The fever breaks
Aconvulsion has shaken America and many other Western democracies over the past few years: People became disgusted with established power, trust in many institutions neared rock bottom, populist fury rose from right and left.
On the right, in the United States, this manifested as Donald Trump. To his great credit, Trump re-invented the GOP. He destroyed the corporate husk of Reaganism and set the party on the path to being a multiracial working-class party. To his great discredit, he enshrouded this transition in bigotry, buffoonery and corruption. He ushered in an age of performance politics in which leaders put more emphasis on attention-grabbing postures than on practical change.
The left had a smaller version of performative populism. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became a major political figure thanks to her important contributions to Instagram.
The Green New Deal was not a legislative package but a cotton candy media concoction. Slogans like “Abolish
ICE” and “Defund the police” were not practical policies, just cool catchphrases to put on posters.
Performative populism has begun to ebb. Twitter doesn’t have the hold on the media class it had two years ago. Peak wokeness has passed.
The election of 2022 marked the moment when America began to put performative populism behind us. Though the results are partial, and Trump acolytes could still help Republicans control Congress, this election we saw the emergence of an anti-Trump majority.
According to a national exit poll, nearly 60 percent of voters said they had an unfavorable view of Trump. Almost half of the voters who said they “somewhat disapprove” of Biden as president still voted for Democrats. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll in September, 58 percent of respondents said that the MAGA movement was threatening America’s democratic foundations.
The single most important result of this election was the triumph of normal. Establishmentarian, practical leaders who are not always screaming angrily at you did phenomenally well on right and left: Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin had the quotation that summarized the election: “Boring wins.”
Americans are still deeply unhappy with the state of the country, but their theory of change seems to have begun to shift. Less histrionic media soap opera. Less existential politics of menace. Let’s find people who can get stuff done.
The telling election results were at the secretary of state level. The America First Secretary of State Coalition features candidates who rejected the 2020 election results and who would have been a threat to election integrity if they had won Tuesday. Most either lost or seem on their way to losing. Meanwhile, Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state of Georgia who stood up to Trump’s bullying, won by a wide margin.
Because Democrats restrained their more extreme tendencies while Republicans didn’t, they held their own among independents in a year that could have been a GOP romp. On abortion and many other issues, the median voter rule still applies. If you can get toward the spot where moderate voters reside, you will win elections.
I am not saying the fever has broken within the minds of those in the MAGA movement. I am not saying MAGA Republicans won’t unleash a lot of looniness in the next Congress. I am saying voters have built a wall around that movement to make sure it no longer wins the power it once enjoyed. I am saying voters have given Republicans clear marching orders—to do what Democrats did and beat back the populist excesses on their own side.
There are two large truths I’ll leave you with. The first is that both parties are fundamentally weak. The Democrats are weak because they have become the party of the educated elite. The Republicans are weak because of Trump. The Republican weakness is easier to expunge. If Republicans get rid of Trump, they could become the dominant party in America. If they don’t, they will decline.
Second, the battle to preserve the liberal world order is fully underway.