[[link removed]]

TRUMP VOTERS ARE IN FOR A RUDE AWAKENING  
[[link removed]]


 

Robert McCoy
January 1, 2025
The New Republic
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Trump sold them countless, often conflicting fantasies. In 2025,
he’ll face political reality. He was whoever they wanted him to
be—a choose-your-own-candidate. Voters projected their wishes onto
his candidacy, regardless of his stated policy program _

Trump supporters during a rally at Ohio’s Dayton International
Airport in March, 2024, Photo: Scott Olson // Boulevard Bulgaria

 

In his 1987 book, _The Art of the Deal_, Donald Trump let readers in
on a promotional strategy of his. “I play to people’s
fantasies,” the real estate developer wrote, by insisting that a
project “is the biggest and the greatest and the most
spectacular.” It’s a tactic Trump has also employed in his
political career—most effectively this election cycle, when many
voters were drawn to him based on perceptions of his second-term plans
that had little to no basis in reality.

Consider these archetypal dispatches from the 2024 campaign trail.
“A lot of people are happy to vote for [Trump] because they simply
do not believe he will do many of the things he says he will,” an
October _New York Times_ “campaign notebook” entry observed
[[link removed]].
The following week, _The Washington Post_ noted
[[link removed]] of
prospective Trump voters: “Some read between Trump’s lines about
how he would govern, while others disregard parts of his past or
present platform.”

Then there was the phenomenon Paul Krugman, the
retiring _Times_ columnist, dubbed
[[link removed]] “Trump-stalgia,”
which could just as well have been called “Trump-nesia.” Most
Americans are undoubtedly better off than they were four years ago, he
wrote in May. “But for reasons that still remain unclear, many seem
disinclined to believe it.” This sentiment held true through the
election. As TNR’s Greg Sargent reported
[[link removed]] on
November 9, citing internal Democratic polling, “It proved
disturbingly difficult to persuade undecided voters that Trump had
been a bad president.”

In other words, for many, Trump was whoever they wanted him to be—a
choose-your-own-candidate. Voters projected their wishes onto his
candidacy, regardless of his stated policy program. They remembered
positive aspects of his presidency and either memory-holed the
negative parts (his deadly mishandling of the pandemic, say, or his
nomination of Supreme Court justices who eliminated abortion rights)
or simply didn’t blame him for them. But Trump’s rhetorical
slipperiness made this possible. His relentless lying, flip-flopping,
and vagueness about his plans made it difficult to pin him down,
thereby attracting voters from both sides of certain issues.

But the chimerical allure that helped propel Trump to the White House
has an expiration date. He sold myriad, and often conflicting,
fantasies to voters. In three weeks’ time, he’ll face reality. And
many Trump voters will undoubtedly start to realize that he is not at
all the person they thought they were voting for.

Already, there are two major contradictions emerging in the nascent
Trump administration, Vox’s Zack Beauchamp argued
[[link removed]] in
November. “The first centers on economic policy—or, more
fundamentally, the role of government itself,” he wrote, noting that
some Trump picks are proponents of unfettered capitalism while others
are economic nationalists who want to “transform American society,
including by attacking the practices of large corporations.” The
second contradiction, meanwhile, “centers on foreign policy—or,
more fundamentally, the purpose of America in the world.” The
advocates of hard power versus the isolationists, essentially.

These diverse allies found common cause on the campaign trail in
opposition to the left, but “when governing, the administration will
be forced to make choices in areas where its leaders disagree at a
fundamental level, leading not only to internal conflict but
potentially even policy chaos.” In other words, Trump will have to
pick sides. In some ways, he’s already doing so based on the balance
of his nominees: His Cabinet is shaping up to be
rather interventionist
[[link removed]] and plutocratic
[[link removed]].

Once he enters the realm of concrete policy, Trump will very likely
face some degree of backlash. This happens with any new
administration; according to the well-demonstrated theory of
thermostatic politics, public opinion tends to move in the opposite
direction of policy. But if Trump grossly overestimates his electoral
mandate and tries to implement his most extreme ideas, the backlash
could be historically fierce.

Recall how the barbarity of Trump’s first-term immigration agenda
elicited widespread outcry
[[link removed]].
Now imagine if his 2025 plans for mass deportations are enacted. _The
Washington Post_’s Aaron Blake writes
[[link removed]] that,
while recent polls show Americans divided evenly on—or sometimes
leaning in favor of—deporting most or all undocumented immigrants,
respondents who approve of deportations often also support the (much
more popular) solution of providing them a path to citizenship.
Additionally, Blake writes, support for mass deportations tends to
thin as people are given the details of what they’d entail.

If Trump brings his ghastly immigration policies to bear (and follows
through on his more unpopular stances, such as prosecuting his
political foes and pardoning January 6ers), it’s not unreasonable to
expect that his crowing
[[link removed]] about
his “powerful mandate” will be exposed as arrant hyperbole.

And Trump’s hyperbolic promises as a candidate could also undermine
his presidency. Take his improbable vow
[[link removed]] to
end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, which he recently walked back
in a _Time_ interview
[[link removed]],
acknowledging that “this is trickier than he let on.” In the same
interview, he also managed expectations about lowering the cost of
groceries, saying doing so will be “hard” and, if he fails, he
would not consider his presidency a failure. It’s a stark pivot from
his September pledge
[[link removed]]:
“Vote Trump, and your … grocery prices will come tumbling down.”

On those issues and more, Trump has, as a recent _Times_ headline
[[link removed]] put
it, promised the moon with “no word on the rocket.” On many
issues, though, not only is there no rocket, but there are instead
blueprints for a deep-sea submersible: Trump’s core policy proposals
are poised to do the opposite of what he says, exacerbating the
economic discontent he tapped into. Between his proposed tariffs,
deportations, and tax cuts, _Time_ reports
[[link removed]] that if
Trump “enacts many of the policies he proposed on the campaign
trail, voters may see prices continue to rise.”

Throughout 2024, the irreconcilable contradictions of Trump’s
proposals and promises were wrinkles that could be smoothed over with
rhetoric; as president, he’ll have to face them head-on. As William
A. Galston wrote
[[link removed]] in _The_ _Wall
Street Journal_ last month, while Trump is an untraditional
president, “voters will judge him on a traditional measure—his
ability to deliver on the promises that propelled him to a second
term. Tensions among these promises will complicate his task.”

Or, to return to Trump’s words in _The Art of the Deal_: “You
can’t con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement,
you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can
throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don’t deliver the goods,
people will eventually catch on.” Trump has proven, in business and
politics, that in fact he _can_ con people for a very long time.
But, come 2025, when he’s confronted with the reality of
governing—and, one can hope, a reinvigorated opposition—Trump may
finally be exposed to his newfound supporters as the huckster we’ve
long known him to be.

_[ROBERT MCCOY is a writer in New Jersey and the editorial intern
for The New Republic. @robertkmccoy
[[link removed]] ]_

* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]
* Trump 2.0
[[link removed]]
* MAGA
[[link removed]]
* Trump voters
[[link removed]]
* Take America Back Again
[[link removed]]
* TABA
[[link removed]]
* GOP
[[link removed]]
* workers
[[link removed]]
* Trump Administration
[[link removed]]
* Trump Presidency
[[link removed]]
* 2024 Elections
[[link removed]]
* Economy
[[link removed]]
* abortion rights
[[link removed]]
* deportations
[[link removed]]
* path to citizenship
[[link removed]]
* Immigration
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]