Warning to Democrats: "Deplorables" resent cultural elitism

Thad Guyer warns Democrats could blow the 2020 election.

"I don't see how Trump can lose. We seem to be giving him an easy, if not a mocking, re-election."

Democratic populists oppose the triumphalism of financial elites. The very richest are getting richer. Americans resent this. Many of those same Americans resent the triumphalism of cultural elites, too. They don't like being scolded. 

Carried Massachusetts and DC.

Trump understands the culture war is central to his popularity. 

American culture has changed in the direction favored by modern, urban, educated, secular Democrats. The county has become less prejudiced and more diverse, and many people thing this is a very good thing.

Some people don't. 

They liked it the old way, where white, male, Christian, heterosexual, English-speakers were normal and on top. Many people don't want to be told to "respect diversity." Diversity seems to them to diminish good old-fashioned American culture.

Trump won by feeding the resentment felt by those unhappy with those trends. They are Trump's base. They want to protect the inside from the outside. Build the wall.

Democrats in their urban bubbles are misinterpreting the fact that Trump is unpopular among everyone they know. They are emboldened. We can nominate a real, unabashed economic and cultural progressive. Anything else is selling out.

A majority of Americans will accept diversity, but they will not accept scolding. They don't want to feel disrespected for feeling what they feel. Trump says shocking, impolitic things. Many people secretly like that he says them and thereby offends the moral scolds of the left. 

Those righteous enforcers of cultural virtue lead coalitions of people critical to the Democratic electoral base: women, people of color, gays, religious minorities, climate activists. They enforce the rules of correct speech, both inside and outside the coalition. They see racism, sexism, prejudice where others see innocent speech and behavior.

Confusion and tensions of this kind are normal. As norms change, people are made uncomfortable. Cultural change comes with a price: backlash and resentment. Trump found that resentment, he feeds it, and he thrives because of it.

Thad Guyer's comment below is a tough message of warning, elaborating on what this blog wrote yesterday and here. Trump could win with a message of cultural resentment. Guyer is an attorney specializing in representing whistleblowers.

Guest Post, by Thad Guyer

“Pray History Does Not Repeat Itself”

But it almost certainly will. The historical odds of re-election are high for a president (like Trump) who won election where the prior president (like Obama) was (1) of the opposite party (unlike Bush 1 who succeeded Reagan in his own party), and (2) served all 8 years (unlike Carter following Nixon resignation).

Guyer

But the news is worse.  The lowest popularity ratings for the two largest landslide re-elections in my adult lifetime were presidents who had major scandals with looming impeachment issues and scandalous criminal investigations:  Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Like Trump now in deriding the Muslim world as not worth the money and lives, Nixon did a major first term war de-escalation in the communist world (Indochina). And like Reagan in strong-arm anti-socialist acrimony against Latin American banana republics (eg. Nicaragua), Trump appears similarly decisive in his strongman campaign against Honduras and Guatemala. 

But it is worse still.  Against Nixon and Reagan, both of whom (like Trump) were castigated by the press as lawless and racist autocrats, stood a wild-eyed liberal dominance within the Democratic party who, after internal civil war, pushed George McGovern and Walter Mondale so far left in the primaries there was no credible way to move back toward the center. There is little chance we are not getting ready to see that exact dynamic play out in the next 18 months.

And finally, here’s the direct response to Peter's excellent warnings to Democrats: The lowest first term approval ratings for Nixon and Reagan were at the 2-year mark just like Trump now, in the 40's.  How did the GOP win among the two largest electoral landslides in history, indeed with Democrats losing 48+ states in each re-election? How was this possible when my entire generational peer group was 90% sure that Nixon and Reagan had almost zero chance of re-election? The answer is the narcissistic, self-righteousness we had in our superior values, indeed, we were superior people to all the "rednecks", "racists", and less educated "mouth-breathers" who not just supported the GOP, but who became so afraid of our runaway liberalism smacking of unpatriotic anti-USA disloyalty, that they felt physical relief in pulling GOP levers in the election booths. These giant majorities came to view voting GOP as stepping-up  to save our country, despite the flawed if not lawless men they were electing to carry out that rescue.

Trump is sure to benefit enormously from the non-stop media coverage (left and right) of the loudest, the most flamboyant and profane, and the most liberal (now called "progressive") voices among us. At some point, our Democratic liberation rhetoric sounds to the majority of our countrymen as unvarnished anti-Americanism.  I think we have already passed that dangerous electoral boundary. Sadly, absent the kind of course correction Peter suggests, or being saved by a centrist or moderate candidate getting early and decisive primary momentum, I don't see how Trump can lose.  We appear to be giving him an easy, if not a mocking, re-election bid.