Trump Traditionalists
For diehard right-wingers and Trump populists, Trump’s tenure has been viewed like a Second Coming. But having failed at almost every major policy vector – losing even his claim (as he successfully rode his predecessor’s coattails of economic recovery) to being the master business genius who would sustain economic success to make America great again in the pandemic – the GOP is rapidly coming to the realization that they are facing a probable catastrophe in the upcoming elections.
GOP primary candidates are already feeling the anti-Trump backlash from ultra-right-wingers and reemerging GOP centrists pushing back against those unwilling to release their ties to all things Trump. Even as 51% of Republicans still take the President’s view on the pandemic over those of Dr. Anthony Fauci, 31% of the nation no longer trusts the President to get us out of this medical catastrophe, believing that his dilatory response and failure to appreciate the seriousness of the threat – inserting fake remedies, false pledges, inaccurate predictions and falsified or misleading data instead – made a bad situation absolutely horrible. Especially for his elderly supporters. He has undercut medical professionals at every turn. But what have Donald Trump-imposed polices done to the future of the Republican Party?
“Republicans have begun to sharply divide on whether those changes will — or should — outlast his presidency… Old Guard Republicans acknowledge that there is no going back to the pre-Trump status quo, but see a political opening to steer the party away from Trumpism. At the same time, Trump’s allies have started to jockey for primacy in a potential post-Trump party.
“Those tensions have already begun to have an impact on legislation, leadership power struggles and campaign strategy in Congress and across the country… In two Senate GOP primaries this week, Trump allies have been facing stiff challenges — from the right in Tennessee and the center in Kansas… Divisions have surfaced among congressional Republicans over how to handle the next installment of COVID-19 relief funding, with many of the splits directly related to jockeying over the party’s future.
“And after years of nearly unbroken fealty to the president, Republicans have increasingly defied Trump’s wishes on issues, including his proposal for a payroll tax cut, funding for a new FBI building — and most resoundingly, his suggestion of a possible delay of the general election, which Republican leaders in the House and Senate rebuffed… ‘This is a party that knows it’s going to get beaten and get beaten badly,’ said Peter Wehner, a Trump critic and former White House advisor to President George W. Bush. ‘Intraparty turmoil, attacks on each other — the language gets super-heated.’
“Still, Trump loyalists remain on guard against apostasy. Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a rising GOP star critical of the president on some issues, recently came under fire from a back-bencher who called for her to be booted from the House leadership… Anti-Trump Republicans are fighting back in the 2020 campaign by forming political groups dedicated to keeping Trump from being reelected… But they face formidable hurdles in rolling back the broader changes Trump has wrought, because the voting base of the GOP has been transformed.
“Country-club Republicanism has been routed, eclipsed by an influx of blue-collar populists who care more about cutting immigration than traditional GOP issues such as deregulation or free trade. At the same time, Trump has alienated many suburban voters who once were mainstays of the party… That’s why many Republicans — both Trump’s supporters and his opponents — believe his influence will persist even if his presidency does not…
“Senate primaries continue to be feuds over which Republican will be the president’s most loyal ally, and Trump has often bragged about his ability to carry GOP candidates to primary victories. But the campaigns for this week’s primaries in Tennessee and Kansas showed signs of Trump’s weakening grip.
“In Tennessee, where Republicans are voting Thursday to choose a nominee to succeed GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is retiring, the candidate endorsed by Trump is not a shoo-in. Trump’s former ambassador to Japan, Bill Hagerty, is meeting a spirited challenge from the right from Manny Sethi, a surgeon who has been endorsed by conservative stalwarts like Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky and Jim DeMint, a former senator and head of the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“In Kansas, longtime Trump ally Kris Kobach — a polarizing conservative who lost his 2018 gubernatorial bid — lost again in Tuesday’s [8/4] GOP primary for the seat now held by retiring GOP Sen. Pat Roberts.” Janet Hook writing for the August 5th Los Angeles Times.
To make matters so much worse for the Republican Party, their traditional supporters, older white people, are dying off and being replaced by new generations that never went through the era of the communist red scare and do not actually believe that “socialism” is a dirty word. They are heavily urban, better educated and their ranks are filled with non-white-traditional minorities. They face intolerable tuition costs and concomitant staggering student debt, truly unaffordable housing, tanking entry-level job opportunities and a pandemic they know was exacerbated by GOP incompetence. A few resent a lid on their partying, but that is obviously a short-lived process as they mature. Sure, there are a few right-wing segments in that vast demographic pool, but… “A new analysis by the Brookings Institution shows that 50.7% of U.S. residents were under 40 as of July 2019.
“The think tank’s analysis of population estimates released this summer by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the combined millennial, Generation Z and younger cohorts numbered 166 million people… The combined Generation X, baby boomer and older cohorts represented 162 million U.S. residents.
“‘To many Americans — especially baby boomers themselves — this news may come as a shock. For them, the term ‘millennial’ has been associated with a youthful, often negative, vibe in terms of habits, ideology and politics,’ William Frey, a senior fellow at Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program, wrote in the analysis. ‘Now, the oldest millennial is 39, and with their numbers exceeding those of baby boomers, the millennial generation is poised to take over influential roles in business and government.’
“Those under age 40 are more diverse than the older cohorts, with almost half identifying as being nonwhite… Past surveys show that the younger generations split from older generations on issues such as immigration reform, criminal justice reform and environmental protection, and the COVID-19 pandemic and recent racial justice protests will probably galvanize the younger groups to promote an array of progressive causes, Frey wrote.” Associated Press, August 5th.
But are the Dems home free? To many, they are a symbol of an out-of-touch assembly of elite liberals with little in common with their constituents who work for a living. The writing is on the wall, however. As extreme as the above gang of four (the “Squad”) of recently elected Democratic congresswomen might appear to some, America has a habit of slowly adopting such perceived extremist positions as mainstream. With almost three quarters of Americans polled supporting a moved to fix the systematic racial injustice before them, even looking at athletes’ “taking a knee” as the new normal, it’s clear that wave of change is finding its way into the anchor ethos of a younger generation. Assuming they turn out to vote.
I’m
Peter Dekom, and 2020 may represent the year of the greatest accumulation of
fundamental American political and economic change since the Great Depression.
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