And Trump has stopped provoking the same.
And Trump has stopped provoking the same.
T here is a highly motivated slice of voters whom you could describe as the “anti-populists.” In previous polls by the New York Times and Siena College, you could see a swath of them in the Republican Party. They identified as strongly anti-MAGA and strongly opposed to Trump. They rated support for arming Ukraine a major priority. These voters have analogues in the Democratic coalition as well. They tend to be high earners and have college degrees. They are secular and don’t think of themselves as hostile to religion, but they are turned off by emotional excess around the topic. In general, they trust the science. Or at least they trust it more than they trust Joe Rogan or “the internet.” They are pro-college, pro-Israel, pro-moderation. They are liberal in outlook but not doggedly libertarian. They are ferociously guarding the post–Cold War consensus about globalization. Money, people, and goods flowing freely over borders? They love it. And they don’t mind the kludges that make the system work as it does.
Anti-populists were almost fully united against Trump in 2020. They hated that the then-president talked about inserting light into human bodies to stop the coronavirus. They hated the tweets. They hated the bragging about who has a bigger nuclear button. They hated the idea that the American president seemed to want to get along with Vladimir Putin. And they hated the trade war, if they were conscious of it at all. Many of them have remained implacably hostile to the Republican Party and resent it for appointing justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. Not that they are “shout your abortion” types, either. The just preferred a settlement in which abortion was available, and you didn’t think about it unless circumstances forced you to do so.
What they hate is a president who embarrasses them. And most of all, they hate the idea of putting “the crazies” in charge. This was an important coalition of voters for Joe Biden in 2020. He successfully campaigned to them by promising to put the adults back in charge and to restore America’s global reputation.
One reason Joe Biden is polling so poorly in a matchup against Donald Trump is that he is now splitting and demoralizing this coalition while Donald Trump is, tentatively, mollifying it. Persistent inflation and the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan took a chunk out of Biden’s case that he was competent to lead. But in recent months, he has compounded his problems. Most fatally, Biden seems to be caving to student protesters on his Israel policy. Al Sharpton correctly pointed out on MSNBC that the student occupations supporting Hamas reassociated the Left and Democrats with political amateurism, extremism, and disorder in a way that could cancel out the disorder under Trump on January 6 of 2021.
On Ukraine, the Biden administration was able to get its desired aid package passed through Congress, but it constantly communicates to the public a set of lowered expectations. “Biden isn’t fully convinced Ukraine can win, even with new aid.” This is a dreary comedown from a time at the beginning of the war when avid Ukraine watchers and anti-populists would have caught how often administration officials burbled excitedly about how the war would end with the fall of Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Notably, Donald Trump has refused to side with enthusiastic congressional allies such as Marjorie Taylor Greene in the House and J. D. Vance in the Senate and outright oppose aid to Ukraine. Instead he has suggested that the conflict never would have occurred under his watch and would wrap up swiftly upon his return. He has even suggested speeding up the delivery of even deadlier weapons. Although it may rely on magical thinking, Trump’s rhetoric beats Biden’s because it still envisions success.
Then there is immigration. Trump united anti-populists against him in 2016 and 2020 by using rhetoric on immigration that they found distasteful or outright racist. Trump has largely stopped attacking the character of immigrants themselves. But Biden’s approach of granting temporary or bogus asylum status to millions of people who get waved in, leading to a budget crisis in New York City and tent cities springing up throughout California, is a more appalling kind of amateurism that makes Trump’s executive orders on the border appealing by comparison. Biden has managed to make Trump look like the moderate and sensible person on immigration — a stunning transformation reflecting a large shift of the Overton window since 2015.
Even on trade, Biden has expanded on Trump’s hostility to China with the CHIPS Act. While anti-populists are allergic to industrial policy, it’s true that a Trump administration would likely throw a dose of deregulation into the trade-war mix. Instead of requiring makers of advanced microchips to build out appropriately they/them-gender-accommodating day-care centers to get their subsidies, a Trump admin would be happy just to see them hiring American workers to build microchips.
Trump is considering other middle-of-the-road, “normie” Republicans for his running mate, men like Doug Burgum. And he is even burying the hatchet with Nikki Haley.
The anti-populist coalition includes not just a lot of high-propensity voters, but also serious donors and business leaders. The same university donors who have criticized the radicalism of the young Left and its influence over the administration may take a second look at Trump. Or they may just sit this election out altogether. The fracturing of this coalition can bring nothing but bad news for Joe Biden. There aren’t enough Hamaskids with dischargeable student debt to make up for those successful normies in the suburbs and office towers.