Republicans pay a Trump Tax - again

A normie conservative would be doing much better

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One of the most remarkable features of the Trump era has been that Republicans have made themselves woefully unpopular, but that the counter-majoritarian parts of the U.S. political system still make them competitive in national elections. Trump is one of the most unpopular major figures in contemporary U.S. politics, yet he was able to win the Electoral College in 2016 despite losing the popular vote. He’s now running against a Democratic Vice President who was in office during crushing inflation, the tail end of the pandemic, and an out-of-control immigration situation. Incumbent governments with similar profiles have been turfed out in pretty much every major country which has held an election in recent years.

Even worse, Kamala Harris had to step into the race after it emerged that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent to run his campaign, and quite possibly the country - an issue that Republicans would be focusing on much more strongly if their own candidate wasn’t so old.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think Harris is a great candidate and that she’s run a fantastic campaign. But it’s just a simple fact that given this context, she entered the race as an underdog. The Republicans ought to be running away with it. But they’re not - and the reason is their candidate.

Many see Trump as a political genius, pointing to the connection he has to his political base. And it’s certainly true that by nakedly embracing the nativist populism which has always been an undercurrent in the Republican Party, he has managed to win the devotion of a large group of voters. But the problem is that this group is nowhere near large enough to win a governing majority - and that at the same time, Trump has also alienated other sizeable chunks of the electorate, including the college-educated whites who used to be the GOP’s backbone. This is the Republican Party’s “Trump Tax”.

Take a look at the current election. Trump might still win it, largely because his campaign organization is much more disciplined than he is. But the distinctly Trumpian parts of the campaign - the things that a non-Trump Republican would not be doing - are mostly negative.

One example is the GOP’s attempt to win over non-white voters. On its face, this idea isn’t as farcical as it might sound - George W. Bush won healthy numbers of Hispanics, and Ronald Reagan made inroads with African-Americans. The more conservative cultural and social values of these voters makes it possible, and it was logical for the Trump campaign to try. The problem is that their candidate is also working overtime to actively repel these voters, such as by accusing them of eating dogs and cats or holding a hate rally in which they are labeled “garbage”.

I repeat: the Trump campaign literally held a rally in which a “comedian” directed textbook racist humor at minorities. And they did it because for Trump and his inner circle, the idea of appealing to minorities has always been a psyop - it’s something they pretend they’re doing to throw the left off balance and maybe pick up a few votes on the margins. If there are significant movements among these groups in the electorate, it will be in spite of rather than because of what Trump has done on the campaign trail.

Or take another issue - transgender rights. The Trump campaign and allied groups have focused nearly a third of their recent television advertising spending on transgender ads, an issue which they’ve mostly failed to successfully use to mobilize voters in the past. Meanwhile, Trump’s lead in polls on the question of who would best handle the economy has been falling, with more and more voters preferring Harris. If Trump loses, this focus on trans issues rather than on hammering home an economic message will come to be seen as the biggest political malpractice of the campaign.

Of course, Trump is not alone among contemporary Republicans in his focus on transgender issues and other divisive topics. But that’s largely because Trump has transformed the Republican Party in his own image, making it a vehicle for laundering cultural, racial and (increasingly) misogynist grievances. Would Mitt Romney, who I otherwise have no love for, be spending a third of his advertising dollars on transgender issues? No, he would not. He’d also be polling much better than Trump is.

I want to end on a disclaimer. Trump may well win this election. He appears less unpopular now than he did in 2016 or 2020, even as the counter-coalition mobilized against him is also more energized and (we hope) larger. But a normie conservative would be doing much better, and they wouldn’t be tearing the country apart in the process. The hate, division and chaos are a Trump Tax, too - sadly one that the entirety of America, and not just the Republican Party, must pay until he is gone.