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Who’s Trump Bringing to the Party?
The good news: If Trump can turn white, non-college-educated, non-voters into voters, he could easily win the presidency, and show the GOP a formula for winning presidential elections for a decade or two. There’s about 47 million people who fit this description, and they’re overrepresented in many swing states. The bad news: Trump doesn’t seem to be doing that. Voter registration is increasing everywhere, but not where these people make a larger-than-average portion of the population.
So what’s going on? It could be that Trump is motivating slightly more new voters against him than for him. Or, perhaps more likely, it could be that white working class voters are out there to be activated, but Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee have waited until too late to build the analytics and ground infrastructure necessary to identify and register them. That’s where Clinton and the Democrats have excelled. The absence of a discernible pro-Trump registration spike in key states doesn’t make it impossible that there will be a white, blue-collar “Trump surge” on Election Day. But it means he’d need to build that surge of voters out of the smaller pool of 14.7 million white nonvoters who are already registered, rather than realizing his full potential with the much larger pool of 47.1 million “missing” working-class whites.
Of course, if Trump had a campaign organization that was out registering folks, maybe this would be different. Another lesson for 2020.
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I was literally just about to post on this article. Glad I checked the member feed first.
Thanks for posting that. It’s a good data point going forward. We know how the polls haven’t done very well in recent years and there have many surprises (to the pollsters at least) on election day both here and overseas.
The aspect of this election that has me suspicious of the polls is this “new voter” aspect that Trump could end up pulling into the process that might be hard for pollsters to detect. The voter registration aspect didn’t occur to me so this is timely.
Nice catch.
Great post and great catch. This is what I am talking about when I say that Trump is an incompetent politician. How do you not go to the places where your base lives and make sure that as many of them are registered as possible to make sure they go out and actually vote? It is mind boggling!
We’ll see how this plays out soon enough, but if Trump does end up losing one of the “What if…” scenarios might be “What if Donald Trump had run with a serious campaign apparatus behind him?”
There’s only one person you need to bring to the party:
At the risk of picking a fight, it’s worse than that. A bad politician may not be conscious of this important aspect of a campaign organization, but there’s no doubt that he’s been reminded of it repeatedly over the last few months. This is one of many indicators suggesting that Trump doesn’t recognize good advice when presented with it.
Nobody is knowledgeable enough to be President. Almost everybody is smart enough to be President. The success or failure of a Presidency is largely determined by wisdom. I’ve tried to reserve judgement as long as possible, but have recently settled on the conclusion that Trump is not wise enough to be trusted with the office.
Ha! trump fights! He has a winning temperament! He has the best words! You underestimate his obvious attachment to the working class….
Wow, what a condemnation of our nation’s public school system, that so many people are graduating from high school without any sense of civic engagement.
These people who are not even registered to vote are not active in their local government either. But they will serve on juries if they have a license to drive a car.
A friend of mine was the superintendent of our local school district, and his main ambition in life was to bring back civics.
It needs to be taught before the legal high school dropout age in a community.
Our Constitution is a gift the founding fathers left for us so we could take care of ourselves.
@chuckenfield One of the problems with being President is the enormous amount of information that comes your way in very murky circumstances. Even domestically you don’t know how things will play out before you go into them. Take Bush Is biggest mistake, raising taxes. You could have made a very plausible case that making that deal with the Democrats was the smartest and best thing that could be done at that time. To not do the deal would have been impractical. Since Bush I was a pragmatist and a practical man he did the deal.
However if Bush I would have had the ideological chops to realize what was important to the American people he would have stood firms on taxes and took the Democrats on that issue.
The same with Reagan at Reykjavik. No one really supported Reagan’s determined efforts to hold on to SDI in face of Gorby’s amazing offers but Reagan, guided by good ideology, knew that SDI was vital and held on to it despite all opposition and won the Cold War.
Trump is Bush I with less experience and rather more incompetent. His decisions on balance will be terrible and his good decisions will be more about luck than wisdom.
@brianwolf, I don’t think we can entirely separate wisdom from core principles. If you’re wise you’re going to have a solid ideology and modest number of rediculous beliefs. That said, somebody with very different beliefs from me can still be wise enough to avoid catastrophic failures. Trump’s beliefs are closer to mine than are Clinton’s, but his demeanor and ego, combined with his extreme reluctance to accept advice concerns me. Yes, a Clinton presidency will result in many undesirable outcomes, but nothing catastrophic or irreversible.
Regardless who wins the election, we ideological conservatives have a long up hill climb ahead of us.
Agreed! On all points no less :) Rare enough these days on Ricochet.
If you want to know how bad this really is, I gave a “general US knowledge” quiz in my survey history classes a few weeks ago–so these are college students–and more than half thought their inalienable rights are given to them by government.
I don’t want more people to vote. I want more people to be educated enough to vote on some rational basis.
@chuckenfield is totally right about wisdom. We don’t just need this in leaders. We also need this in voters.
@brianwolf, I agree with the statement you just made; however, Hillary’s decisions on balance will be worse and will do more lasting harm, since her ideology is bad and her experience will allow her to make sure her decisions are carried out and are protected from being easily dismantled by her successor. Trump is less likely to be able to accomplish anything because of his inexperience with the process. It isn’t that he can’t still do harm it is just less likely to be as durable as what she can and will likely do.
I wish I could like this more than once. If your primary source of news if Facebook and late night talk shows, it’s really important that you not register to vote and just let the rest of us try and figure this out.
I can’t spell the word I’m thinking–the sound one makes when one spills her coffee while trying to take a sip.
Seriously!?!
That is one of the most frightening things I’ve ever read.
But it’s not surprising at all.
The schools have thrown God out of the building completely and totally. If you can never even say the word “God,” of course this is where you end up.
We are in deep trouble.
Isn’t that half the curriculum anymore? It’s all anti-bullying, environmental protection, and making sure that you lie to the authorities if they ask if you have a pocket knife. Civic engagement comes with a sense of responsibility beyond yourself, not by being told our duty as good citizens.
Right?
This was only a general knowledge quiz per a hodgepodge of basic things I think every American should know about early US history that I present at the beginning of each semester before getting into core material because one needs a foundation of some sort on which to build.
This is stuff like naming the first successful English colony in North America, identifying the nation states involved in the American Revolution, knowing who was president during the Civil War…. VERY basic stuff.
I also make them look at the Declaration of Independence before the quiz, and more than half this term still chose government as bestowing inalienable rights. On a multiple choice test. With “Creator” as an option. Per, you know, the second line in the Declaration of Independence that I told them to read.
I do believe we have an uneducated electorate, which is something I’d like to fix. One thing that superintendent friend could do if he wants students to know more about civics is stop putting football coaches into government and history classes in high schools because the certification exam is the easiest.
Or maybe that’s just in Texas?
(Coaches can be good teachers, but they often aren’t, and they are the majority staff in high school history departments.)
@Raxxalan. I agree that Hillary will do more direct harm than Trump. However the people will not see a Hillary Presidency running in tandem with a Trump Presidency. So in 2020 when Trump has not accomplished anything and has shown himself to be woefully inexperienced who is going to win that Election?
Good point, but I’m not sure we have to think this far ahead. The calculus that ineptitude will prevent Trump from enacting a really destructive legislative agenda is credible, but I have little trouble picturing a Trump that, if stymied by conservative Republicans, would resort to dealing with the Democrats. Furthermore, I can see him doing it for spite rather than to get precisely what he wants. He may work with the Dems to enact policies for the primary purpose of punishing conservatives.
Also, we’re coming up on 8 years of an arrogant President abusing the power of the office to affect policies he should not have been able to affect. President Trump is likely more arrogant and bull-headed than the incumbent. Who knows what he’ll do with executive orders, prosecutorial discretion, and foreign policy.
I think there’s real potential for serious harm from a Trump presidency, but I hold no hostility for people who feel differently. I very much understand were @raxxalan is coming from. I spent the last several months hoping I could come to the same conclusion. Rightly or wrongly, I did not.
The American Republic was doomed once the progressives got control of the commanding heights of the culture and the educational system.
It doesn’t surprise me that a substantial portion of people believe that their rights come from the government. If you can discuss God in a government school, how do you explain natural law? How to education generations of students that our rights are provided to us by God and are inalienable?
The purpose of government is to protect inalienable rights given to us by God not to grant them.
Once we got the point where the Declaration became a “triggering” document, it was all over.
@ChuckEnfield, @BrianWolf I understand both of your positions and respect them. We must agree to disagree at this point I think over tactics. Ultimately we are going to have to defeat both Trump and Democratic party. I think that the Democratic Party is the more formidable of the two opponents we have. Right now they are uniquely vulnerable because of a very bad candidate. Trump will manage to harm the Republican party; however, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Republican party has already managed to become the Whig party of the 21st century. The are not really willing to take up cause of smaller government and more freedom, except to give it lip service. I think we are going to have to build a new party and that will be slightly less daunting with a weak Republican in control than with a strong Democratic Party in control.
Whoah, didn’t realize this was a thing. Now that you mention it, though…
One of my history teachers who coached on the side was excellent. The other… well, he would have been bad even if he wasn’t this creepy satin vest wearing guy also trying to coach girls’ tennis…
Now’s not the time to focus on this, but I suspect it will be the dominant topic of conversation in November.
Obviously some individuals will deviate from the norm, but collectively I think this varies quite a bit by region. Where I grew up HS football wasn’t a major community focus. The ability to coach a sport* was often a consideration in hiring a teacher, but it wasn’t the driving factor. Where I live now, HS football is taken very seriously and school districts hire football coaches primarily as football coaches. If they can teach too, that’s great. If not, no big deal.
* This applied to all sports, not just football. In fact, applicants with collegiate track and field experience, especially in the field events, were best positioned to get teaching jobs. Seems it was harder to find track coaches than football coaches.
Huh. @lois-lane, maybe there’s a post in this…
It does appear to be a missed opportunity, the potential of a serious voter registration effort unrealized.
Still while 14.7 million white nonvoters does not seem much compared to a potential 47.1 million “missing” working-class whites it would still be more than sufficient to secure Trump a victory if those voters are in the right swing states and Trump succeeded in motivating them.
After all Obama’s 2012 victory was attained with about a third that amount, Romney certainly could have used them.
@raxxalan @chuckenfield I deeply respect and appreciate your comment and sentiments on this Raxxalan. We can disagree on this but I just don’t wont to go into this process of either retaking the Republican party or building a new party as a Trump supporter. But other people can reach a different conclusion with no condemnation from me.
If Trump is elected who will win in 2020? I think Trump would be a one termer and the GOP has plenty of young talent. Is there anyone on the Democrat bench that looks like a contender right now? Clinton, Bernie, Biden, Brown, Fauxcahontas will all be in their 70’s. Who is at the next level, deBlasio, Michelle…..
Just off the top of my head there’s:
Julian Castro
Kamala Harris
Cory Booker
Gavin Newsom
Martin Heinrich
Andrew Cuomo
Joe Manchin
Normally I’d tick off the problems with all of them – lack of electoral experience, untrustworthiness, corruption.
But 2016 so good calls.