The New York Times
11/08/2020 20:21
Clarín.com
World
Updated 11/08/2020 8:21 PM
In the days after the 2012 election, the last Republican presidential defeat, all the conventional wisdom of American politics converged on one simple idea: The
Republican Party
was doomed unless it became,
in effect, a moderate party. tied to business, rigid social conservatives, and courting Hispanic voters with promises of more liberal immigration laws.
Against this consensus, some observers voiced points of disagreement: first, many white working-class voters leaning Republicans had stayed home in the middle of Mitt Romney's 2012 business campaign, and second , the Hispanic vote was not a unique problem, linked monolithically to immigration.
So it
was just as easy to imagine Republicans surviving in a changing country
simply by becoming more populist on economic issues as it was to imagine them moving in the more libertarian direction favored by party donors and consultants.
After two national elections with Donald Trump, those dissidents can claim a lot of vindication.
For the second consecutive presidential cycle, despite the pandemic, the economic crisis and his own immense failures,
Trump was a competitive candidate
with a coalition that was more working-class and not white than the Republican vote in 2012. Relative to four years ago, Trump was more supported by whites without college degrees in many states and increased his support from African-Americans and Hispanic-majority areas, not just in Cuban parts of Florida, but also in regions as different as South Texas and Lawrence. , Massachusetts.
Supporters of President Donald Trump greet him as he passes through Washington.
Photo EFE
In those trends,
you can see the foundation of a possible post-Trump conservative majority
that is multi-ethnic, middle-class and populist, an expansive coalition rather than an aging majority white group.
And the competitiveness of Trump's current coalition, the fact that it was not forcefully defeated as polls had predicted, and that his party passed the election better than expected, makes it less likely that his potential successors will try to rewind the situation. supporter until as it was in 2012.
But if Trump's coalition was competitive, Trump himself was defeated, no less than Romney in 2012. So the question for Republicans lining up to be Trumpists after Trump
is whether they really have a plan
for (with apologies to President-elect Joe Biden) to make his right-wing party the majority it could become rather than the strong minority it is.
The optimist's view is that the way to do this is clear: Trump was at his most unpopular when he behaved grotesquely and ceded policy making to the old Republican guard, so his potential successors must abide by some of the political promises Trump left behind.
A 2.0 populism that doesn't alienate so many people with its rhetoric
, that promises more support for families and national industry, that embraces universal health care and attacks monopolies and keeps low-skilled immigration low, all while facing off against China, avoid the entanglements of the Middle East and fight tooth and nail against elite progressivism: there is its new Republican majority.
Now that we know the race was genuinely close in several of the key states, their stolen election narrative may be powerful enough to push conservatism into feverish swamps and away from constructive populism, Trumpism that can win.
So
Trump will emerge from the presidency with a complicated and uncertain legacy
, as the man who led the way to a possible populist majority and (for the next four years, at least) one of the biggest potential roadblocks for Republicans who want to pursue that. track.
Ross Douthat. The New York Times
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