If it had been an NPV basis instead, many potential voters would have made different decisions, and the candidates would’ve made many different choices in their campaigns. It’s possible (though not likely given polls at the time) that Trump would’ve won the NPV in 2016 if that’s what was required for winning — but there’s no way for us to know because *no one cared* about the NPV, at least not until some people needed to console themselves after the painful loss.Report
This is like how Trump supporters say that Hillary Clinton’s popular vote count doesn’t matter because they were all in California and New York and we all know that those states don’t have Real True Americans (TM). The people who didn’t vote most likely wouldn’t have voted with the NPV either and Clinton would have won in 2016.Report
I think the stumbling block for a lot of conventional pundits or Reasonable Centrists is that idea that something like 74 million Americans could willingly, knowingly, eagerly, cast a vote for a corrupt authoritarian.
No, not because someone else was unlikable.
Nope, not out of economic anxiety.
No, they didn’t misunderstand what he was saying.
They see him clearly, exactly who he is, and want it, more of it, at all levels of government.
The idea that the American experiment in democracy is hanging by a thread and It Can Happen Here is just too much I think, for a lot of people to accept.Report
“The people who didn’t vote most likely wouldn’t have voted with the NPV either”
What do you base this belief on?Report
1. The American political system is nearly perfectly designed to allow for only two political parties. There might be some places here and there where a third party can achieve some success but generally the Democratic Party and Republican Party are the only games in town.
2. This means for the Presidency, especially today, nearly candidate for President with a D or an R next to their name is guaranteed 40 to 45 percent of the popular vote.
3. Combine number 2 with the electoral college and yes, Trump has a chance to win again. I don’t think it is as great a chance as others think it is especially with the 2022 midterms and continued fanaticalism against abortion on the Republican side but it is somewhat plausible he gets another black swan victory in 2022.*
That being said, the hugs of understanding are not going to change the Trumpists. They are not going to have the fever break or lower and become Bush II Republicans again. They are not going to stop sending people like MTG, Boebert, Gaetz, and Gossar to Congress. You don’t defeat Trumpism by putting up a white flag of surrender at half mast. You have to challenge them and tell them they are wrong and the GOP needs to suffer at the polls for quite a while and then the message will sink in. Note: The GOP needing to suffer is different than the question of whether it will suffer, our Federal political system and current demographics make it nearly impossible for either the Democrats or Republicans to lose power completely or spend prolonged periods in exile.
Stating we need to understand Trumpists and make concessions is either stating you somewhat agree with them but do not want to admit it and/or a kind of cowardice/fear about prolonged periods of strife in the United States which may or may not resemble the Troubles.
*Many of the key purple states in 2022 moved to the left and/or saw Stop the Steal candidates lose their races for the election oversight positions. Michigan moved to the left, Pennsylvania moved to the left, Democrats won the state wide elections in Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia were more mixed but generally decent for Democrats. But a lot of people are still squishy about how bad Dobbs was and continues to be for the GOP because it means giving credit towinemom types with RBG posters and ewww that is icky and not a dude thing to do.Report
“The American political system is nearly perfectly designed to allow for only two political parties.”
As shown by Clinton in 1992 and Trump in 2016, both situations where third-party votes managed to swing the outcome.Report
Again, it is very interesting to examine the Bulwark staff and Jennifer Rubin and writers to other right-leaning writers who still profess to be anti-Trump.
The Bulwark staff and Jennifer Rubin have done real inward review of former policies that they supported and former people that they supported and came to the conclusion that they could have been wrong. They see the GOP turning into an authoritarian party and decided no thanks. They have moved left in varying degrees but even Charlie Sykes, the Rush of Wisconsin, has moved to the left somewhat and expressed true regret about former positions and arguments he made.
Then you have people like Ross D in the Times who just can’t admit that the Democrats and liberals might have some points so he has to do all sorts of mental gymnastics to write about how DeSantis is somehow more normal, less vulgar, and less corrupt and criminal and bullying than Trump.
This column is not as bad as a Ross D column for mental gymnastics but it still is not ready to admit liberals have a point.Report
My point is proved by Betty Who. People who post once or twice with a name and then disappear.Report
Yup, I listen to The Bulwark podcasts despite being a dirty left-wing social democrat for two main reasons –
1.) In a lot of ways, they’re actually more accurately cutting of the GOP than say, your Pod Save America folks.
2.) They have somewhat good criticisms of the Democrat’s that doesn’t come down too, “why aren’t we Sweden overnight yet,” like so much of Twitter.
Now yes, Sykes and other occasionally stumble into old man yelling at clouds territory, and I don’t agree with everything they say, but the shows are entertaining and clear-eyed about the GOP and their voter base.
Sometimes, more than my left-wing friends who think every poor white guy in Kentucky is one Medicare-for-All passage from being a good socialist.
This is opposed to even the folks from Commentary or The Dispatch who are anti-Trump, but only because he’s openly an SOB in ways they’re uncomfortable with, but they’d be fully on board DeSantis doing 90% of what Trump does, as long as he didn’t Tweet or cause a coup. Now, if you do a coup via highly paid lawyers, ala Bush in 2000, well, that’s OK then.Report
Both the Jacobin faction and the Wonk-Activist faction tend to assume that humans are more rational than they actually are and believe a well-crafted argument can get people to see the light. It can’t.Report
We have been having an infestation of right-wing sock puppets lately.Report
Pastor Sanders, Thank you for this insightful article on how to best protect and empower our strong, diverse communities of nurturing families committed to caring for each other. I am the founder of Empathy Surplus Network USA, a non-partisan human rights values education collective focused on applying George Lakoff’s brain insight to political and moral discourse. We look for member candidates from public government, ethical business, and civil society who already govern some of their life with empathy for and responsibility to humanity. Then collectively, our members participate in occasional Zoom forums to apply Dr. Lakoff’s insights to our own particular passion. I hope you will consider reaching out to me.Report
A big thing here is that R’s COULD win if they wanted to win over enough moderates. But they don’t . They would rather lose with tfg then change their message. But R’s have gone hard into never changing, never hearing and never trying to win over all the people they hate. And boy do they hate a lot of people.R’s are looking backwards at their glossy nostalgic vision of America that only existed in their heads so they can’t speak to many people now.
One way it doesn’t hurt to lose is that our system has some many checkpoints that a loser party ( at the national level) can still do lots of things. Almost all those things are blocking or preventing stuff but that is still power. So they can lose and just start the next election cycle.
I don’t want to say to much about your points about how SoCon’s are viewed since that would be a distraction and a sink hole. However SoCon’s never seem to want any responsibility for how other people see them. They have made their beds and are now pissed about it. We’ve been seeing the same sort of characters since Falwell in the 80’s. Loud, demeaning, hypercritical and sure that they should rule. Now its super rich pastors doing monster truck rallys and telling men to be hard and well armed instead of good caring humans.Report
A Brian Kemp / John Thune ticket would have 85% of the policies of Trump or DeSantis, and probably likely win 300-320 EV’s (I would’ve said 350 before the last legislative session in Georgia.)
Like, center-right parties in Europe have dominated since the early 60’s for one reason – they said, “OK, we’re fine with the welfare state, but we’re going to make sure it doesn’t get out of control or let the socialists totally ruin things. We’ll nibble at the edge, but we’re not going to rock the boat.”Report
“A Brian Kemp / John Thune ticket would have 85% of the policies of Trump or DeSantis, and probably likely win 300-320 EV’s (I would’ve said 350 before the last legislative session in Georgia.)”
I don’t know if this is true especially post-Dobbs.
“Like, center-right parties in Europe have dominated since the early 60’s for one reason – they said, ‘OK, we’re fine with the welfare state, but we’re going to make sure it doesn’t get out of control or let the socialists totally ruin things. We’ll nibble at the edge, but we’re not going to rock the boat.'”
If the GOP were actually able to do this but they are not.Report
At least in some European countries like West Germany, Italy, and France it was the center-right parties that set up the welfare state in the first place.Report
Pretty sure that East Germany had a more robust social safety net.Report
“R’s COULD win if they wanted to win over enough moderates. ”
Why would moderates want to vote in favor of old white capitalist racist patriarchal transphobes who aren’t cool?Report
Lol. Me a lib saying R’s could win big. You a conservative whining about culture war and toxic insult bs.
That right there is part of the problem. Read what Jesse wrote. Just about every body is capitalist. Win over minorities a bit more and you got it. But can you hear them? Most mod’s dont’ care about hating on trans people, they want medical insurance/care. They dont’ want fear mongering but do want good efficient gov.Report
Right – Charlie Baker could be God-King of Massachusetts for the next 40 years if he wanted, and that’s Massachusetts, and there’s plenty that the Democratic base is unhappy that he does, but he won over plenty of Sanders/Warren/Biden voters.Report
“Win over minorities a bit more and you got it. ”
Why would minorities vote for a bunch of white racists?Report
You’re absolutely right. If the GOP could get 30% of the black vote, like Richard Nixon in 1960, no Democrat would ever get elected to the Presidency or state-wide office. And at least that many black voters would find a sane conservative program congenial.
But it’s not going to happen, for the very reason you point out.Report
From NBC:
Black men shift slightly toward Trump in record numbers, polls show
Maybe Donald Trump was on to something.
(Also: What the hell is up with that headline? What editor allowed that past her desk?)Report
“What the hell is up with that headline?”
I’m reminded of someone describing three years as “nearly half a decade”.Report
Nowhere close to what the GOP needs, and it will never be enough, for the reasons DD so accurately pointed out.Report
I guess they need more than for people to move slightly in record numbers.
They need to move moderately in record numbers.Report
Math.Report
Sociology.Report
Heheh, yeah conservatives weren’t exactly gentle with their “socialist, traitorous, perverted, molesting, Muslim terrorist loving, communist, big gummint” opponents on the left. The only difference is that too many of the left’s arrows in return had some semblance of accuracy. I can’t find it in my heart to feel that the right was unfairly maligned and for every name McCain or Romney got called you can find one that is ten times as bad and ten times as baseless that was slung at their opponent.
Oddly, though, I wouldn’t lay this at Trump’s doorstep. This whole mess is a creation of the right. Trump is merely an opportunistic predator who took advantage of the ideology’s massive internal wounds.
Back in 2008 the bill on Bush W’s historically awful administration came due and then, compounding that, the libertarian right further crapped the bed during the post great recession doldrums. They predicted hyperinflation, and instead got a taste of deflation; austerity put Europe into the sick house for a decade whereas the slightly freer spending US did distinctly better. Every pillar of the right was broken or twisted by the middle of Obama’s first term.
If any one man should shoulder the blame, I’d lay it at Mitch’s doorstep. Obama paraded in on a rainbow of hope’n’changium. Obama would have, and did, compromise enormously to get Republican buy in on his agenda. Mitch accurately identified that, simply by refusing to cooperate and bargain, the GOP could make a central plank in Obama’s promises defunct. So, the GOP refused. But, of course, to cover up that naked obstruction they had to obfuscate and lie about WHY they were obstructing. With a loyal media apparatus and a voter based enclosed in said apparatus and a long tradition of conspiratorial nonsense the right embarked on a great eight-year hate parade. And it worked, they purchased power for themselves for several cycles and all it cost them was their principles, honesty and the sanity of their voter base. All of those are long term things, so the bill wasn’t due. But it’s been a decade and change now- and the bill is coming due.Report
“Obama would have, and did, compromise enormously to get Republican buy in on his agenda.”
And then he turned his agenda over to Nancy Pelosi, assuming she’d work hard to implement it, and it turned out that she was more interested in putting the spurs to rich white men, as shown by the way that she shot down the first iteration of HARP because she thought the cutoff for means-testing was set too high.Report
Yeah the right will never forgive her for preventing them from bringing the ACA and no small number of other policies down in flames. God(ess?) Bless Pelosi.
And yeah, HARP, a worthy effort. I still remember that Rick Santelli rant about HARP like it was yesterday. Fabulously wealthy bankers, their pockets bulging with federal bailout funds*, inveigling because a crumb was going to go to ordinary home owners. The rant that launched the Tea Party. Has there ever been such a posse of un self aware fools on the right in history, maybe the neocons? No wonder Trump whipped them out of their own party like a bunch of rented mules within a decade.
*Which, to be fair, they eventually paid back.Report
“the right will never forgive her for preventing them from bringing the ACA and no small number of other policies down in flames.”
Yeah, so how’s the ACA doing lately? Oh, all its major provisions except for Medicaid expansion have been rescinded? Including that Individual Mandate that there was literally a Supreme Court case about? Welp.
“I still remember that Rick Santelli rant about HARP like it was yesterday. ”
Yeah, I ain’t talkin’ about him; I’m talking about how the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and still had to try twice to pass it.Report
Heheh, DD, so inaccurate. The guaranteed issue, protections for people with pre-existing conditions, coverage requirements and a laundry list of other policies all remain outstanding from the ACA. The courts just nibbled around the edges a bit and the GOP did less than that to it.
And who the heck cares that the Dems had to vote twice to pass it. The GOP had to vote, what, 15 times to elect their own speaker? I think voting twice to enact a historic expansion and reform of healthcare compares favorably.Report
“who the heck cares that the Dems had to vote twice to pass it.”
well hell, that’s certainly a rallying cry for the masses
“vote Democrat! Once we’re in charge of literally everything, we’ll pass a law to help you!…eventually.”Report
I think this has some serious recency bias. You have to look at ACA passage in the context of what the health insurance situation was 15 years ago. It was on the verge of catastrophe with a slow burn of people losing coverage, the quality of which itself was in a downward spiral based on a combination of market forces and short sighted abusive practices by the industry. From that perspective the ACA has been a modest but important success, albeit at the (controversial?) cost of propping up the private insurance system itself.
The exchanges are still there and still operational for people that need them, as are a number of new rules to minimize abuse and guarantee people are getting some semblance of what they pay for. The medicaid expansion is in most of the country. It hasn’t fixed all of our problems but it stabilized the situation before it reached a complete crisis. Is that a ringing endorsement of American democracy, and the sausage making it took to get there? No. But it’s probably about as best as we can do, especially if one of the two parties is fundamentally uninterested in solving problems.Report
“You have to look at ACA passage in the context of what the health insurance situation was 15 years ago.”
I’m not sure how that’s a rebuttal to my claim that the high-profile features of the law have mostly been eighty-sixed. If anything, the “recency bias” is in the notion that Medicaid expansion was the primary intent of the PPACA.
“The medicaid expansion is in most of the country.”
And if you actually read my comment you’ll see that I allowed as how it was still part of the deal.Report
By that definition every party fails the test since it takes time to pass anything at all in a Democracy. Contrasted to the GOP’s line of “Vote Republican, they’ll mostly just set stuff on fire and run into each other ineptly while gibbering like crazy people but occasionally they’ll cut taxes on the wealthy.” it’s not a weak hand.Report
What the HELL are you talking about?
16 million people have health insurance on the exchanges.
“This thing that literally 20% of the population uses to get health insurance is somehow not working.”Report
So, how do you beat Trump?
Again, I’m not sure. Though I’m starting to think the answer lies in persuasion and empathy. It means countering emotion with emotion.
This seems to be another version of Trump voters feel disrespected, and we need to show them respect.
In the abstract, I fully agree. We need to show Trump voters respect (not sure they want empathy, though – more about that below)
But I am engineer. I want to move from the concept into the execution. What does it mean, in practical terms, to show Trump voters (*), and, in general, lower class, conservative white rural population, respect? What is happening now that is disrespectful, or can be understood as being disrespectful, so we can change it?
Trump voters do not seem to want actual, material, help, with their actual, material problems (that’s why I do not believe they want empathy). The Medicaid expansion would be one of the best thing that could happen to middle America rural communities. But over and over, they don’t want it. It’s been more than ten years since it was made available, and the Trump voters keep voting against it. Like the Medicaid expansion, the Democrats have proposed several other initiatives that would improve the Trump voters’ material lives. They are not interested.
It seems to me that the respect they want is the deference owed to the upper classes by the lower classes. The Trump voters see themselves -with certain reason- as heirs of the XIXth century settlers of middle America. They were the elite of their communities, the “gentry”. And they, actually, their ancestors, were used to running their communities.
That world started crumbling in the 1950s and is gone now. Everything got centralized and homogenized, economic power, and political power, moved to the cities, and coasts. New ethnicities: Catholics, Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, all non “real Americans” started accumulating economic and political power. Knowledge, too, replaced land and commerce as the gateway to wealth. New elites appeared: people with knowledge that could navigate the new world postwar world. And less and less Trump voters were part of the elites, or, as Trump voters call them, the “elites”.
If i am right, there’s no way to bridge that respect gap. Trump voters want to receive from a unified nation the respect their grandparents and great-grandparents had received in their respective communities. They do not grant others the status (as “real Americans”) that they demand.
I am happy to accommodate their needs, to protect their welfare, and I’m happy to let them be (no need for them to bake cakes they do not want to bake). But I cannot accept the idea that have a right over others. Me too, I am a real American. And one that, through luck and work, is well equipped and comfortable in the world today. The real world.
(*) From here onwards, I’ll use “Trump voters” as a shortcut to describe the general demographics, racially, geographical, religious and social, that is becoming the core of the GOP voters.Report
“But I am engineer.”
Yes, we can tell by your grammar.
“Like the Medicaid expansion, the Democrats have proposed several other initiatives that would improve the Trump voters’ material lives. They are not interested.”
If your parents said that you could live in their basement free so long as they set the curfew and determined how much beer you were allowed, would you take that deal?
No?
Well. I’m shocked to find that you’d turn down a gift of free money. Clearly you don’t want actual material help with your actual material problems.Report
There are certain economic policies this argument makes sense for, and I think the “voting against their interests” argument is a bad one, but Medicaid expansion is literally free money. If you make less than this, and don’t have health insurance, you can get Medicaid. Now, at that point, you’re under Medicaid’s restrictions but you don’t have to use Medicaid if you don’t want too.Report
“Medicaid expansion is literally free money.”
So is living in your parents’ basement.
With them setting the rules, but, y’know, they’re clear and sensible rules that any functional adult ought to be able to follow, and maybe you don’t agree with some of them but it’s not your money, really, so why should you get to say how it’s spent, and anyway the people making the rules have more information than you and they’re following the science and doing it in your best interest and why are you so invested in not following the rules, anyway?
Hey, where are you going? Pfft. Typical oppositional-defiant-disorder Republican, turning down free money like that.Report
“But I am engineer.”
Yes, we can tell by your grammar
Thank you for pointing out that English is not my first language. I guess that makes me a Not a Real American in your eyes.
If my grammar irritates you so much, I’m happy to go on on this dialogue in French, Spanish, or Portuguese. My Italian, though, is not great, so probably would also not meet your very high language standards.Report
If you’re gonna gas on about Trump Voters and who’s a Real American, that’s how I’ll reply.
“My Italian, though, is not great, so probably would also not meet your very high language standards.”
I could essay a response to this but the only Italian I know, while appropriate to the moment, would get my post deleted.Report
I dunno, man, that was funny. It plays off an engineering stereotype, not an ethnic one.Report
I will say that you’re not wrong about Trump voters feeling like “disrespect” is a big part of it.
My question, then, is why people seem to figure that the appropriate response is to make that disrespect real.Report
If you behave in a shameful manner, expect to be shamed.Report
They don’t believe they are behaving shamefully because they are the real Americans and we are not. I mean look at how well public shame is working against them right now.Report
Just cause I’m feeling contrarian what would respect look like? Cause a big reason they inflicted Trump on the GOP seemed to be disrespect from establishment GOP politicians.Report
Trump fans who whimper about disrespect remind me of the Tragedian in Chapters 12 and 13 of C. S. Lewis’ _The Great Divorce_. And after eight years of having our lives marred by their acting out, it’s time to accept that they have chosen a dark path for themselves, that they’ll stay on it until they choose something better, that nothing we do will ever be enough, and so we should just focus on defeating their political representatives and otherwise leave them to the fate they’ve chosen.
“Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves.”Report
This is, um, not true. You at minimum need to the word ‘white’ before working class.
And that’s also still not correct. The Republican party has not become ‘more working class’, it has basically the same percentage of wealthy people as the general population.
Now, the Republican party has become a good deal _less educated_ than the general population (If that’s the thing you’re trying to say with ‘working class’), but that isn’t because anyone is changing party, it’s because the party has become much, much, much older, and young people tend to be better educated simply because they were told they had to go to college to get jobs…but assuming that young people with college degrees are not working class is rather silly.
The vast majority of Democrats are working class, and in fact the poorest people in society tend to vote Republican.
Or…you know, just read this, which I found when checking statistics after writing much of this and it says everything I just said, but better: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/07/college-degree-status-working-class-blue-collar-politics/
I have to suggest that what happened is that the Republicans because the ‘downscale’ party. What with grabbing women by genitalia and whatnot.
The people being looked down on are not ‘the working class’, the people looking down on are people who support, uh, someone who bragged about, and now we can say committed according to the courts, sexual assault. Who is blatantly bigoted.
It really is amazing how Republicans complain about identity politics but will constantly try to make things about their ‘identity’ instead of, uh, their really obvious actions that people are pointing out.
And the reason they feel like losers is not because of what everyone else is doing, but because what J_A pointed out: They want is the deference owed to the upper classes by the lower classes. Or, not exactly classes, but they think their position is automatically ‘on top’ when compared to other people, and…it isn’t anymore…or, actually it still is, it’s just certain people are pushing back against that.Report
I actually am going to start writing some stuff here, or at least writing some stuff and submitting it, because there are several concepts that I sorta think it would be useful for commenters here to have, and one of those is now how conservatives frame everything through a hierarchy…which not only often leads to authoritarianism on their part, but actually is pretty damaging to them, also.Report