November 5, 2024 - 11:50am
In a new piece for the New York Times, Matthew Yglesias makes the salient point that a great majority of recent elections in the West have been about getting the loathsome incumbents out of office. Put simply, the dominant trend has become a desire to “throw the bums out”. Yglesias writes that “across the board, there is simply no example of an incumbent party in a rich country securing a strong re-election.” The question then follows: why isn’t Donald Trump running away with this election?
Doesn’t the fact that Trump is very conspicuously not running away in the polling right now say something meaningful about his lack of qualities as a political candidate? Yglesias posits that it’s a failure to stay on message and make inflation the key political issue, a tactic that has worked well for oppositions in other countries. Yglesias also points to Trump’s personal character defects and the lingering spectre of the 6 January Capitol riots.
“Throw the bums out” should be taken seriously as a response to modern political power. But it doesn’t follow that it would automatically make life easier for the Republicans. One reason why the GOP candidate may still have more support than the polls are suggesting is because of the “shy Trump voter”. This phenomenon caused polling to be inaccurate both in 2016 and 2020. Perhaps this effect is still as strong, or maybe it has grown stronger now that the former president has been convicted of dozens of felonies.
But there is actually another, more subtle element to voters’ widespread dissatisfaction with the incumbents: it doesn’t always mean the challengers are actually popular at all. The “throw the bums out” logic of electoral politics in the West is real, but it simply transfers to the freshly incumbent bums. Electoral defeats can have more than one cause and just because, for example, British voters throw the Tories out, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is because they actually believe in Labour.
Quite the opposite, as the UK’s recent election attests. Less than three months after becoming prime minister, Keir Starmer was less popular than Rishi Sunak, the man he had just deposed in a landslide victory. What this suggests is that the British electorate has lost faith in the entire political class. That loss of faith in all politicians can clearly lead to some big electoral swings, but it’s not necessarily true to say that it has to lead to those swings. If both sides in a two-party system turn out to be equally competent at being incompetent, one could imagine a situation where the needle never changed, even as every citizen checked out mentally from the system.
It’s fun to imagine that a Trump replacement would do much better in the polls than the real thing. It might even be true. But, ultimately, it’s a counterfactual, and one that gels poorly with just how incredibly unpopular and discredited the rest of the Republican establishment has become. Perhaps Trump actually is the least dirty shirt inside the GOP. If so, that probably goes to show that the Democrats and the Republicans have matched each other in the great game of political disillusionment.
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SubscribeStaying on message is a challenge when one is being falsely accused of being a Russian agent, spied on by your government, the subject of a “free press” marching lockstop to repeat and spread vicious lies. Called “literally Hitler”, racist, homophobic.. and of course literally shot. Not to mention deliberately misquoted, even when the misquotes are proven. And to say nothing about being subject to contrived legal cases based on fabricated applications of the law and juries rabidly ignoring the evidence and judges who ignore basic law.
Yes, maybe a wee bit distracting.
Yet he marches on.
Stopped reading at: “…now that the former president has been convicted of dozens of felonies.”
seriously ?
I carried on reading, but the author tells us nothing we didn’t already know, having discussed these issues in Comments many times.
Worse: he “tells us” using more words than necessary, i.e:
…which basically just means “equally incompetent”. Poor writing.
The author is Swedish (or lives there) – they automatically support the Democrats thus apparently knowing zero about what is going on in the US.
Beating the anointed Hillary, treading on the cracks in the pavement, possession of offensive hair, wearing a flamboyant tie.. Honestly the list is endless
Doesn’t the fact that Trump is very conspicuously not running away in the polling right now say something meaningful about his lack of qualities as a political candidate?
A bold statement on the eve of an election.
It’s as if the author does not know or has chosen to forget that Trump was president once before, a time that compares favorably to the current four-year cycle.
Perhaps Trump actually is the least dirty shirt inside the GOP. If so, that probably goes to show that the Democrats and the Republicans have matched each other in the great game of political disillusionment.
You’re right about the disillusionment, but Trump’s not in the GOP, really. He’s his own thing. Effectively, he’s created a separate movement, MAGA, and hollowed out the GOP. It just wears the skin of the Republicans. I’m not sure I’ve seen an equivalent elsewhere in the world. There probably is.
Absent the Jan 6 debacle (and his actions leading up to it) Trump would be winning, going away.
Until the Clinton’s came along the GOP was the party of Wall Street. Now that the Democrats have become the party of the banking and institutional elites, the Republicans have to find a new constituency. Whatever happens today, Trump’s great contribution will have been to start that process by building a new coalition across class and racial lines..
Check out Arlie Hochschild, she knows more than anyone about Trump’s socioeconomic base.
When Donald’s done, which could be soon, MAGA is not going away.
America’s going to remain deeply divided, no longer able to serve as a beacon to anyone.
America’s going to remain deeply divided, no longer able to serve as a beacon to anyone.
Maybe so, but no longer right down the middle, the majority having a broader base which may continue to grow and mature until it becomes the country.
why isn’t Donald Trump running away with this election?
Because most us know people who, as a woman I know has said – she would vote for a tree stump so long as there was a D by its name. That’s why.
The ironic thing is how the left accuses Trump of spawning a cult yet cannot explain what past cult also spawned a Never (cult leader’s name) wing.
Further, any legacy about Trump will (or should) have less to do with the man himself and more about a dysfunctional republic that created the pathway for such a candidate.
It’s a recurring theme in MAGA vox pop for sure. Disillusionment with their economic situation and prospects. Trump’s exploited his Apprentice TV memes to harvest this even though no one thus interpellated ever puts forth anything Trump would or could actually do to improve their lot.
Besides feeling better about themselves and the future, which is no small feat these days. I feel better already and it’s only Wednesday.