SEPTEMBER 1, 2020
The last four years have been deeply traumatizing
to millions of Americans as we have watched our nation in the stranglehold of a
maniacal, dictatorial, and compulsively deceptive president. But it is worth
examining the relationship that President Donald Trump has with his voters in
order to understand why he won the 2016 election and why he continues to
command such fervent loyalty a few months ahead of the next election. Willing
to overlook his lies, improprieties, and corruption, Trump’s voters have a transactional
relationship with the president that is practical, powerful, and surprisingly
instructional to the rest of us.
While a majority of Americans might be stunned and
horrified by Trump’s casual racism, unscientific claims, sexist attacks, and
more, his rambling rhetoric matters little to his base, and perhaps Trump
voters don’t even bother trying to make sense of his words. To them, it matters
what he does and how loyal he is to them. Trump’s reelection campaign website
is literally called “Promises Kept.” Although several of his claims of promises are
not true, the point is that he touts decisive action and convinces his
supporters that he has fulfilled his pledges to them. He works for them and
they know it. They are willing to overlook the ugliness that accompanies his
rule. It is a practical and effective approach to transforming America into the
country they want.
Trump’s presidency has meant very clear-cut things
to specific (but overlapping) communities, movements, and demographics. He
offers his anti-abortion supporters a radical transformation
of the judiciary from
lifetime federal judgeships to Supreme Court seats. To his anti-immigrant base,
he has shown he is willing to go to any lengths to keep out migrants and
refugees, going as far as separating children
from parents and
even deporting them into
the hands of their abusers. To racist
suburban white people, he is making good on a promise to keep Black and Brown people
out of their neighborhoods. To law
enforcement, their families, and supporters, he has promised to uphold police autonomy and
immunity from prosecution. And on and
on.
Examined through the lens of such far-reaching
promises that Trump has either kept his word on or aggressively pursued, it is
no wonder that enough Americans are supporting him so as to make the
election competitive. Trump has shown his base that he is willing to go
as far as it takes to please them, including violating norms, pushing the
boundaries of laws, and even breaking them. Such fealty is rare in a
politician, let alone in a president.
Trump offers his base clear-cut policies while the campaign hopes that voters look past his character flaws. In contrast, 2020
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden offers his voters few specific
policies or sweeping changes, and his campaign hopes the Democratic Party base
focuses mostly on his character, personality, and words and connects with him
on a personal level. The Washington Post summarized that the Democratic National
Convention (DNC)’s “big message,” is that, “Biden is a good guy”—not that Biden
made specific bold promises to the party’s base to fundamentally transform
America.
During his DNC speech, Biden’s words offered
a salve for the nation’s
frayed nerves. He repeatedly touted his presidency as offering light over
darkness and representing unity over division. He promised us that, “Character
is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot.” And while he made some specific
promises such as strengthening the Affordable Care Act, improving public
education, and so on, there were very few bold and transformational plans.
In past years, we have been told that there are
only so many things that a president can do to carry out real change. Even if
politicians run on big, bold platforms—think of Barack Obama’s first
presidential campaign—once in
office, they tone down their rhetoric and pull back on their sweeping promises.
As president, Obama curbed his own ambition and was eventually met with
Republican intransigence in Congress. Aside from a handful of legislative
victories and executive orders, he fit his ambitions into bite-sized pieces.
Then along came Trump, showing Americans who were disillusioned by this view of
political leadership that it was possible to get very close to all the things
they wanted if they had a president willing to fight tooth and nail for them.
Even if Congress has not capitulated to many of
Trump’s wildest demands, he has often found ways to achieve success. For
example, on the issue of immigration, Trump backed a bill in the early part of his presidency to
dramatically cut family-based migration and some employment visas. Although it
went nowhere in Congress, when the coronavirus pandemic hit this year, the
Trump administration saw an opportunity and pushed through many
aspects of that bill via executive order. Even if the restrictions are temporary, it is an achievement he can
tout to his anti-immigrant base.
Similarly, on the judiciary, many who back Trump do
so because the stakes are so high they are willing to overlook everything else.
Former Bush-era lawyer John Yoo was quoted as saying that he knew
Republicans, “who would normally be utterly turned off by a guy like Trump,”
and yet they backed him “because of [the] appointment to Justice [Antonin]
Scalia’s vacancy.” Their loyalty to Trump was rewarded with the appointment of
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, a man who one right-wing newspaper said has, “exceeded…
conservatives’ expectations.”
This strongly transactional relationship between
Trump and his voters work both ways. The president’s base does not care that
his motivations are based in self-dealing and that he will do what it takes to
preserve political and personal power, or that he is busy enriching himself and
his friends in the process. They don’t care if he lies, vilifies the media, and
attacks women and people of color on Twitter. Those are details that matter
little in their day-to-day lives. All that matters is that Trump has made
promises in line with their desires and will go to any lengths to fulfill them.
Trump’s racism, sexism, deception, and corruption are part of his charm to some
segments of his base. To the rest who continue to stick by him, they are simply
not deal breakers. They may weigh the good against the bad and decide it is
worth it to have a president whose persona and rhetoric are embarrassing but
who delivers the goods. A new poll found that “90 percent of Republicans approve
of the job he’s doing and 91 percent say they would choose him over Biden.”
Meanwhile, what does the Democratic Party say to
its supporters? Postpone your demands for Medicare for All, for defunding the police,
and for a Green New Deal until after this election. But left-leaning voters are given such lectures every four years as if their hopes for sweeping policy changes are a mirage of water on a hot
and dusty road. The farther the thirsty masses walk toward the water, the
farther away it moves, and so it remains persistently out of reach. It’s no wonder
Biden struggles with an “enthusiasm gap.”
Among Latinos, a group that has been vilified by
Trump repeatedly since his last campaign, one might expect strong support for
Biden. But one commentator pointed out that simply claiming support for the
reinstatement of the popular DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals) is not enough. Writing in the New York Times, immigrant justice activist Cristina Jiménez
Moreta explained that “Access to affordable health care was a top issue for
Latinx voters who sided with Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. Mr.
Biden has refused to endorse Medicare for All—a popular solution to our
nation’s health care catastrophe that would serve all people.”
During the Republican National Convention, Trump
and his allies repeatedly cast Biden and the Democrats as “socialist,” in spite of the fact that the party
establishment has rejected popular government-led economic, environmental, and
social plans. No matter what Biden does or says to prove that he eschews
socialism, Trump’s campaign will paint him as a radical socialist, and it will
continue to make a compact with Trump’s base to fulfill specific promises.
It is possible and perhaps likely that Biden will
win based on many new polls that paint a favorable outcome for the Democrat.
And indeed, for the future of the nation and especially women, immigrants, and
people of color, it is imperative that Biden beats Trump. But if he does cinch
the presidency, it will be in spite of his choice to offer character over
concrete policies, not because of it.
Sonali Kolhatkar is
a columnist for Truthdig. She also is the founder, host and executive producer
of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free
Speech TV (Dish Network, DirecTV, Roku) and Pacifica stations KPFK, KPFA, and
affiliates.
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