Trump Lost in 2020 Because of Covid
There is a certain segment of the population that likes to imagine that they are living in an episode of Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing”. How would Trump’s story arc play out in such a setting? It’s easy to imagine a narrative where the evil demagogue temporarily rises to power before the inherent decency of the American people reasserts itself, perhaps prodded on by a sensitive female of color, and he is banished to a jail cell to reflect on his sins.
Meanwhile in the real world Trump lost the 2020 election by a measly 44,000 votes out of 159 million cast. Keep in mind that when domestic conditions are bad the voting public tends to blame the incumbent. In an alternate universe where Covid never materialized it’s easy to imagine Trump—bolstered by a healthy economy and low unemployment—cruising to victory.
In the model employed by Sorkin and other fairy tales the villain, once vanquished, stays vanquished. Trump and Biden are currently running neck and neck in polling for 2024. Is that consistent with a narrative where Trump’s values are fundamentally incompatible with the country’s?
Ignore the Base(s)
The primary motivation partisans have for voting right now is that they hate the other side. Since that’s all that’s required to get the true believers to show up why spend any effort or money targeting the base?
The Number of “Locked-in” Voters is Irrelevant
How many times have you heard that the number of independent/swing voters has shrunk? The clear implication is that turning out the base is what matters. That might be true if one side is pulling in 45% of the electorate while the other guy get sits at 40%.
However when the number of committed partisans on both sides is about equal their absolute numbers become irrelevant. Is there any real difference between a country that’s split 40-40, or 45-45, or 49.9-49.9? At that point it doesn’t matter if there’s a million swing voters or only a thousand: as long as the two sides of Republicans and Democrats are evenly matched at the end of the day the independents will decide the winner.
Nobody Cares About January 6 or Claims of Election Fraud
Or rather I should say nobody important cares. Since the ratings for the J6 televised hearings were above zero (barely) somebody, somewhere, watched even if they were ignored by the vast majority of the country.
But for independents claims on the left about insurrection are about as interesting and meaningful as claims on the right about illegals voting. Trump and his team might have been heartened by the low ratings the Cheney show pulled in but it turns out that most voters were just as cold to his claims of election fraud. Both issues are two sides of the same partisan coin. If the key to victory is appealing to swing voters then their concerns need to be addressed.
So What Do Swing Voters Care About?
The conventional wisdom is that it’s bread and butter issues. Right now the biggest of those is undoubtedly the economy.
Trump Tacks to the Middle
First, read Byron York’s excellent summation of a Trump rally speech here.
York write:
“In a shortened version of his old speech — Trump spoke for a little more than half an hour, mercifully short in the debilitating heat — Trump spent most of his time discussing the economy. His message was simple: Things were good when I was president. They have gone to hell since Biden became president. I will make them good again if you return me to the White House.
"‘We had to do it twice, and now we're going to do it a third time,’ he said, ‘but it's going to be bigger, better, stronger than ever before.’ Elect Trump again, he promised, and he will ‘turn the Biden economic bust into another Trump economic boom.’ Rather than the inflation and taxation of another Biden term, Trump promised, ‘A vote for Trump is a vote for more jobs, higher wages, and more boats, cars, trucks, and airplanes stamped Made in America.'“
Notice there’s no mention of fraud or stolen elections? This is Trump practicing message discipline (to the extent that’s possible), sticking to the subject that he needs to keep in front of voters and making his pitch to the audience that he needs to reach.
2022 might have been a blessing in disguise for Trump because it demonstrated very clearly to his team that talking about the wrong things can cost you an election.
Criminal Charges Rehabilitate Trump
Someone who has served as President has reached the pinnacle of political power in this country. By any reasonable standard they should be the ultimate political insider. How could such an individual depict themselves as an outsider from beyond the Beltway? Maybe an unending stream of criminal charges might fit the bill. After all if Trump is an insider then why is the system being deployed against him?
At the very least current polling seems to indicate that the public is largely ignoring Trump’s criminal charges. Going a step further is there any scenario where charges might even prove to be a political benefit? The Democrats had better pray that the mood of the country next year isn’t a sour one. When the prevailing sentiment is “Throw the bums out” or, even worse, “The system is rigged” then outsiders look especially attractive.
The Third Party Terrain Favors the GOP
RFK Jr. perfectly encapsulates what’s wrong with the modern leftist elite. Of course you don’t want Biden to debate anybody (look forward to another basement campaign in 2024) but at 20% support Kennedy does not represent a significant primary threat.
On the other hand he could be a genuine spoiler if he’s antagonized into a third party run. In that light the decision to deny him Secret Service protection just looks needlessly petty. I can’t believe I have to point this out, but the correct course of action with Kennedy would have been to flatter him, throw him some bones and then let him lose in the primaries. Now he and Cornel West (and Joe Manchin) could easily throw the election if the margins are as tiny as they were in 2016 and 2020.
We Can’t Vote Our Way Out of This
I would like to close by pointing out that politics is at this juncture a sucker’s game and 2024 is no exception. If you are of a partisan bent consider: the pattern of previous elections has been eight years in office for a candidate from one party followed by eight years of the other party and so on. If Biden wins it’s an easy bet that he’ll face a Republican Congress and in 2028 the Republican (who will probably be a populist in the Trump vein) will be heavily favored.
More importantly whoever is elected will be powerless to address the most important issue facing the country, which is that it is spinning apart. Political partisanship does not seem to have moderated after 2020 and in addition the US is facing a slew of additional tribal difficulties as the country splits along demarcations of race, class, religion, etc. etc. etc.
There is every indication that increasing tribalism and disunity is leading to increased conflict, and probably increased crime. In the meantime at the global level the world is trending not towards increased consensus but rather towards a new era of great power competition. An internally divided United States is a boon for America’s rivals overseas.
It’s going to be a bumpy ride. Strap yourselves in, and I hope that you and your loved ones stay safe.