Something is bugging Americans.
It may not be the economy.
I got this letter after yesterday's blog post on Trump pushing Mitt Romney out of the GOP. Romney, I wrote, was a "square."
"You are correct that square Republicans accept Trump as their president despite his character flaws. This is because many Republicans believe that square Republican leaders have given away too much ground in the war of ideas that guide our American experience by being so reasonable. Square Republicans want a leader that will do what it takes to Make America Great Again so that Republicans can continue to be square as they live out their version of the American dream."
My correspondent thinks Democrats have ruined our morals. And the solution is -- of all things -- Trump.
People are telling pollsters that they are unhappy with the direction of the country.
But this isn't new. Grousing about leaders is perennial. Here is an article from 2014, noting: "Seven out of ten Americans think America is heading in the wrong direction." And it was looking back yet another 42 years.
Think back to 2014. I remember things being pretty good and getting better. We had come out of the Great Recession. Inflation was low. Interest rates were low. Unemployment was dropping steadily. The stock market was hitting new highs. The chronic war in Afghanistan was no different than it had been for a decade, and still small. The ACA had become popular. Trump was the star of an aging reality show claiming Obama was born in Kenya. He was on Fox News weekly saying he hadn't found anything yet, but he is "just asking questions."
Now, in 2024, there is good economic news again. We have come out of the Covid crisis. Inflation is dropping. Interest rates are dropping. Unemployment is at rock bottom. The stock market is hitting new highs. Russia and Hamas have triggered new conflicts, but American soldiers are not in the line of fire. The ACA is more popular than ever, and Biden has made drug prices -- especially insulin's -- cheaper. Republicans have been trying to show that Joe Biden leads a "crime family." Until they find something, they go on Fox News "just asking questions."
Maybe it isn't "the economy, stupid." My correspondent yesterday pointed to cultural/moral change. Maybe that is more central than Democrats realize. It would help explain why Hispanic voters, who Democrats hoped would make them a permanent majority, are a disappointment. They are voting like non-Hispanic Whites. They are more culturally conservative than the average American. America is still digesting new ideas on racial equality. A new issue has emerged about gender roles and gender fluidity. College-educated, cosmopolitan people articulate Democratic policy. Gender fluidity and gender choice are new and uncomfortable ideas to many people.
Lia Thomas, the University of Pennsylvania trans swimmer, and other instances like this one, create a problematic issue for Democrats who desire to be both "accepting" and "fair" -- two Democratic moral values. Republicans have made Thomas a poster child for Democratic excess. Thomas competing as a female doesn't look "fair" to a great many people, including many Democrats. In policy and messaging, Democrats support teenagers getting permanent "gender affirming" hormones or surgeries. This is new but compassionate, and Democrats are open to it. It is new, extreme, and crazy in GOP messaging. Democrats have a hard sell here.
Democrats in universities, think tanks, and policy-making nonprofits reflect that only 50 years ago interracial marriage was new and extreme, and maybe crazy, to some. Now it is unexceptional. The same process happened with women riding bicycles, women in college, with women in the workplace, and with gay marriage. First something is new and extreme. Then it becomes OK. And then commonplace. Gender fluidity is a new frontier.
Or maybe not. Some new frontiers take time to digest, develop new norms, and perhaps rethink. Oregon tried drug legalization but promptly began rethinking it. The Oregon legislature just repealed it. We don't know how gender fluidity will shake out.
Something is bugging Americans. I know that Trump gets a great deal of political traction saying that Biden is a terrible president because everything in America is a complete and total disaster. Trump says that America is experiencing a calamity so profound that any action is justified. A majority of Republicans agree so thoroughly they think it acceptable to abandon democratic institutions in order to fix it.
I don't think it is the economy. It's something else. Incredibly enough, Republicans think Trump is the route back to morality and rectitude.
Changes in matters of identity led by Democrats' policy-making elites may be coming faster than a majority of Americans are willing to accept.
Morality and rectitude? Those words shouldn’t be used in the same paragraph as “Trump”, much less the same sentence!