Posted on 12/31/2019 4:31:47 AM PST by Kaslin
WESTBY, WISCONSIN -- In a country increasingly engaged in national politics and divided, the next 12 months may feel like 12 years. Voters in both trenches are eager to vote, convinced not only of victory but also of vindication. The shocking result in 2016 wasn't a black swan, an irregular election deviating from normalcy, but instead the indicator of the realignment we describe in "The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics," now available in a new a paperback edition in time for the 2020 election season.
The story of America's evolving political topography is one of tectonic plates that slowly grind against one another until a break notably alters the landscape with seismic consequences -- a sudden lurch long in development. The election of President Donald Trump cemented a realignment of the two political parties rooted in cultural and economic change years in the making. Although he has been the epicenter of all politics since his announcement of candidacy in 2015, Trump is the product of this realignment more than its cause, a fact that becomes clear as you travel the back roads to the places that made him the most unlikely president of our era.
Thirty-year-old dairy farmer Ben Klinkner doesn't consider himself a member of either political party. "I am a Christian conservative," he says matter-of-factly.
Sitting at conference table at the Westby Co-op Credit Union, the sixth-generation family farmer who has a master's degree in meat science explains that when he left to attend college at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, and then at North Dakota State University in Fargo for his master's, he vowed he would never milk a cow again.
"And I've been doing just that every day for the past six years," he said.
On Trump, Klinkner is pragmatic. "I am very happy with his policies. I just wish he'd put that Twitter down," he said of the president's unorthodox style of communicating. This cuts against the national media's narrative that farmers will dump the president because of the trade uncertainty.
And, yes, Klinkner will vote for him again.
Trump's 2016 victory came in spite of his historically weak performance in the suburbs long dominated by Republicans. The key was that he more than overcame his suburban weakness with the mass conversion of blue-collar voters in ancestrally Democratic bastions of the Midwest, and he inspired irregular voters who mistrust both parties. For "The Great Revolt," we traveled to the counties in the Great Lakes states that Trump wrested away from Democratic heritage to find examples of the voter archetypes that define the Trump coalition.
Large strata of the population are now not just eager to vote in the next race for president but eager to vote against the party of their ancestry. This enthusiasm for new alliances is perhaps the greatest indicator of lasting realignment.
The election of Trump glued populism to conservatism, an ideology long leavened by anti-establishment rhetoric but rooted in the inertial acquiescence to the status quo that comes with laissez-faire policies. In Trump, Republicans have embraced, or have been forced to embrace, a more muscular and activist approach on issues ranging from trade policy to nonstop legal warfare with liberal state governments like California's. Gone is the consistency of federalism, replaced in conservatism's pantheon with the base-motivating potency of perpetual confrontation.
The emotional exertion of Trump's combative approach continues to provide Democrats with avenues of appeal to buttoned-up suburbanites who otherwise resist liberal policies. And it has forced populists on the left to copy Trump's antagonistic style, elevating Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, the edgiest of the Democratic contenders for president, into front-runners.
Democratic populists seek to copy Trump's success but not to win back the same populist voters who flipped margins by 32 points from 2012 to 2016 in places like Ashtabula, Ohio, or 18 points in Erie, Pennsylvania, both of which we profiled in "The Great Revolt." Democrats such as Warren and Sanders have given up on winning those places -- and those Obama voters.
Instead, Sanders and Warren hope to emulate Trump's success with their party's version of the voters we called Perotistas, those whose participation in elections is irregular, even elliptical, and who pass into voting booths every decade or so like comets crashing into an otherwise orderly solar system, only to disappear just as abruptly.
For his part, the president has accepted his path, choosing not to broaden his appeal by tapering his temperament to one that might suit the two-income, two-degree Republican-leaning suburban families who split their tickets in 2016 and then chose Democratic congressmen in 2018. These voters crave predictability and civility at a gut level, two things in short supply in Trump's style, but they tell pollsters they are wary of the lurch toward socialism in today's Democratic Party. Thus far, their hearts have overpowered their heads in off-year elections in the Trump era, and Democrats are banking on the same result in 2020.
Whether or not the president ever turns his attention to winning over the voters who resist both socialism and his own style, other Republicans will be appealing to them. Suburban voters hold the keys to hotly contested 2020 Senate races in Michigan, North Carolina, Arizona and Colorado -- not to mention the entire slate of competitive House districts.
The suburbs may be where control of government will be decided, but the 2020 election will not be the end of the coalition Trump mobilized in 2016 or the resistance that formed in response. Why? Because the individualization of our cultural economy and the self-sorting of our communities will keep fueling distrust of establishment institutions and keep roiling our political and consumer behaviors. Establishment politicians, CEOs and journalists all ignore the dynamism of this great revolt at their own peril.
GOPe takes the “enemy of my friend is my enemy” approach.
The GOPe’s big, powerful donors (and I know the Rat party has as many or more) work against policies that are good for we commoners in fly-over country. That is why they went for years promising us action, taking our money, the betraying us after they were re-elected. Thankfully, we regular folks are making progress in electing those who truly represent us. I guess you could call that a revolt . . . I was certainly big-time PO’d before Trump came along. Things are better, but we need to stay rabid and close the deal in 2020.
Oh, absolutely. Massive voter fraud during the election and countless contesting of it afterward. Remember: Dems keep counting the votes until they win...
I think you are wrong about the “safety net”. Americans want to work, work for decent wages and support themselves. They hate globalism and couldn’t care less about a “safety net” if opportunities abound and immigration is slowed down so wages can catch up. What Americans want is true prosperity, economic security and not debt, deficits, off shoring and continued de industrialization.
Fighting unions is fighting the last war. Only 7% of the US work force is in a union and it is still dropping.
Today's GOP is made up of radical globalists who have destroyed the pro American protectionist brand.
The GOPe "donor class" is addicted to cheap labor, whether illegal aliens working low-level jobs, or H1B's working professional jobs.
There is a BIG disconnect between the managerial/CEO/investor donor class, and the middle-class/working-class Trump voters.
“Because the individualization of our cultural economy and the self-sorting of our communities will keep fueling distrust of establishment institutions and keep roiling our political and consumer behaviors.”
Ah gee, another management/marketing consultant with BS for sale.
The writer is so enamored with herself she does not realize the above sentence doesn’t make sense.
“Count on the Demonicrats to pull out the stops in fraudulent voting efforts in every precinct in every key electoral state.”
Yes, that may be the important story of the next election, just as it was in California in 2018 with the “ballot harvesting” scam where several solid Republican seats were stolen.
I haven’t seen any action by the Republicans to deal with this.
Didn’t all these desired results begin with the TEA PARTY movement?
Republican Workers Party. Watch leftist heads explode, since they think they actually represent working class Americans.
You are 100% correct regarding this.
“Look, the people of this nation WANT nationalism mixed with a strong government which will suppress perversion and provide a robust safety net.”
IMHO this is the most concise status report of American politics in 2020 I have encountered. Well done, sir! Steve Deace and many others are on board with you on this. Like me they may be skeptical of Trump on a personal level, but recognize that he is a barrier against the cohort (both GOPe and Demoniacs) that literally hates us and wants us shipped to camps.
“I think you are wrong about the “safety net”.”
I disagree. I live in absolutely rural Virginia where the “gibsmedat” mentality is so thoroughly ingrained there is zero appetite for reducing welfare to farmers or dopers alike. Our county is among the most Republican in the state and the demand for welfare to farmers is paralyzing. If they were faced with an honest-to-goodness reduction in farm welfare they would probably vote Dem to preserve their handouts.
I hope I am wrong but nothing I observe gives me optimism on reducing the size, scope, power, and influence of the central planners. Folks want 1) safety net and 2) no perverts.
“I think you are wrong about the “safety net”
Well, 95% of the people I have met since 1974 are patients, so that no doubt influences my thinking.
But I don’t think I am wrong. A specter is haunting Europe - and America. But unlike “communism” in February of 1848, the specter of a popular government which is both socially conservative and syndicalist if not outright socialist has a name so terrifying it cannot be spoken aloud.
A party that emerges with a different name for this phenomenon will sweep to power everywhere.
This guy has a Masters degree, and he engages in magical thinking. Trump won the nomination, the election, and the presidency to date...how? Somehow?
Because the MSM clearly (and without bias) communicated his message? Because they investigated corruption and eagerly reported same?
WITHOUT TWITTER, THERE IS NO TRUMP PRESIDENCY. WITHOUT THE FOLLOWING TRUMP HAS BUILT, THERES NO TRUMP PRESIDENCY.
Trump took on the Rinocrats, the Rodent party, the MSM, and the clueless ought-to-be supporters whining about tone.
Trump is president and is successful, in spite of marshmallows such as this. Without Trump, there are no Trump policies...
That’s why Tulsi Gabbard is such a lurking threat if not for 2020, for ‘24. She gets it.
bump
That's called National Socialism...
“I wish the GOPe would learn that the American worker is not the enemy.”
Oh but we are. They hate us only slightly less than the Left does.
L
“Well, thank “Trust the Plan” Jeff Sessions.”
Mere words can’t express my utter contempt for Sessions. Him and all the Freepers who spouted that nonsense.
Sessions was worse than useless
He was complicit.
L
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