In what has been termed a “tumultuous” opening to his Presidency by the media, I thought I could offer some of my own thoughts on the era of Trump so far. He came to Washington as an outsider who planned to set fire to the place. And in making an aggressive inauguration address, and the other opening acts of defiance, he has stuck to that promise. What I find particularly interesting is that the “opposition” seemingly has learned nothing from its defeat in November. To quote someone I know, they are doubling down on a bad strategy – whereas economic populism is what got Trump to power, the folks who could be the resistance are instead focused on identity politics. And, really, they should know better already.
During the campaign, where Trump went wholeheartedly after white working class voters by focusing on their economic pain, the Clinton side decided that the right response was to label Trump as a racist and misogynist, and better yet to categorize his supporters as deplorables. He still won. In the aftermath, between attempts at trying to overturn and invalidate his win, the strategy still seems to be a focus on some unsubstantiated claims about Russia hacking the election (again, a carryover) and continuing to dwell on identity politics (witness this past weekend’s march). None of that will change the score in terms of who supports him and who doesn’t.
The basic point is that it didn’t work during the election and it won’t work now. Unless the resistance can speak to the specific issues that helped Trump to win, they will make no progress over the next four years in arguing the case to vote him out.
Look, we can all agree that he is a jerk. But he is a smart jerk who understands what the pressure points are for a large swath of voters. Sadly, the folks who marched over the weekend are missing exactly that.
