How did Donald
Trump win the Republican presidential nomination? A combination of personal and political factors
permitted his ascension. The personal relates to Trump’s unique status in the
public consciousness. He began with universal name recognition because of his
real estate career, his bestselling book, The
Art of the Deal, and his time as a reality television show host. Everyone
knew Donald Trump.
Beginnings Politically, Trump took advantage of a fertile field of resentment
plowed by years of Republican-generated anger aimed at particular groups and at
unnerving social and economic developments. Name recognition, and his
unrepentant spouting of positions and ideas that appealed to voters frustrated
with those trends, quickly put Trump at the top of the GOP primary polls.
Trump laid
the groundwork for his rise well before he started running by becoming birther-in-chief.
He led the chorus challenging President Obama’s legitimacy, intimating that the
President had been born in Kenya and, therefore, wasn’t constitutionally eligible
to hold the office he won in 2008 by nine and a half million votes (and an
electoral-college majority of 365-173). Trump’s pursuit of the baseless birther claim
gave him instant credibility among nativist voters who disliked Obama, first
and foremost, because of his color. This
represented race baiting without directly going after the black electorate.
Primaries Trump otherwise premised his candidacy on attacks on
disfavored groups and on individuals who, for one reason or another, didn’t
appeal to him. When he announced for President, he proposed building a wall along
the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out “rapists,” “drug traffickers,” and
“criminals.” The wall idea, astounding in scope, ambition, and outrageousness,
became Trump’s calling card. He even claimed he would make Mexico pay for it. Before long, he targeted Muslims, proposing a
ban on their entry into the United States, regardless of national origin.
Trump offered
disparaging remarks about women’s looks, including one of his primary rivals,
and made tasteless comments about a female news anchor and where she might be
dripping blood. He attacked U.S. Senator
and 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain for having been shot down
and captured in Vietnam. Political analysts assumed at least one of these
statements transgressed political possibility and that Trump would fade. It
didn’t happen.
Now that
Trump has the nomination, previously hostile Republicans have coalesced around
him because he’s the GOP standard bearer.
Many traditional, establishment Republicans have little use for Trump,
but can’t bring themselves to support Democrat Hillary Clinton. Those people may make Trump President, but
they didn’t get him nominated. The
people who thrust Trump into his current role occupy a unique position in
American politics and bear study because of the power they’ve shown to
influence one of the major parties.
Trump Voters The people who nominated Trump are overwhelmingly white,
predominately male, resent changing demographics (which the Obama presidency
brought home to them as nothing else could), and believe themselves left out of
an economic landscape shifting under their feet. They feel betrayed by
politicians they have reflexively supported for years. As Thomas Frank’s brilliant book What’s the Matter with Kansas? made so clear, corporate Republicans have
long used the social grievances of the white working class in enticing them to
vote against their economic interests in service of their bias against
minorities and cultural change (think, gay marriage). Now, the global, service-based, technology- dominated
economy doesn’t produce the manufacturing jobs on which the white working class
has long relied. Trump rallied these disaffected souls to his cause in the
primaries and the corporate GOP donor class paid the price. Trump won by
promising to undo the trade deals many blame for their economic woes and by saying
he wouldn’t succumb to “political correctness,” code for dispensing with the demands
of women and minority groups for greater sensitivity in public discourse and for
greater inclusiveness in the national political and social calculus. Trump would make it okay for angry white men
to be crude again.
Make no
mistake, race-based nativism lay at the center of Trump’s appeal in the
primaries. His campaign aimed straight at disaffected white people who see the
country’s economic and social situation as a zero sum game. If minority group
members advance, whites lose.
Trump also
capitalized on the low information level many Americans have about politics.
Relying on conservative talk radio, FOX news, and internet-inspired conspiracy
theories, many Trump supporters knew almost nothing of his extensive business
failures, his hiring of illegal immigrants in his enterprises, or the falsehood
of his claim to self-funding his campaign.
They cared little about the emptiness of his policy proposals. It was enough that he promised to make
America great again, bludgeon China into submission in trade talks, and restore
manufacturing jobs. The details didn’t
matter.
In the
general election, Trump will get the votes of those who supported him in the
primaries and those of other Republicans who don’t like him much, but still see
Democrats as the party of the “others” from whom they believe they must protect
themselves and the country. Little likelihood exists of persuading members of
either group to change their minds. They will prevail only if the larger group
of Americans who don’t share their fears stay home.
Have a
different take or why Trump is where he is?
Let us hear from you.
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