Trump’s Iowa Defeat Provides an Opportunity for a GOP Middle-Class Message

 

TrumpBoth Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio beat Iowa caucus expectations — set by polls and betting markets — while Donald Trump underperformed. Let’s focus on Trump for a moment. Caucus entrance polls described his core support last night as “caucusgoers who didn’t attend college, were more moderate and, first and foremost, listed immigration as their top issue,” according to the Wall Street Journal. So, the secular working class.

Now none of the other candidates are going to out-extreme Trump on immigration policy. Moreover, his sharp rhetoric and willingness to tolerate heat for being “politically incorrect” signals to supporters his seriousness on the issue. Mr. Trump won’t be pushed around! There is also evidence Trump has talked for some time about the need for a wall on the southern US border, again suggesting his views are more than just ones of convenience.

Yet given Trump’s self-promoted image and branding as a “winner,” his Iowa loss would seem to provide a window of opportunity for rivals to grab his voters. Bad news is poisonous for momentum stocks. Of course if Trump wins NH and wins it big, perhaps that moment is gone and his momentum returns. He regains his balance and resets. It’s like that moment in “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” when the frozen T-1000 is frozen by liquid nitrogen and shatters. But then the various bits and pieces begin to melt and flow back into each other, slowly reforming the shapeshifting android. Time is of the essence, Cruz and Rubio.

Taking advantage requires a policy-infused message delivered — with both consistency and genuine empathy — to working class voters (and the broader middle for that matter) and that addresses their struggles and anxieties, both for their own lives and those of their kids. Among these ideas: a) tax relief by cutting payrolls taxes and/or expanding various tax credits; b) education reform that boosts high-ed access and value while providing non-college pathways to good careers, c) detailed Obamacare replacement/reform; and d) Social Security modernization that boosts benefits for low-income Americans. And when candidates talk about the miracle of capitalism, better differentiate between competitive capitalism and the cronyist type — and what that means in practice.

But they better hurry. The shafting T(rump)-1000 may be reforming even now.

Published in Economics
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 10 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    I don’t know how you are going to make your technocractic solutions, no matter how well intended, appealing to people suspicious of technocratic solutions.

    • #1
  2. Drusus Inactive
    Drusus
    @Drusus

    Guruforhire:I don’t know how you are going to make your technocractic solutions, no matter how well intended, appealing to people suspicious of technocratic solutions.

    Since when are legitimate policy proposals “technocratic?”

    • #2
  3. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    Drusus:

    Guruforhire:I don’t know how you are going to make your technocractic solutions, no matter how well intended, appealing to people suspicious of technocratic solutions.

    Since when are legitimate policy proposals “technocratic?”

    I am unsure of what you are trying to ask, can you rephrase?

    • #3
  4. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    Iowa Republican Caucus Results

    1980 – George Bush 33,530 Ronald Reagan 31,348 (2nd Place)

    1988 – Bob Dole 40,661, George Bush 20,194 (3rd Place)

    2000 – George Bush 35,231

    2008 – Mike Huckabee 40,954,  Mitt Romney 30,021 (2nd Place)

    2012 – Rick Santorum 29,839, Mitt Romney 29,805 (2nd Place)

    2016 – Ted Cruz 51,666, Donald Trump 45,427 (2nd Place)

    For the record the only person to garner more votes in the Iowa Republican Caucus than Donald Trump is Ted Cruz last night.

    Neither Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush won the Iowa Caucus and went on to 12 years in the presidency. Mitt Romney never won the Iowa Caucus and was nominated twice once.

    According to the title of the piece Donald Trump was ‘defeated’. Gotta love what passes for analysis at AEI. Thankfully Ronald Reagan and George Bush were not ‘defeated’ at the Iowa Caucus.

    • #4
  5. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    BrentB67: Mitt Romney never won the Iowa Caucus and was nominated twice.

    I think Mitt was nominated only once.

    • #5
  6. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    MarciN:

    BrentB67: Mitt Romney never won the Iowa Caucus and was nominated twice.

    I think Mitt was nominated only once.

    You are correct. I must’ve had Reagan on the brain.

    • #6
  7. dbeck Inactive
    dbeck
    @dbeck

    Trump has some rabbits in his hat. He ain’t done just yet. May take a wooden stake to finish him off.

    • #7
  8. Fricosis Guy Listener
    Fricosis Guy
    @FricosisGuy

    None of these prescriptions address low, middle, or high wage immigration.

    • #8
  9. Peter Murphy Inactive
    Peter Murphy
    @PeterMurphy

    Comment one of two: Trump supporters are Democrats (a lot of them without college degrees) looking for a way out of the ultra-liberal Democratic Party that despises them while assuming their votes. It makes political sense for Republicans to craft approaches that allow this sizable voting bloc to switch parties. But how to do this is difficult. The Trump voter wants two things: cut immigration to protect jobs and preserve entitlements for those not working. Underlying this is stagnant middle-class incomes and declining job opportunities. Capping immigration in a stagnant economy is common sense. So is reasserting sovereignty and stopping the flow of illegals into the country. But that will not solve the long-term decline of the lower middle class. Legal and illegal migration primarily affects the top and the bottom end of the labor market, not the middle. And the middle is suffering. Manufacturing jobs have disappeared; white collar and pink collar jobs are being automated. Policy can’t fix the problem but vision can. A mix of optimism and imagination can turn angry economic nationalism into its opposite and can make those without a college education as much a part of the conservative movement as anyone else.

    • #9
  10. Peter Murphy Inactive
    Peter Murphy
    @PeterMurphy

    Comment two of two. It’s a good thing to remove the tax on jobs (payroll tax). Higher education, however, is no longer a guaranteed path to a good job. In 1970 one percent of taxi drivers had a degree; today it is 15 percent. Yes to health insurance reform that allows Medicaid recipients to buy private insurance and people to enroll in HSAs to insure against major events (the proper point of insurance) rather than everyday spending (an absurd thing to be forced to insure against). Yes, Obamacare penalizes the middle class with higher insurance costs. But no plan I’ve seen looks at the supply side of health costs. How about we also look at cutting insurer, hospital and practice costs, and the leviathan of health bureaucracies? As for Social Security, defined contribution plans (401K) are key to retirement income in a dynamic economy. But that assumes dynamism. So much rests on high-growth. With it come good jobs for school leavers (instead of mediocre jobs for college graduates) and good investment returns in retirement accounts. But that obliges candidates to talk about the future of the non-college-attending middle class. What are going to be the jobs of the twenty-first century for those who don’t go to college? James Burnham a long time ago rightly complained about the liberals’ ‘faith in knowledge’. Let’s not assume that a high growth economy is a knowledge economy. Let’s think about how else it is defined.

    • #10
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.