As I have been watching White House news conferences and reading about President Biden’s start to his term, I find myself in a state of disbelief at how it all feels so…..normal. The past four years of the Trump presidency have engrossed me in a chaotic administration where foreign policy could take a 180 on a tweet and press conferences amounted to made-for-television food fights (that is, except for when press briefings were nixed entirely under Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham). After a while, I had forgotten what it felt like to see the executive branch of the U.S. government run as it had for decades prior to the ascendancy of Donald J. Trump, that is, with a greater sense of professionalism and polish. Of course, I disagree with President Biden on a whole host of issues, being particularly horrified at his purported plan to enshrine abortion in federal law. But in the category of governmental professionalism, I am tremendously relieved and pray that we will never have such an embarrassingly conducted administration again.
This “return to normalcy” 100 years after one Warren Gamaliel Harding campaigned on the same in his own presidential bid is striking not just for the chaos that we witnessed in the executive branch (as well as rampant corruption), but also in the broader tumult in American society. The coronavirus has wreaked terrible havoc on the country, killing hundreds of thousands and tanking an economy after a decade-long recovery since the last recession. Lockdowns, quarantine, social distancing, and covered faces have all taken their psychological toll on millions. Instances of police brutality have renewed protests for beneficial change for African Americans across the nation, just as many people protested the lockdowns out of fear of government oppression. Now former President Trump, after clearly losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, baselessly alleged that the results were fraudulent and that Democrats had stolen a clear victory from him. His anti-democratic (with a small “d”) assault led to a pressure campaign against state legislators, elections officials, the Justice Department, and members of Congress to find any way he could to illegally overturn a lawfully held election. The final fruit of this labor was the Capitol riot we witnessed on January 6, where an enemy force occupied and vandalized the halls of our government for the first time since the British invasion of 1814. Five people died amidst the attempted insurrection. Americans are coming out of a turbulent period in their history, and the sudden shift to pre-2017 governance is a surreal and unbelievable change.
But this initial calm after the storm is also an opportunity, though whether Americans seize this opportunity remains to be seen. Historically, times of turmoil have resulted in introspection and political reshuffling amongst the American electorate. The Flour Riot and Panic of 1837 sewed such discontent with the status quo that the following 1840 election saw the rise of popular campaigning for the presidency and higher participation by the average American in national politics. The Civil War ended the dominance of Southern slaveholders in the national conversation, firmly set the United States on the course to being a more industrialized society, and brought African-Americans into the democratic process for the first time. The Great Depression resulted in a transformation of the Democratic Party (and the country at large) to call for greater government intervention in the economy and labor market. World War II firmly shrugged off the former isolationism of the United States, being replaced by the internationalist foreign policy of Truman and Eisenhower. The ensuing economic boom of the 50s also renewed a desire to fight for civil rights for African Americans, with Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson all overseeing the first expansion of civil rights for people of color since the Ulysses S. Grant administration in 1875. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 spurred a drastic change in public perception of American foreign policy and national security that is only now, two decades later, reverting to the great power politics of the Cold War. For good or ill, turbulent times tend to change people’s perspectives on what is important and what they would like to see addressed in politics.
Already, following that great disruption that was 2020 (coupled with the January 6 Capitol riot so soon into the new year), a political reckoning is brewing. Factions are forming (and, to be fair, have been for years now) in both the Democratic and Republican parties, and the American political landscape appears less certain now than it has in decades. On one side, Democrats are being pulled ever leftward on cultural and domestic issues, in particular concerning the rights and situation of African Americans as well as environmental policy. Even so, a rising socialist wing of the party is clashing with a 2018-fueled faction of suburban moderates who appeal to disaffected Republican voters. On top of that, the old power of labor appears to be dwindling, though this faction crucially still maintains champions in the House and Senate, most notably Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. On the Republican side, Trump’s nationalist populism has almost entirely replaced conservatism as the predominant philosophy guiding the GOP. However, there are numerous smaller factions that have felt emboldened to speak out since the Capitol riot. These include traditional Buckley-style conservatives such as Sen. Ben Sasse and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Bush-era neoconservatives such as Rep. Liz Cheney, and pro-business moderates such as Sens. Mitt Romney and Susan Collins. Yet even amongst the MAGA crowd, there is some diversity, with everywhere from QAnon conspiracism exemplified by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to social libertarianism represented by Congressman Jeff Van Drew.
Of course, there are always a wide array of political factions even in calmer times, but typically the Democrats and Republicans are able to solidify their ideological and demographic coalitions in the run-up to an election (and adjust their coalitions somewhat if they lose). What makes this present time more unique is the sheer rancor displayed between each faction. The Republican Party in particular is terribly divided over its treatment of former President Trump, especially after the Capitol riot, which followed months of dishonest and fiery rhetoric from the then-Commander-in-Chief. Most of the GOP has decided to stand by Trump and continue to court the alt-right as a permanent fixture of the Republican coalition. However, there are a small but vocal few who argue that the former President should be shunned from the party going forward, even if that risks losing his die-hard supporters. In recent days, even after facing severe backlash for their votes to move forward with impeachment, both Sen. Ben Sasse and Rep. Liz Cheney have doubled down on their positions, if anything only heightening their criticism of Trump.
So what happens next? The past several years have proven just how hard it is to predict the future. That being said, it seems clear to me that we are in the midst of a political reshuffling. The Democratic Party, after a bumpy four years, appears to have stabilized somewhat with the inauguration of President Biden. Though that could easily change with time, for now the progressive wing of the party seems satisfied with the President’s overtures to their policy goals, even if he waters them down somewhat to be more palatable to moderates. The Grand Old Party (yes, that is what GOP stands for) is where the more interesting developments are. Following Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat to President Obama, the Republican Party determined in a self-autopsy report that they needed to reach out to minority voters more if they wanted to win in future elections. Four years later, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump completely bucked that strategy in favor of doubling down on white voters, specifically reaching out to blue-collar whites in the Upper Midwest. This traditionally Democratic voting bloc ended up largely standing by Trump in 2020, even as he ultimately lost those same Midwestern states that propelled him to victory four years prior. But Trump also managed to expand his coalition by reaching out to a very particular demographic: Latino men. It was this gain, even as he lost ground amongst seniors and Christians, that delivered solid victories in Florida and Texas. The rural-urban divide also widened considerably, with Democrats slowly gaining more of the suburban vote that the GOP has been hemorrhaging since 2016. Long story short, this coalition is not the GOP of twenty years ago, let alone five. I suspect that much of the MAGA crowd (blue collar whites and rural voters) are sticking around for the foreseeable future, even if Trump fades from the national scene. The real question lies in whether or not the GOP will be able to reconnect with the voters that they lost (seniors, Christians, suburbanites, etc.) and take advantage of opportunities to reach out to Latino and Black voters.
Ideologically, there is no clean answer as to how the GOP can form a consistently winning coalition (unlike the Democrats, at present). While the MAGA-ites continue to support the nationalism, populism, and authoritarian flirtation of Trump, moderate suburban voters and seniors tend to push for a pre-2016 GOP that was more concerned about fiscal responsibility and traditional conservative values. Meanwhile, the Christian voters that ditched the Trump ticket did so because of how un-Christian the GOP seemed to become under the 45th President, with coarse language and conduct coupled with uncompassionate responses to the coronavirus pandemic, migrant detainment, and race relations. With a lack of progress on the biggest issue for conservative Christians, abortion (and federal funding for Planned Parenthood through Medicare actually increasing significantly under Trump’s tenure), many social conservatives lacked a reason to support Trump in November. What is especially telling, however, is that most of these Trump-ditching voters still voted for Republicans down-ballot. This ticket-splitting (where voters chose Biden for President but Republicans for Congress), is what resulted in Biden’s solid presidential victory even as Republicans made surprising gains in the House. In other words, there is more room to grow for the GOP if they ditch Trump than if they stand by him. But shouldn’t the GOP be fearful of a MAGA exodus if they shun the former President? Yes and no. Certainly, a number of Trump supporters would likely walk away from the Republican Party at that point, but I would argue that they would mostly be low propensity voters that turned out only for Donald Trump anyway. For the rest of the faction, they would come to the same question that the socialist wing of the Democratic Party faced last year: do we not vote for Biden because he strongly opposed socialism in the primary or do we hold our nose and support him to oust Trump, who we really can’t stand? The socialist wing chose the latter, evidence of the lamentably intense animosity between both parties these days. But I believe this would play out amongst most MAGA voters, as well. If given the choice in 2024 between say Vice President Kamala Harris versus Sen. Ben Sasse, a fierce Trump opponent, would MAGA voters really sit out the election knowing that that would guarantee a Harris victory? Anything is possible, but I doubt it.
I will be watching the development of a new Republican coalition with great interest and continue to share my thoughts on various aspects of the coalition-building here on the blog. This reshuffling is fascinating and all, but I have to say that things have slowed down considerably compared to the past five years or so. After the Trump years, 2020, and the Capitol riot, I’m just praying for calmer times when all I have to talk about are coalition-building and public policy.
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