What Democrats and the left can learn from Trump and why it matters
As counterintuitive as it may sound, there really is something Democrats and the left could learn from Trump. Contrary to what many Democrats and left-wingers may think, on policy matters, Trump did not move to the right with the exception of immigration. To the extent that he moved the Republicans anywhere, it was mostly to the left. The biggest difference between him and Mitt Romney in 2012 and almost every Republican elected official up until 2016 was that he rejected any changes to Medicare and Social Security, two toxically unpopular positions Republicans had been for. What made Trump standout was not just his behavior, but also where he stood on substantive policies.
Trump did very well in some areas that had previously voted for Democrats, particularly in the Midwest. While many different explanations can be given, one of them was that he actually was to the left of almost all Republicans and even some Democrats on some key issues. On trade, virtually every Republican elected official favored more of it in 2016. Trump was opposed. Trade has long been a big issue in the Midwestern states and that stance almost certainly helped him.
All else being equal, had Trump run on enacting Paul Ryan’s budget, I highly doubt he would have won. There has been an ongoing debate since 2016 as to how we got Trump. The answer in the Republican primary is very simple. Republican primary voters chose him. Why they chose him was because he reflected them much better than the other candidates running. A typical Republican donor or activist might think of a rank-and-file Republican voter as being like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. In fact, what Trump showed was that the typical Republican voter was nothing of the sort and cares little about the size of government. His abandonment of long-held causes like entitlement reform was an asset to those voters, not a liability.
In the end, Paul Ryan’s budget cutting crusade was not killed by Democrats. It was killed by Trump. Virtually no Republicans in Congress today talk about entitlement reform. Had Trump begun his time in office pushing for an infrastructure package, he almost certainly would have gotten large bipartisan support for it, similar to what Biden has, and he would have been more popular for it. The path he wound up going down instead is instructive.
Rather than push for infrastructure, Trump deferred to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). That attempt was toxically unpopular. During 2017, Trump experienced his lowest approval ratings of his term with the exception of after January 6 of this year. What was going on then? He was attempting to repeal the ACA. That’s right. His lowest approval rating came not from his countless scandals, insults and boorishness, but from what he tried to do on healthcare. Long story short, he campaigned as a populist and then governed as a typical Republican, which is what tanked his approval rating.
Lessons for Democrats and the left
Right now, Biden’s approval rating is roughly 51-52% with 43-44% disapproving. That is not spectacular, but is not bad either. With the amount of polarization that we have today, I doubt it could get much higher than that for very long. Still, it is a respectable number and would almost certainly mean he would be re-elected if the election was happening today.
Biden has done the smart thing so far in governing. He started off with a recovery package that was very popular. Since then, he has pursued an infrastructure package, which is also popular. So far, it is off to a good start. After a few months of talks, a bill has been advanced by the Senate with 17 Republicans joining all 50 Democrats in voting for it. It still has a way to go, but its odds of becoming law have increased substantially since that vote and it does accomplish quite a bit.
At the same time the bipartisan bill is being worked on, there is another package that is more partisan and has a much higher price tag. While the more left-wing Democrats want to spend $3.5 trillion, the more moderate ones do not. What will become of it is anyone’s guess, but if Democrats play it smart, they will include in it things that are popular and benefit lots of people, especially people who can vote.
While Trump did things to help the Republicans by opposing unpopular things, it is different for Democrats. That is because Democrats care much more about governing and policymaking than Republicans do. Their ideological proclivities make that inevitable, but the Republicans becoming a cult of personality devoid of any interest in governing has only magnified that difference. What this means for Democrats is that they need to enact things that are going to be broadly popular and will not fire up Republicans in opposition. The good news is that since Republicans are not interested in economic policy right now, that gives Democrats a lot of room to try to enact stuff on that front that will have a huge impact on people’s lives.
What is the lesson here for Democrats and the left? In a nutshell, do things people like and avoid things people do not like. Totally obvious, right? Who could possibly disagree with that? Some people do as it turns out. As I have written about many times before, the activist wing of the Democratic Party seems to want to do everything it can to be as unpopular as possible. Democrats have to avoid going down that path. They could do worse than constantly reminding themselves of who their voters really want, i.e., Joe Biden and Eric Adams, not The Squad.
Isn’t there more to life than being popular?
Sure. Many things that started off unpopular have since become popular. It is also true that many people who are revered today, such as MLK, were not always seen that way. Simply being popular does not mean that something is morally right nor does being unpopular mean that it is morally wrong. There are plenty of ideas that I support that are unpopular, such as a carbon tax, eliminating the death penalty, raising the gas tax, a value added tax and eliminating employer sponsored insurance. The good news for me is that I am not an elected official so I can be openly in favor of those things and not have to worry about any electoral consequences. That’s the rub.
Elected officials do not have the luxury of taking courageous stands. While they may be able to deviate slightly from what is popular, if they go any further, they risk losing re-election. That may not be brave, but it is the predicament they face and is inevitable in a country with democratic elections. It is a rare moment when legislators will enact something that is overwhelmingly against public opinion and when that happens it tends to be address something happening in real time, i.e., bank bailouts. Contrary to what some may believe, the Civil Rights Act was not very unpopular when it was passed in 1964.
That is the balancing act. Yes, for non-elected officials, there is more to life than just being popular, but for elected officials, there really is not. That is why when elected officials change their minds on something, they are usually jumping on the train as it is leaving the station. One example of that is gay marriage. After the 2012 election, multiple Democratic senators announced their support for it. I highly doubt all of them suddenly had a change of heart. What almost certainly was the case is that they were in favor of it, but thought it was a liability so they were not open about it. Once it was clear public opinion had shifted and they didn't have to worry about another election for six years, they felt safe to be open about it.
The lesson is that when things become popular, it is not because elected officials took a courageous stand and shifted public opinion. It is because more and more people changed their minds on it and elected officials followed them. In other words, elected officials cannot be relied on to shift public opinion because they are reflective of it. if anything, they tend to be a little behind it, i.e., marijuana legalization.
Those who want elected officials to take stances that may be right, but are unpopular are barking up the wrong tree. Anyone who is advocating for something that is currently unpopular needs to do one of two things. Either they need to make their case in the court of public opinion and try to build support for their idea or they will have to settle for something else. Most of the time, I very much prefer the latter route. There are many issues that I think need to be addressed now and I do not want to wait around until my ideal policy preference becomes popular to take action.
That is the calculation everyone advocating for an unpopular idea has to make. Are you willing to get some of what you want and live to fight another day for the rest? Or do you want to go for all or nothing and likely wind up with nothing? As someone who cares about governing and policymaking more than just feeling good about myself, I very much prefer the former. On the other hand, if you believe it is more important to feel righteous and pure, then by all means refuse to compromise and be content with getting nothing.
Remember that if you push candidates to take unpopular stands, no matter how right you think they are, they will be unlikely to win. If they do not win, you will get nothing and whatever cause you are fighting for will be setback. All this is to say that you have to recognize that public opinion is a heavy constraint on what can be done and believing otherwise is a great way to fall flat on your face.