Leftists for Trump
How are leftists working to re-elect Trump? There are almost too many ways to count:
1. Trump was reeling after his candidates did horrible in the 2022 midterms, and people like Ron DeSantis were soaring in the polls. Then leftists saved him by making him seem like a victim, and he began rising in the polls. Even better, they insured that the only case likely to be decided before the election is the one bogus case:
Trump faces more serious charges elsewhere, over his alleged attempts to interrupt the peaceful transition of power and retention of classified documents in the bathroom of his Mar-a-Lago mansion.
But it is the “hush money” case — revolving around allegations of a sordid, backroom deal made in the days before the 2016 election to prevent the revelation of an extramarital affair — that looks increasingly likely to be the only one to be heard by a jury of Trump’s peers ahead of November’s election.
2. Woke leftists have greatly helped Trump by promoting a completely over-the-top version of identity politics, combined with Chinese Cultural Revolution style cancel culture. Even moderate liberals are disgusted.
3. On economics, the left wing of the Democratic party has moved away from the pragmatic centrism of Clinton (and to a lesser extent Obama) and re-embraced the once discredited big government policies of the 20th century.
4. The left blames Biden for being too pro-Israel, even as Trump is far more pro-Israel. Ditto for Biden’s supposedly pro-fossil fuel policies. Trump also says and does lots of things conservatives don’t like, but that doesn’t cause conservatives to attack Trump, rather it energizes them to attack the left even more vigorously. One thing America’s right and left have in common is contempt for Biden. I also don’t like Biden, but ever heard of the concept of “the lesser of two evils”?
5. “Progressive” city officials enact weak on crime polices, as well as education policies that discourage excellence. This taints the Democratic brand.
I understand that Republicans are working hard to re-elect Trump, but none of that matters. It will be woke leftists that put Trump over the top, by delivering swing voters. I hope Trump remembers to thank them in his victory speech on election day.
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12. April 2024 at 12:21
Trumpism is abating. I live in a little geographical bubble of conservative insanity in an otherwise moderate swing state metro. Not a single Trump sign around. Fewer blue line flags. The guy with the “Democrats are evil” sign doesn’t even have it up anymore. I can’t put my finger on why it is because I don’t understand the MAGA mindset, but I sense that they’re losing interest in Trump. If I had to guess it’s because he’s finally destroyed the Republican Party, and now that MAGA has taken over, they don’t have anyone else to push out. The key here is MAGA doesn’t actually mind Democrats constantly winning elections-as they’ve done ever since Trump won in 2016-they just want the modcons out of the party. In retrospect, Trumpism may really just have been a Republican civil war. As long as there isn’t a recession, I think Biden wins easily. If Democrats were smart, they’d be working on scrapping the electoral college; why this hasn’t been a major effort of theirs since 2000 blows my mind. It turns out the candidate that gets the most votes is usually the best one for the job. Also, can you really trust democracy to a candidate that didn’t win the popular vote? Obviously they’d have less interest in adhering to democratic norms and laws.
12. April 2024 at 13:53
It’s over-the-top to blame “leftists” for the prospect that the only Trump criminal trial that may occur before the election is the NY state trial. Is it leftists dominating the Supreme Court, delaying the final ruling on the appeal of the prima facie absurd immunity claim Trump made? Is Judge Cannon in the classified documents trial a leftist?
Then, there’s the international scope again. While Trump is a singular figure in American politics, ethno-religious nationalism is certainly not unique to American politics right now. This is much broader than anything that could be mostly caused by American liberal extremists.
Moreover, are you putting no stock in the recent Biden surge in betting markets and some polls? There’s a long way to go, but lately things are trending in a positive direction. And there are poltical analysts such as Rachel Bitecofer and Simon Rosenberg, who have long argued that Trump and the Republicans will lose by what are by today’s standards, a wide margin. David Frum concurs. The recent trend, now that the general election has begun, is very much in-line with their predictions.
Obviously I’ve long argued I didn’t think Trump could win again, because I didn’t see how he’d get the votes he lost in 2020. As it turns out, some non-college educated minorities may be moving toward Trump, but the college educated moderate conservatives in the suburbs have started voting Democratic. There are many other cross-currents.
Then, there’s the JFK Jr. factor, to the degree it matters, and what I see as a possible coordinated effort by Russia, Iran, and China to help cost Biden this election, but spiking the price of oil and creating a general sense of chaos overseas, and even in our political dialogue.
This is complicated, and anyone who has a strong opinion on the outcome of this election is likely wrong. We’re very much in uncharted waters in many respects.
12. April 2024 at 15:45
When the left valorizes Hamas and panders to the Ku Keffiyeh Klan…
12. April 2024 at 15:46
The Biden administration is what you get when you purge the Obama staff of centrists and truth conscious liberals. The Trump 1 administration is what you got when the boss was a Narcissist. Trump 2 will be staffed by boot lickers. Plug your nose and choose wisely. And consider a constitutional amendment where we randomly choose a person from the census to be president lol.
12. April 2024 at 16:44
On #5, where is this magical city that passed weak on crime policies. Pretty sure speeding ticket revenue didn’t budge anywhere, jails were still overcrowded, and cops were still committed crimes daily while harassing people. Don’t confuse “targeted other crimes than my pet ones” with weak on crime policies.
I see another Peter stealing my handle on here lol.
12. April 2024 at 18:01
Scott,
You’re forgetting two things.
1. Immigration
2. The fact that the leftists got him elected the first time around in 2016
12. April 2024 at 22:47
Peter’s comments concern me.
1. The electoral college is designed to protect against the tyranny of the majority. That’s the purpose. Please read the Federalist papers. Anyone trying to remove the electoral college for political purposes, or to increase the number of states in the Union for political reasons, or pack the court for political reasons, is a highly partisan individual willing to break the social contract for the own ends. That’s the type of person who wants to change the rules of the game to suit their interest.It’s usually a despot.
2. People don’t display signs or wear their hats very much, because the radical left is a force of nature. Nobody wants their home vandalized, or their face punched. A trump supporter wearing a MAGA hat was nearly beaten to death in PA a few days ago.
3. Agree with all the comments on the radical left, although you still fail to understand the size. We’re not talking about a small group of postmodernist academics; we’re talking about a whole generation of brainwashed buffoons who believe that capitalism is evil. The moderate left is the minority.
4. You still don’t understand MAGA. MAGA is not Trump. Trump is a tool of MAGA because he’s capable of taking on the deep state. MAGA also likes Robert F Kennedy Jr; that is, until he chose a radical left running mate. If Trump surrounds himself with the right people; namely, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, or RFK jr, or people like DeSantis instead of losers like John Bolton, or establishment thugs like Bush and Cheney, everything will be fine. MAGA is pro freedom; we don’t like the Fed; we don’t like the banking oligarchy; we don’t like the FBI or the CIA. We don’t like regulation that creates barriers to entry; we don’t like censorship; we don’t like corrupt media establishments acting as the puppet for Washington; and we support Freedom for Assange. We’re pro bitcoin and gold. We don’t like endless wars. And we’re pro capitalist.
That’s who we are.
13. April 2024 at 04:31
Peter, How can they scrap the EC? Doesn’t that require a constitutional amendment?
Michael, I also blame the Supreme Court, which seems to be trying to help Trump. This post was on leftists.
dtoh, I agree.
Peter, San Francisco? DC?
Some cities have basically given up on prosecuting shoplifting. Keep in mind I’m talking public perceptions—politics. I understand that murder rates soared under Trump and have plunged under Biden.
13. April 2024 at 13:12
It’s also the case though that the fringe left has been a problem on many of these issues for Democrats for decades. Republicans have successfully painted the Democrats as soft on crime, national defense, and law and order generally, since Nixon. Sure, idiotic slogans like “Defund the Police!” reached new levels of absurdity, but the general phenomenon is nothing new.
13. April 2024 at 14:03
econmist manque sumner: “I also blame the Supreme Court, which seems to be trying to help Trump.” no facts, no analysis, just feeling, man.
13. April 2024 at 20:19
Peter — I believe that Washington DC doesn’t enforce speeding camera fines or even having a correct registration plates https://www.slowboring.com/p/we-cant-tolerate-fake-expired-and
14. April 2024 at 11:23
Ricardo,
Where to start? “The tyranny of the majority”- otherwise known as democracy? You’re pretty much showing your cards right off the bat that you don’t care about equal representation. And where is this “social contract” you speak of? I certainly didn’t sign one. If you’re referring to the Constitution, you should take a look in the mirror, it wasn’t the “radical left” that stormed the capital and tried to overturn a presidential election.
Amendments to the Constitution are a perfectly legitimate political undertaking, in fact there are 27 of them (currently known as the Constitution). There’s no reason making a fairer, more rational, less dangerous way of selecting the most powerful publicly elected office on earth shouldn’t be a serious ongoing endeavor.
15. April 2024 at 04:30
The one political opinion of your I will agree with is leftist have elected Trump. Hopefully would have been Desantis if they didn’t do the trials.
That being said the lesser of two evils isn’t voting for Biden. It’s voting for Trump. Not even sure he’s evil. He’s just not ideal.
15. April 2024 at 08:06
Sean, You said:
“That being said the lesser of two evils isn’t voting for Biden. It’s voting for Trump.”
Are you joking?
Or do you not follow the news?
Or do you not know the meaning of “evil”?
Seriously. What does a person have to do to be regarded as evil?
15. April 2024 at 08:17
@Scott
I could also say Trump is working to elect leftists 😀
15. April 2024 at 15:25
“Chinese Cultural Revolution style cancel culture”
Sumner; this is stupid, none of the managerial elite have been tarred, feathered, imprisoned, and hanged for being insufficiently leftwing -in the actual Cultural Revolution, it was in the many thousands. Tanner Greer is a champ at pointing this out.
The rest of your post is basically true, though I still support Trump because of the need to appoint conservative (including pro-life) justices.
15. April 2024 at 15:40
Harding, Obviously the Chinese version was 1000 times worse, but the style is similar—forced confessions, demands that people accept obvious falsehoods, etc.
15. April 2024 at 20:42
If Democrats were smart, they’d be working on scrapping the electoral college; why this hasn’t been a major effort of theirs since 2000 blows my mind.
Here’s an important lesson about democracy near nobody knows (any more). Athens created the first democracy in two stages. It had three geographic areas, the city, hills and plains…
Stage 1) To get power the politicians in each area incited the mob to vote by claiming they were being exploited by the others. “City traders are robbing us on prices”. “The plains people are blackmailing us for food”. Result: Constant political strife and tyrants seizing power. The first ever democracy in action. When that collapsed…
Stage 2) The ‘electoral districts’ (tribes) were converted to be each 1/3rd city people, hill people and plains people. Now politicians couldn’t demagogue against the “others” but had to come up with ideas that appealed across all three groups. Athens took off on its way to #1 in the Aegean.
This is why there is an electoral college. It forces the election to be decided in “swing states” where our interest groups are balanced and so have to be respected instead of savaged. Anyone who really wants a next civil war in the USA should want pure popular vote. The demagogues of the extremes will go to opposite sides of the country and pour gasoline out to ignite the mobs.
(And: The Democrats aren’t so stupid at to think they can amend the Constitution to eliminate the College. The states with below average population, including the Democratic ones, will never allow it.)
Also, can you really trust democracy to a candidate that didn’t win the popular vote? Obviously they’d have less interest in adhering to democratic norms and laws.
Obviously?? Can you trust the candidate who wins a big majority and has the most power to subvert democracy? The Founders didn’t. The Constitution, and Bill of Rights explicitly, are designed to block majority vote rule. Dictators have come to power by democratic election all over today’s world (Putin and *many* more) and all through history. (Adolf won the most votes, fair and square. What was his opinion of democratic norms?)
The USA isn’t a democracy, on purpose. At the end of the Constitutional Convention, Franklin said: Congratulations, “You have a Republic, if you can keep it.” He didn’t say “Democracy”.
16. April 2024 at 06:49
Jim, You are confusing two issues. One is the need for multiple sectors in the government, to prevent any one sector of having two much power. The other (completely unrelated) issue is whether we should elect our presidents based on majority vote, as do all other nations. The answer to that question is obviously yes. Jan 6 never would have happened as Biden won by 7 million votes. Ditto for the court fight in 2000. It’s the EC that makes these races seem close.
16. April 2024 at 08:55
@Jim Glass:
Your history lesson on Athens is interesting but we’re only talking about how we select one office, the president.
You said “To get power the politicians in each area…” Well in the US the area politicians (senators, representatives) are already dispersed geographically, it’s only the president who can get elected with far fewer people voting for them. The Athens example doesn’t apply.
Nor do the Hitler or Putin ones, because unlike 1932 Germany or 2000 Russia, our system has no mechanism for a president to get elected then just declare they are president for life. I see some deranged leftists saying if Trump wins again he will do that and it’s laughable. How would that work? If he tried they’d forcibly remove him from the White House. And no, him doing that would not get a civil war started.
So the EC should be reformed…but there’s a better way, and you don’t have to change the Constitution. Every state should simply apportion their EVs the way Maine and Nebraska do. The 2 EVs each state gets for their senate delegation are still winner take all in each state, but the other EVs from the House delegation are apportioned by district (not winner take all statewide). In this formulation the small states still punch above their weight, getting more total EVs per voter than the big ones. But now minority voters can be heard and counted where today Republicans in California and Democrats in Alabama have no say in who is elected president.