Trump fights for his team. Just his team.
There is red America and blue America. Red America won in 2016. Trump fights to keep them winning against their real enemy: blue America.
Donald Trump's favorite president is Andrew Jackson. The "Spoils System" is not new in America. Andrew Jackson, the proud "Indian Killer," the Democratic voice of "the people" against urban elites, expanded the system of rotation in office and directing federal offices and benefits to his supporters. They won, and "to the victor belongs the spoils."
Trump represents a style of governing that would have been foreign to politics of the past century. Presidents have generally attempted to consolidate political power by adding to their support, making gestures of good will to the other party and its voters, with lip service if not actual practice. Obama famously launched his political career with a speech that made the unity appeal:
That was Obama, and that was then.
It was an unsatisfying approach that failed in practice. Obama's attempt to bring aboard Republican votes for a universal health care plan created a complicated plan whose delay in enactment took him far past his Honeymoon period, and in the end got zero Republican buy-in. The effort for bipartisanship further split the Democratic Party as Obama attempted to bridge a Sanders Medicare for All approach plus the interests of conservative Democrats with close ties to health insurers like Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, plus red state Democrats like Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Max Baucus of Montana.
The overall conclusion was that Obama was weak. Republicans developed a talking point: "feckless." Obama was "feckless." He couldn't get things done, and indeed he could not.
Mitt Romney famously got overheard at a fundraiser saying America divided into regular hard working citizens and "takers," the 47% of people who leached off America. They were lost to him, he said. When it was revealed his response to it was denial and minimization. A president is supposed to unite. We are all in this together.
The Trump revolution in the GOP and the presidency nationally is to reverse that presumption of unity. Trump presents himself as beset by enemies: the fake news, Democratic hoax promoters, Antifa anarchists, Black Lives Matter protesters and supporters, Socialists like Sanders, crazy young radicals like AOC, Obama holdovers, "woke" people, mask wearers and Covid shutdown supporters, Christian haters, abortion supporters, gun takers, Muslims, Mexicans, immigrants, academics, so-called "experts," and the Deep State. Trump and Fox are in continual outrage about the assault against the Silent Majority of White, Christian, freedom-loving Americans.
Trump openly governs on behalf of his base, against those opponents.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, with his recusal from the Russian investigation, made a nod to law, norms, and self restraint. Trump was furious. Bill Barr says you play to win, be as nakedly partisan as you want, no one can stop you, and winners write the history. Sportsmanship is for suckers. It is war. Use the power of government to investigate political enemies, pardon political allies, influence witnesses by dangling clemency, let foreign governments know you want them to play ball to help get you elected. You can be impeached, but you cannot be removed as long as you have 34 votes in the Senate, and he does.
News stories on Jared Kushner report that Trump's early attitude on the virus was to recognize that it was primarily affecting Seattle, then New York, and Blacks and Latinix populations--not his base--indeed the Democratic base--and therefore not a big concern.
You won the election, use the power to support the people who helped you win.
Will this work politically? It might. This is still a majority White country and the silent division within America is racial. I witnessed first hand Boston's racial and ethnic division. Humans are tribal, and working class people prefer to be among "their own kind," with Irish, Italian, Polish, and Jewish neighborhoods and voting for politicians of their own ethnicity, all against one another except unifying as one to unite against Blacks. Liberal pundits scoff at Trump's warning that Biden will kill the suburbs and that a Housing Secretary like Cory Booker will arrange for the wrong kind of people to move into and destroy your suburb. How ridiculous, they say. Cory Booker is a Rhodes Scholar. Is he scary?
NIMBY is real. Trump has a potent argument, articulated artfully. He said Cory Booker, of all people, who is Black, but he didn't say Black. He said "low income," not Black. How unfair that liberals would call that a racist dog whistle! What an outrage, liberals always crying "racism."
Trump has a gift for connecting with people feeling pressured by the growing liberal consensus and the changes taking place in America culturally and demographically. He wants to build a wall, both a physical one and a psychological one. America is becoming more diverse, more educated, more urban, more secular, more globalized.
It is happening fast and Trump is slowing it down, or tying to.
3 comments:
I remember a football coach at Sandy High School telling his line to hit hard with the helmet in the stomach. One player asked how hard to hit? The coach said “Use your helmet and hit’m in the gut. Don’t just hit’m so they throw up. Hit’m so hard you make their mom and dad watching in the stands throw up!” Pack 10 beats Pack 12 and the Southern Conference beats everyone. Politics as football. Portland had as team of really rough and tumble players once. They were referred to as the Jail Blazers. Portland showed their support. Game attendance was up. WWF meets NBA. All is forgiven - just WIN! That worked for awhile and than it didn’t. Trump/Barr have the coach’s philosophy on winning. Don’t just win hurt them for showing up to play. Punish their fans for supporting them. Harass the fans along their drive to the game with signs and menacing honking all the way to the stadium. In this analogy suppress the vote. Remember Trump has the WWF mentality and the patronage reward system in play now. Payoff the Refs no penalties for your side we control the court. It’s going to get very ugly. And if Trump wins? Well all but a few LOSE. And the republic is gone forever.
"Trump presents himself as beset by enemies..."
It may be human nature, whatever that may be, but these observations can be more broadly explained as exploiting fear; in this case fear of losing status.
I think it's accurate to say that many if not most Trump followers are what you might call struggling middle class. While it's commendable that people believe in the value of hard work and sacrifice to support one's family, it also can be a cause of resentment. For instance, the person who abandons a childhood dream and chooses work that will support them, but is spiritually crushing. For one thing, money becomes their primary motivation, but with that comes the specter of greed which can destroy their humanity.
Such a life, even though it may seem outwardly prosperous, is a living hell.
Also, once greed infects a system it creates a self-reinforcing feedback loop, increasing income and wealth inequality until it destabilizes the society. Perhaps in part this explains the persistent 35% who seem to be contrary to Progressive ideology and are easily seduced by a demagogue who soothes them with lies about some other at fault for their suffering, ironically under the guise of individual responsibility.
It's probably unfair to call them exclusively racist, it's more complicated than that, but certainly racist rhetoric can be used to persuade them of their victimhood. The tragedy is that persuading them otherwise is difficult if not hopeless, though that's not a reason to give up trying.
Rick, I always find your comments insightful. Jonathan Haidt's research shows how differently conservatives and liberals think in their basic values. My own experience in working to find common ground between liberals and conservatives is that we VERY RARELY agreed. The only benefit I could see, and it's an important one, was that we, strangely enough, bonded as a group in terms of mutual respect and understanding.
Mark Twain once observed "Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out...and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel. ..And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man"--with his mouth."
Andy Seles
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