Im-Politic: Why It’s Time for Trump to Go

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anti-semitism, Capitol riot, censorship, conservative populist nationalism, conservatives, Constitution, culture wars, election 2016, election 2020, election 2022, election 2024, Glenn Youngkin, Hunter Biden laptop, Im-Politic, January 6, nationalism, Pat Buchanan, politics, Populism, Republicans, Ron DeSantis, Ross Perot, social media, Trump, Twitter Files

There are several reasons I haven’t posted yet on Donald Trump’s absolutely terrible last few weeks, some obvious, some not so much.

Among the former – clearly, as someone who proudly voted for him twice, and considers his Oval Office record on the issues impressive, I’ve been crestfallen by the number of serious and completely unnecessary “own goals” the former President has committed lately. The two worst: the lunch at his Florida estate with two outspoken ant-semites, and his social media claim that revelations of major social media collusion with Democrats during the 2020 presidential campaign “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

It’s not that I’ve been forced to conclude that Trump is an anti-semite. Not when his daughter is married to a Jew, when for so long, so many of his closest business associates have been Jewish, and when he’s arguably been the most pro-Israel President in U.S. history.

Nor do I believe that he really wants to suspend the Constitution because he believes that the 2020 election was stolen from him, his activity during the run-up to January 6^th notwithstanding. Instead, I write it off as the kind of thoughtless outburst that’s come from him many times, and that stemmed from a frustration over the “Twitter Files” disclosures that’s not entirely incomprehensible. (Even this blatant Mainstream Media Biden apologist doesn’t rule out the possibility that because the election turned on such small vote totals in a handful of states, Trump might still be sitting in the White House had the Hunter Biden laptop story been widely suppressed during the general campaign.)

My main evidence? In two days, Trump denied suggesting what he actually suggested. Which sounds to me much more like crappy judgment than like conviction.

But to return to the main point of this post (which isn’t fighting these battles), my main less-obvious reason for keeping off the subject is one I’ve referred to before: an unwillingness to write about something unless I can think of something original to say. And so many valid points have been made by so many commentators about what Trump’s latest blunders say about his qualifications for a second term and/or his electability.that I’ve had difficulty adding to them.

Finally, however, I’ve come up with two, and they’re important enough to me to make clear that Trump’s usefulness in American politics and policy – which I view as considerable – has come and gone.

The first point has to do with Trump’s longtime habit of associating himself one way or another with figures with odious views – like the two anti-semites. Although as I said above, there’s no serious reason to think he subscribes to those views. But these repeated episodes aren’t coincidental, either, and clearly stem from his tendency to gravitate, at least temporarily, toward anyone who expresses anything remotely positive about him.

This pattern must stem from a degree of personal insecurity that seems to have been noteworthy enough even before a presidency marked by a long, almost nonstop series of false charges like the Russia collusion hoax. But however natural this reaction was, it also produced an equally long series of controversies (like this) that (a) did nothing to shore up his support with the faithful; and (b) greatly and understandably antagonized plenty of middle-of-the-road voters (including Republicans) who are generally with him on the issues.

His latest misadventures only indicate that this habit will continue – if only because the baseless attacks will. So with Trump as its standard bearer, the Republican Party, and the populist stances now strongly favored by its voters (if not by its thankfully vanishing D.C.-centric establishment wing) will struggle mightily at best to reach its full potential – a working class oriented majority coalition big and durable enough to generate thoroughgoing, lasting change.

Moreover, Trump’s uncritical attraction to any and all admirers surely explains much about his increasingly lousy record in distinguishing political winners from losers – which was displayed so prominently during last month’s midterm elections. And good luck creating a durable political movement without strong Congressional coattails.

The second original-as-I-see-it point has to do with a phenomenon that’s been commonly observed in business: The person who creates something turns out to be incapable of running it longer term. And it’s no mystery why. The two tasks require two different skill sets.

Trump unquestionably was indispensable to the triumph of modern conservative nationalist populism. After this embyronic movement (or, more accurately, related set of impulses, grievances, and leanings), experienced false starts led by former Nixon White House aide-turned-pundit Pat Buchanan, and by businessman Ross Perot, Trump achieved the breakthrough via a combination of stylistic convention-shattering and exciting new combinations of policy positions (notably, some standard conservative tax- and regulation-cutting along with economic nationalist trade and immigration stances and America First-focused foreign policies). Moreover, it’s unlikely that a politician with a more conventional personality could have left so many self-serving establishment shibboleths dead and buried, and channeled popular anger at the too-often bipartisan national power structure so effectively.

But that battle has been won hands down. The challenge for conservative nationalist populists is, as the consultants say, to expand the base. And that inevitably means appealing to voters who sympathize with the content of its platform, but who also insist on leaders who won’t force them to keep their noses held, and who seem determined to enflame rather than ease national passions. (A focus on fostering division while projecting images of sobriety, by the way, is a good desciption of many Democratic and progressive culture war shock troopers.)

Those gettable non-Republican conservatives and moderate are voters afflicted with what’s been called Trump Fatigue. And despite the major policy successes of his administration (e.g., a solidly growing, non-inflationary economy; a far more secure southern border; a halt to the enabling of China; an avoidance of pointless new foreign wars), who can blame them? Why would they look forward to four more years of national turbulence – especially since, as was not the case in 2016 and 2020, they may well have alternatives who can give them both a rousing and successful championing of populist economic and selected culture war causes on the one hand, and qualities like sound judgement and self-discipline and rhetorical precision on the other.

Of course, I’m talking about politicians like Republican Governors Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Ron DeSantis of Florida. The former, as I documented here, both won in an increasingly Democratic state and outpolled Trump’s failed reelection campaign even in rural counties chock full of hard-core Trumpers. I haven’t examined the DeSantis win last month in detail, but he achieved even greater success in a state that’s at least as diverse (though trending Republican lately).

And in fact, polls are now showing (e.g., here) not only that the former President has lost big-time ground to his possible Sunshine State rival among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, but that by large majoities, these groups “now say they want Trump’s policies but a different standard-bearer to carry them.” The inclusion of the leaners in such surveys is especially important, as they comprise a critical share of those gettable independents that could put a GOP candidate over the top in 2024 and enable him or her to shape the nation’s politics and policies for decades to come.

Here’s a way to look at these matters that I wish wasn’t so completely religious in nature but that probably makes the point like none other (and precisely for that reason): Trump was the guy needed to bring conservative nationalist populism to the mountain top of victory in 2016. But he’s anyone but the guy to lead it to the promised land of lasting political and policy supremacy.

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Im-Politic: Latinos Flocking to a (Still Trump-ian) Republican Party

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Axios-Ipsos Poll, Biden, Democrats, Donald Trump, election 2016, election 2020, election 2022, election 2024, exit polls, Glenn Youngkin, Hispanics, Im-Politic, Immigration, Latinos, NPR-Marist Poll, Pew Research Center, polls, public opinion, Republicans, The Wall Street Journal, Virginia governor's race

Remember all those those charges that former President Donald Trump made clear from the very beginning of his 2016 presidential campaign that he was an anti-Latino bigot, and the predictions that any political success he enjoyed would doom Republican chances of winning support from this increasingly important group of voters?

Apparently, many Latino voters themselves don’t. Or they’ve concluded that Trump and now dominant Republican views on sensible controls on immigration matter less to them than views on other issues. Or that they actually like Trump and the Republicans on some combination of these subjects – including immigration. Or that maybe the Republican positions aren’t terrific, but that what the Democrats have stood for lately is a non-starter.

That’s the message being sent lately by several recent polls on Latino political views that could decisively shape American politics for the foreseeable future.

First, though, some context. There’s little doubt now that four years of Trump-ism wound up boosting the former President’s support among Latinos, now further shrinking it. In 2016, Trump won 28 percent of their presidential vote. In 2020, this figure had grown to 32 percent according to the eixt polls. (This subsequent study pegs his 2020 total at 38 percent.)  And of course, in some key states, the exit polls showed, his 2020 performance was far better – notably Florida (46 percent) and Texas (41 percent). So the racism and xenophobia charges were showing signs of flopping while throughout Trump’s term in office.

Even so, the results of a Wall Street Journal survey conducted in the second half of November came as a major shock. They showed that if Trump was running for the White House against President Biden today, he’d lose by only 44 percent to 43 percent among Latino voters. And they said they’d be even split at 37 percent in their votes for Democratic and Republican Congressional candidates.

As noted in this analysis, the poll’s sample size was very small, so serious doubts in its accuracy are justified. But similar results have been reported elsewhere. Yesterday, notably, National Public Radio and Marist College released a survey showing that just 33 percent of Latino adults approved of President Biden’s performance in office, versus 65 percent who disapproved. These Biden Latino numbers were worse than his ratings from American adults as a whole (41 percent approving and 55 percent disapproving).

Moreover, only 11 percent of Latino adults “strongly approved” of Mr. Biden’s presidency so far, versus 17 percent of U.S. adults overall, and when it came to strong disapproval, 52 percent of Latinos marked that column compared with 44 percent of the total national adult population.

Nor does the evidence stop there that the longer Mr. Biden has been in office, the less Latinos like his perfomance. As this Washington Post column reminds, “In late May, Biden’s job approval among Hispanics averaged 60 percent, with a net approval margin of 32, a bit larger than his vote margin the prior year.”

Biden backers and Democrats can point to a new Axios-Ipsos survey reporting that “The Democratic Party enjoyed huge advantages over the Republican Party when Latino respondents were asked which party represents or cares about …..” But after that ellipsis comes the finding that “those advantages evaporated when it came to the economy and crime.”

Democrats own a clear edge among Latinos on one major issue, though: the CCP Virus pandemic. According to the Axios-Ipsos results “respondents were much more likely to say Democrats were doing a good job of handling COVID-19 as a health challenge — 37% to 11% for Republicans, with another 17% saying both are doing a good job.” 

But Axios-Ipsos has been a major outlier lately, as made clear in this analysis that looks not only at this year’s polls but the Virginia gubernatorial election, which saw victorious Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin actually win the state’s Latino vote.  The conventional wisdom seems to hold that Youngkin prevailed in large measure because he held Trump at arm’s length. But in light of all the other survey results, maybe that’s wishful Mainstream Media thinking?      

It’s still a long way even to the 2022 Congressional elections, much less the 2024 presidential race. But unless the President and his party can turn their sagging fortunes around, it looks like they’re rapidly running out of time with Latinos – who are increasingly flocking to a Republican Party still strongly influenced by Donald Trump.  

Im-Politic: Why Virginia Really Revealed a Winning Trumpism-without-Trump Playbook

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2016 election, 2017 election, 2020 election, 2021 election, 2022 election, 2024 election, battleground states, Donald Trump, Ed Gillespie, Glenn Youngkin, governor, Im-Politic, midterm elections, midterms 2022, Populism, Republicans, Virginia

Since the 2020 election results came in, I’ve been convinced that the biggest question hanging over the future of the Republican party – and one of the biggest hanging over American politics – was whether the GOP could foster what you could call Trump-ism without Trump that produced political winners.

That is, could Republicans find a strategies and candidates that (1) embraced the policies pursued by the former President capitalize on their popularity with a broad group of voters that includes conservatives, many independents and moderates, and growing numbers of African Americans and Hispanics, while rejecting the kinds of behavior that clearly turned or outright disgusted so many voters outside Trump loyalist ranks, but (2) conveyed enough of the anti-establishmentarianism and overall combativeness that appealed to the loyalists and inspired them to vote robustly?

Since this year’s Virginia governor’s race unexpectedly turned competitive this fall, it became clear that Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin was pursuing a Trump-ism without Trump strategy – to the point of successfully discouraging the former President from campaigning personally in the state for him. He also seemed likely to pass any personality tests required by gettable voters outside the Trump diehards’ ranks.

But I wasn’t convinced that he could generate the kind of diehard turnout he’d also need to carry an increasingly but still not entirely blue state like Virginia – and that could translate into Republican wins in other battleground states.

After looking at the details of Youngkin’s upset victory last night, I’m now pretty convinced that he accomplished exactly that goal. The evidence? His actual turnout numbers in the southwestern part of the state, whose largely rural and semi-rural counties aren’t especially populous, but whose voters gave Trump overwhelming triumphs both in 2016 and last year.

My methodology: I looked at the Youngkin vote last night, the Trump votes both last year and in 2016, and for losing Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie in 2017, for 22 counties west of the city of Roanoke (and including Roanoke County). My source: Politico.com‘s county-by-county tallies for the four years in question, found here, here, here, and here.

These elections of course aren’t strictly comparable – chiefly because presidential election turnout is usually greater than voting in state-wide and local races. The issues dominating each contest weren’t identical, either – because things change.

But what the numbers make emphatically clear is that this big slice of the Trump loyalist vote in Virginia decreased much less between last year’s presidential election and this year’s gubernatorial race than it did between the 2016 White House contest and the 2017 gubernatorial race. That is, Youngkin kept Trump base voters considerably more energized than Gillespie.

Specifically, between 2020 and 2021, the Republican vote in these counties fell by 11.05 percent. But between 2016 and 2017, it plunged by 40.85 percent. Also important, and potentially a sign of Trump fatigue: The former President won 6.21 percent fewer votes in these counties in 2020 than in 2016 – even though total Virginia turnout in 2020 was 12.60 percent higher than four years before.

Youngkin’s success by no means guarantees Republican victories anywhere in the upcoming mid-term elections, much less in the 2024 campaigns for the White House and Congress. Too much can happen between now and both of those “thens,” and regarding the next presidential race, there’s no telling who the Democratic nominee will be. Moreover, of Trump’s hot button issues, one understandably didn’t come up at all in the Virginia election (trade) and Youngkin pretty much ignored another (immigration). Finally, though the state’s gubernatorial race wasn’t generally expected to be even competitive, Youngkin didn’t exactly win in a landslide.

Not very surprisingly, Trump has rejected the idea that Virginia represents evidence of his expendability. In fact, he appears to be taking credit for the results. But if you look closely at his phrasing, his emphasis on the Make America Great Again movement rather than his own actions could signal a recognition that his lasting impact on American politics might wind up being much more ideological than personal.