Divorcing Donald (Part II)

Republican subservience to Donald Trump has flowed from the perception that he put together a new, more powerful coalition of voters distinct from the traditional Republican coalition that was loyal only to him.

In a line of thinking that explains Trump’s stranglehold on the GOP, Trump must be supported at whatever cost, even now, and however disgracefully he behaves, because Republicans can’t afford to alienate “Trump voters.” A recent AP story even noted that fear of angering Trump’s “large and loyal base” was freezing in place the field of possible 2024 Republican candidates, with none willing to even hint at running until Trump says he isn’t.

The problem with all this is that there isn’t much of a “Trump base” for Trump to command and never has been. Because there have never been many “Trump voters” who were substantially different from typical Republican voters.

Claims that we are experiencing an electoral “realignment” wherein the GOP has become a “multiracial” and “working class” party because of Trump are false and threaten the Republican Party’s future by allowing him to continue to hold it hostage.

Although it hardly constitutes a scientifically significant sample, I have yet to meet a single person who voted for Trump that wouldn’t have also voted for a more traditional Republican nominee. I have, however, met quite a few who would have voted for a traditional Republican nominee but who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Trump.

The hunch is that within that distinction is found an explanation for why Americans just elected a fellow we used to call Barack Obama’s “impeachment insurance.”

In a useful crunching of data from exit polls that defies the conventional wisdom, the Manhattan Institute’s Chris Pope found that Trump’s supporters hardly differed this year from Mitt Romney’s supporters back in 2012. In his words, “Far from transforming the social class alignments of American politics, the 54% share of Americans with household incomes exceeding $100,000 that supported Trump in 2020 was the same as that which supported Romney in 2012. The proportion of Americans with incomes below $50,000 who supported Trump (42%) was only slightly greater than that which supported Romney (38%), while the share of the electorate in that lower-income group fell from 41% to 35%. Trump’s 49% share of voters without a college education was only a touch more than the 47% that supported Romney.”

Pope notes that even the conventional wisdom on race and gender is mistaken, or at least overstated: “Trump’s 57% level of support among white voters in 2020 was lower than the 59% share Romney received. With Obama and his legacy off the ballot, the GOP share of black voters surged from 6% in 2012 to 12% in 2020, while that among Hispanics ticked up from 27% to 32%. Due to the fact that white voters make up a larger share of the electorate, the net impact of these shifts roughly canceled out. Nor has Trump done much to inflate the gender gap.

In fact, the difference between Trump’s 2020 share of male and female voters (49% to 43%) was smaller than that for Romney in 2012 (52% to 44%).”

In considering such data, it becomes apparent that the vaunted Trump coalition featured little more than slight gains among minority and working-class voters offset by losses among suburbanites typically crucial to GOP success.

It is also worth remembering that Romney won a larger percentage of the popular vote when running against Barack Obama than Trump did running against two vastly weaker and uninspiring opponents. To the extent that a Trump coalition exists, it is slightly smaller, only slightly broader and less deep than the George W. Bush and Romney versions.

Republicans didn’t lose the presidency because of massive voter fraud in the inner cities, as Trump would have us believe; they lost it in the suburbs. And they lost ground in the suburbs for one and only one reason: disgust over the behavior and personality of their nominee.

To expect voters from the Atlanta or Phoenix suburbs to come back while the GOP continues to be the party of Trump defies logic.

The election returns otherwise left the Republican Party in a fairly strong position, with a commanding edge at the state level and excellent prospects for taking the House in 2022. It has a much deeper and more appealing bench than the geriatric Democrats, to the point where it is difficult to imagine how a 2024 ticket that consisted of some mix of Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Ben Sasse, Marco Rubio or Arkansas’ own Tom Cotton wouldn’t be strongly favored over a Democratic one with Joe Biden or Kamala Harris at the top.

But all of that depends upon sending Trump into retirement sooner rather than later, whether he wishes to go or not.

In an electoral manifestation of Stockholm Syndrome, too many Republicans who should know better have become too accustomed to being held captive by Trump.

And that captivity will continue for as long as they believe he commands legions of brainless zombies disguised as new Republican voters.

Either call his bluff now, when the opportunity presents itself, or be tied to him for more crazy years to come.