Trump has popular support

Trump does shockingly unpopular things, yet he survives. 

It is pretty simple: 

Trump won't be removed by impeachment because he is popular with Republicans. 

There are also people who dislike him, but will vote for him anyway because he says things they agree with.

Click: It turns out Kucinich was the future.

Democratic activists, especially college-educated woke ones in cities on the coasts, are so offended by Trump's tabloid vulgarity, his political bullying, his divisiveness--the whole Trump schtick--that they cannot see that he actually supports things that they themselves like, or would like, or did like, back when the ideas were floated by someone else.

Plus, they cannot see that a big part of Trump's support is his contempt for them, those woke liberal college town elitists. Lots of people hate what they stand for. 

(Hate us, I should say. I suppose I am part of the tribe, although sometimes look outside it, a political tourist out in the field.)

Trump is popular because he says things that progressive Democrats used to say.

China, Mexico, trade, and jobs.  Remember Dennis Kucinich? He was the young progressive congressman from Cleveland who upset Democrats by being so off-message. He actually said free trade with China had a downside.  He opposed the bi-partisan consensus for giving "permanent normal trade relations" with China, to the consternation of Bill Clinton. Kucinich said it would be great for stock market investors, but bad for American workers, with "loss of US jobs, and lower average wages in the US." 

Guess what?  The past two decades have been great for investors, as companies moved manufacturing offshore to China. It has been good for consumers, too--all that cheap stuff--except, of course, for people who used to be consumers with family wage incomes from jobs manufacturing things. The result is the income inequality problem that Democrats are confronting. The meritocracy Democratic approach--leave the poverty working class by getting a college degree or more--works for some, but not for the people progressives warned would be losing their jobs. 

They became the restless people open to a populist message. People like Trump.

Trump was saying in 2016 what "out there" progressives like Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders, were saying, and what Ross Perot warned about back in 1992 and 1996, that "giant sucking sound" of good American jobs disappearing. It wasn't part of meritocracy-Democratic message in 2016.

That message is visibly associated with Trump. As a right-populist, he identified the problem as foreigners, and the issue of trade and offshore manufacturing became conflated with his ethno-nationalism. 

Click for video

Immigration. Progressives used to worry that unregulated immigration hurt the poorest Americans the most, and that we should protect those people. Who said that? Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. She specifically denounces racism and identifies this as a nation of immigrants, but says immigration has consequences and it requires actual regulation and enforcement.

Senator Bernie Sanders said open borders were the Koch brothers idea of good policy, not his. It is a progressive issue.

The internet is full of Democrats, from Jordan to Clinton to Gore to Schumer to Obama speaking on behalf of border enforcement on behalf of American workers.

Again, Trump exploited an issue that had been identified with Democrats, with his right populist ethno-nationalism. Democrats recoil from racism and deplore Trump cozying up to white nationalists and casually insulting Latin American immigrants. Democrats responded by focusing on Trump's cruelty, on kids in cages, on the Wall that Mexico will not pay for, on the exaggerated numbers, the fear mongering. By giving Trump wide berth, it left Democrats open to accusations they are reluctant to enforce our borders--equivalent to supporting open borders--exactly the charge Republicans levy now.

People concerned about immigration have a candidate: Trump.

Bottom line: Some of what Trump says is very popular and that shouldn't be a surprise to Democrats. He is stealing some of the progressive Democratic message, added the ethno-nationalist twist, and is now identified with two popular issues. Neither issue is inherently ethno-nationalist or right-populist. There is a left populist message available on both issues.

Trump is popular because he wages culture war against the left.

Lots of Fox News viewers think leftists have contempt for them. They think Democrats snicker at their music, their guns, their American cars, their religion, their white skin. They resent it and like the fact that Trump is unapologetic in his contempt right back.

More particularly, lots of people think leftists: 

***are way too sensitive about political correctness.

***don't respect Christians' right to practice their religion.

***are ok with killing babies moments before birth.

***are too accommodating to transexuals.

***feel guilty for being white, and shouldn't.

***bend over backwards to help people of color.

***want women to get unfair advantages. 

***don't understand guns or gun culture.

Bottom line: The culture war splits educated Democrats in diverse cities from working class cultural conservatives. Trump is appealing to people who might like the Democratic economic policy on income inequality, taxes, and access to health care, but who find some element of Democratic culture war message objectionable.

Trump is in a strong position.

Trump won't be removed, even in the face of the evidence against him. There is a message there. It is not that Trump is weak. Only a person in a strong political position can be so guilty, but still be acquitted.  

Democrats are not me-too to Trump. Trump is me-too to progressive Democrats. Trump makes his right populism work because he exploits the culture war, and he is assisted by a right media environment that successfully sells the message that progressive woke Democrats are politically correct snobs who hate regular Americans.