WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

The backlash to Barack Obama’s presidency, of which Donald Trump’s nativist 2016 campaign was an expression, finalized the realignment of U.S. political parties. … Given that Republicans failed to be drawn into political fellowship by the Obama method when it was being proffered by Obama himself, it is hard to see how Obama’s increasingly erratic vice president or a 37-year-old Harvard/ McKinsey guy will be able to do the trick. The case that policy moderation, “heartland” (i.e., white and noncoastal) roots, and nonconfrontational rhetoric will crush Trump in an electability landslide does not, at this point, have much evidence to support it.

If indeed there is a significant chunk of independent and Republican voters who are ready to support a Democratic unity candidate, they are hiding from the people who conduct polls. And when you ask Republicans and Republican-leaning independents whether Trump should be removed from office and replaced by Mike Pence — which would seemingly be a much easier pill to swallow, if they were really ready to move on so long as the alternative wasn’t a hardcore leftist — they say no. … Republicans like what Trump is doing; why would they vote for Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg? …

Biden and Buttigieg are appealing to voters who either don’t follow the news or have chosen to ignore its lessons, particularly the older ones who had their expectations set during eras in which structural factors made cross-party support more common. Many live in Iowa, New Hampshire and other putatively noncosmopolitan places. … But that doesn’t mean they don’t live in a bubble, too.

Ben Mathis-Lilley, Slate