Trumpism after Trump

 

Gordon L. Weil

We just got a look at what American politics could look like after Donald Trump.

Trump won’t always be at the center of the national debate.  He could lose the election, leaving him to focus on meeting his many legal challenges.  Or he could win, serve his term in office, and depart.  Or, given his age, death or disability could overtake him, allowing Vance to assume power.  But he will go.

Whatever his future, his role over the last nine years raises questions about the future of Trumpism without Trump. Will his policies survive?  Will the Republican Party be dominated by his partisans or will the traditional members he labeled RINOs – Republicans in Name Only – be able to restore their “compassionate conservatism.”

The performance of Ohio Sen. JD Vance in the vice-presidential debate provided useful hints about the post-Trump future, at least for the Republicans and likely for the political world.  Vance’s answers, while displaying the required loyalty to Trump, were notable for smoother packaging. They were important for what they omitted.

On the issues, immigration stood out.  The key issue for Trump when he first ran in 2016, it remains at the center of GOP politics.  Vance repeatedly resorted to unrestricted immigration to explain most of the economic and social problems facing the country.  His answer was not only a sign of Trump loyalty, but his silver bullet solution to winning the election.

Trump had torpedoed a bipartisan bill to begin dealing with the issue, often raised by the Democrats, but that means less to voters than the problem itself.  Underlying opposition to immigrants and immigration is anguish about the coming end of a white majority in America.  Making America “great again” is about stopping, slowing or even denying the inevitable change.

Immigration is sure to be Trump’s legacy.  Difficult to solve, it can become a perennial political focus.  Vance stuck with it, but dodged backing deportation of more than criminal aliens.  Trump is far more sweeping. Vance also avoided racial undertones to his position.  But here as elsewhere, he went along with Trump’s unfounded assertions.

For the Democrats, the personal freedom of women over their own bodies – the abortion issue – remains the keystone of the campaign.  Here, Vance was seemingly contrite. He admitted that his own restrictive position has been rejected by his state’s voters.   He said that his party would have to do better in building trust on the issue.

Contrast his remarks with Trump’s.  The former president keeps shifting his position, trying to lessen the impact of his efforts to topple Roe v. Wade, but he makes ludicrous charges about how Democrats want to kill babies.  Vance looked more reasonable, retreating after the debate to veer right again.  Like Trump, he seeks an impossible position aimed at satisfying both sides.

Media attention has highlighted the civil and coherent debate between Vance and Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee.  They listened to one another and occasionally claimed to find some common ground.  There were no personal attacks or use of degrading nicknames or huge lies, characteristic of Trumpian discourse.  But Vance hewed to his leader’s lines.

Walz entirely boxed him in once. He asked if Vance believed that the 2020 election was stolen, and the senator evaded answering.  In effect, he had to remain loyal to his leader, but managed to refrain from openly supporting him.  Vance obviously shares a Trump-like political vanity. Looking to his own future career, Vance showed himself as more deft than dangerous.

The American government has been almost paralyzed by an unwillingness to compromise between dominant elements within both parties.  Agreement on federal spending has become almost impossible.  In the GOP-dominated House, it’s a matter of “my way or the highway,” sending the American people down that road by an unpopular Congress.

This state of affairs cannot last.  Either the system will be mortally wounded, making authoritarian government quite likely, or traditional majority rule with a role for the minority view must be restored.

This election could be the turning point.  If Trump were to lose and the Democrats gain control of Congress, it could happen now.  Kamala Harris would need to work with responsible Republican leaders.  When the intimidation from Trump possible retaliation fades, senators like Vance might work with the Democrats to achieve workable compromises.

If Trump loses, but the GOP controls Congress, it would be up to Harris and Vance, as a GOP leader, to find a path to compromise.  If Trump wins, congressional Republicans could foresee his influence waning, though they would support his policies.  Of course, it’s possible that an aging Trump might have to give way to Vance at some point.

Whenever Trump leaves the scene, restoring compromise is essential.  Vance may have tried to make it look possible.

 

Polls: An additional note.

I wrote about the adjustments being made and not made to survey data.  Then, The New York Times wrote: “Ms. Harris has since shored up her support among older voters and has begun making inroads among Republicans: 9 percent said they planned to support her, up slightly from 5 percent last month.”

Slightly! An 80 percent increase?   The four percent as a share of the total Trump vote in 2020 is about 2.8 million voters.  That many voters or even a half of them could swing states or put some leaners into doubt.

Big problem with polls; pollsters tinker with data

 

Gordon L. Weil

To ward against underestimating support for Donald Trump, many pollsters adjust their survey findings to increase the influence of how voters say they voted in the last election, according to a report by Nate Cohn, the New York Times chief polling analyst.

According to the report, though the pollsters have their own doubts about the validity of this recall-vote adjustment, they use it to avoid the possibility of badly missing the true outcome.  In short, they try to narrow their possible error and may try not to differ from the herd.

One major defect of the adjustment is that there’s a bias in remembering that you voted for the winner, he says.  But there might also be a bias for “changing” your vote, if the candidate’s later actions cause you to regret how you voted.  In any case, voters may not provide a correct answer.

In effect, the implicit conclusion in making this adjustment is that one election is like another.  With Trump running for a third time, the temptation to reach that conclusion may be great.  And it might be correct.

But what about the possibility that this election is different from most elections?   Kamala Harris is not white and not male.  Those are pretty big differences from the past.

And when the Supreme Court toppled Roe v. Wade, it was like a constitutional amendment.  It not only awakened the opposition of many women, but it raised questions about the meaning of personal freedom.  The issue won’t fade away. 

Texas, with one of the strictest laws in the country, challenged the power of the federal government to order it to save lives, claiming it already had such a requirement. But the legal risks for doctors making the life-and-death decision are so great that many won’t perform abortions. Today, the Supreme Court using its phantom docket (decisions with no reasons given) upheld the Texas position and further fueled the issue.

The abortion issue is likely to bring out women to the ballot box.  They may be more numerous than in the past, and they may recruit others.  A majority of voters are women.

The defection of leading Republicans from Trump, despite having endorsed him eight and four years ago, suggests that the recall-vote adjustment does not apply to them. Perhaps other traditional Republicans will follow them.  We might call this the “Liz Cheney effect,” for which no adjustment is made.

There is a wave of new voter registrations this year, as in Maine, and especially among young voters.  How does the recall-vote adjustment work when the margin of victory in a swing state may be less than the number of new voters? We might call this the “Taylor Swift effect,” for which no adjustment was made.

At the end of his analysis, Cohn writes, “A near repeat of the last presidential election is certainly a plausible outcome. In today’s polarized era, who could possibly be surprised by a repeat in Mr. Trump’s third presidential run?”  He concludes, “But if this election is different, in any direction, this year’s polls might not be able to see it coming.”  The pollsters are not reporting data; they are manipulating it.

Another conclusion may be that the pollsters are more interested in protecting their reputations than in making a serious attempt at understanding the electorate.  They may fail at both.

 

Election too close to call? No, but too hard

 

Gordon L. Weil

“Too close to call.”

That’s the election mantra for the presidential and House elections.  Even the Senate races show some uncertainty.

The notion that these races will come down to the wire is just what the media likes.  It attracts viewers and readers, excites the partisans and keeps political reporters, pundits and pollsters in the public eye. 

Yet the elections may not be too close to call, just impossible to fully understand.  As I have previously suggested, it’s possible that swing voters more than swing states will influence the outcomes.  But it is difficult to foresee how they will react in the next few weeks and even if they will be able to vote and have their votes counted.

The polls forecast the outcome in most states with absolute certainty, given the wide gap between the candidates and state political histories.  That leaves a few states that have shifted from one side to the other recently, often against their traditional leaning.   The focus falls almost entirely on these swing states.

Who are the swing voters that the polls may not be reading well?  

Prime among them are those registering to vote this year for the first time.  They are mostly young people, many having become active since President Biden dropped out.  It’s possible that most of them are reacting to a younger option in the presidential race, a candidate closer to their own lives.

In Maine, new voter registrations are coming at 5,000 a week, big for the state and unprecedented.  This parallels what’s happening in many other states.   Are the polls catching their effect accurately?

Similar to this trend is population movement since the last federal election cycle.  The presence of Democratic activists in The Villages, a Florida haven for faithful Republicans from the Midwest, is newsworthy.  Migration is affecting other southern states like Georgia and Texas.  Maybe these states won’t flip this time, but change is coming.

The increased, active participation of women, whose voting is no longer predictable on the basis of how their husbands vote, will be a major factor influencing the elections.  More women vote than men, and they are generally better educated.  If they turn out as expected, they could change outcomes.  The polls may be mistakenly adjusting downward their impact.

The argument against attributing influence to women is that the surveys show that abortion is not one of the top issues (and that’s probably true for the poorly understood term “reproductive choice”).  But the broader ideal of personal freedom raised by the issue resonates with some voters, and that view may be gaining traction.

Conventional wisdom maintains that the real issue is the economy, and that Kamala Harris trails Donald Trump in ability to deal with it.  That’s not true, though neither has an in-depth understanding of economics.  Their policies consist mainly of pandering to constituencies by offering them subsidies and tax breaks.

The gap between them has almost disappeared.  The biggest signpost about inflation can be seen at the local filling station.  Gasoline prices are falling, sending a clear signal that inflation is down.  Income gains are larger than price increases.  As this realization spreads, the issue may matter less than it did earlier this year.

Much the same is true for immigration.  A serious policy is badly needed from both sides.  Meanwhile, Biden’s action to radically reduce pressure at the border may be having an effect.

But there are bigger problems with the “too close to call” forecast.  The polls treat the character of the candidates as just another issue alongside the economy or immigration.  And they have just begun to focus on age.

Concern about a candidate’s character can override the issues. That’s why many GOP leaders support Harris, with whom they usually disagree.  Trump’s increasingly obvious flaws and the dangers of his presidency matter more to them than the issues.

The effects of aging drove Biden off the ballot.  Are people worried about Trump?  Does the media fail to highlight his gaffes, lacking their persistence in pursuing Biden?  Fox and MSNBC may have their opposing views, but the mainstream media has been slow to raise concerns about Trump’s age.

We can easily be hypnotized by the daily poll reports and the instant analysis of them.  But what seems to be missing is perspective.     

The pundits promote their guesswork to keep people tuned in as if the election is the Presidential Super Bowl.   That alone is a good reason to stay skeptical of campaign experts.

We have no way of knowing if the election is as close as the pundits ceaselessly forecast.  Perhaps the message to be drawn from the polls is not that the election is “too close to call,” but that this election differs so much from others that the race is “too hard to call.”