Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Will Trump be re-elected

Will Trump be re-elected?

Donald Trump has two clear structural advantages going into this year’s election.  History shows that incumbent presidents have a distinct edge over their challengers, and the electoral college currently over-represents Republican-leaning states.  But beyond these built-in factors the picture is unclear.  Certain trends point to a Democrat triumph in November, while others point to a victory for Trump.  How the president deals with current challenges will also influence the outcome.

The president’s approval rating suggests that the Democrats will win this autumn.  Unlike every other post-war president – including one-termers such as Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush – Trump’s net approval rating has been negative throughout his presidency.  This strongly implies that a majority of American voters are beyond his reach.

Of course, you could retort that Trump’s social base has held up remarkably well and he doesn’t need to win the popular vote to be elected, as 2016 showed.  But alongside Trump’s negative net approval rating, two developments signal that pivotal swing voters will break for the Democrats this time round.

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How culture replaced economics as the main political faultline

How culture replaced economics as the main political faultline

Until recently, elections were widely seen as being won or lost on economic grounds.  Yet events such as the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election as US president have challenged this conventional outlook.  These results had more to do with conservative cultural values than with material interests.  Likewise, the backlash against Brexit and Trump has been mainly focused on defending liberal cultural values, not the state of the economy.  How did culture become more politically salient than economics?

Some say elite interests have prompted this shift.  In this view, the right has politicised culture to manoeuvre poorer citizens into backing policies that favour the rich, such as tax cuts and market deregulation.  This argument has some substance.  Trump’s election and Leave’s success both depended on blue collar voters, and in each instance culture was used as a tool of mobilisation and concealment.

In the US, this sort of politicking has been going on for some time.  The Republican party started provoking the cultural sensitivities of working class Americans following its victory in the 1994 midterms.  During this period, high-profile Republicans like Patrick Buchanan began preaching about the “war for the soul of America” and the left’s threat to “the values of faith, family, and country”.  But while the party talked up the kulturkampf, its policies continued to benefit economic elites.

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