I am feeling cautiously relieved at this point that Biden appears likely to win the presidency. But I am not feeling a large amount of relief, for a few reasons. First, the bird is not firmly in the hand yet - as I write this, the counting of ballots is not over. Second, Trump will get to stay president for a bit longer. And third, what this post is about - Trump could have easily won re-election if he was even slightly less inept or had a small bit more self-control.
American did not clearly and strongly reject Trump's policies - more tax cuts for the rich and corporations, the xenophobic and wasteful border wall and immigration policies, more money for defense contractors, exploding the level of debt, threatening Social Security, encouraging white supremacists and anti-immigrant and anti-LGBQT hatred, trashing the environment for corporate profits, and the others that I am forgetting right now.
Look at the public opinion of Rudy Giuliani following his response to 9/11, or even the public opinion of Chris Christie following his response to Hurricane Sandy. Remember, this election was very close, and if Biden does in fact pull it out, it will be a near thing. To me, the examples of these past crises show that Trump could have easily won this election, and he could have done it 99% on style, with almost no change in policy or actions.
Here is how:
1) COVID-19 pandemic hits. Trump gives a speech, the gist of which is: "We understand that there is a new corona virus, COVID-19, that may pose a serious health threat. We have tasked our infectious disease experts at the CDC to analyze it and keep us informed."
2) There is the same delayed and haphazard response as was done, same China travel ban.
3) Trump gives a major speech from the White House. Trump shows up with a red MAGA face mask and a dark blue one with the Presidential seal. Melania and Ivanka have stylish designer masks that match their outfits.
4) Trump gives an inspiring we're-all-in-this together speech. He can cite to the size and diversity of the US to say that the way to respond to COVID-19 will be left up to each state, and directs everyone to cooperate with their state's public health experts, with the recommendation that they minimize disruptions to business. He encourages people to wear masks, and shows off his red MAGA mask and dark blue POTUS mask. He expresses confidence that America's phenomenal scientists, universities and pharmaceutical companies are working around the clock to bring us vaccines and treatments.
5) Trump declares an emergency, and has the federal government quickly procure and distribute massive numbers of masks to the hardest hit states. He says he will do something similar with ventilators, but only really does some minor symbolic things.
6) He steps back and mostly shuts up. (Yeah, this is the hard part for him.) He lets Fauci and Birx make statements and hold press conferences, but not too often, and with control over their messaging. He stops vilifying and criticizing governors for what they do or what they say, especially re COVID-19. He expresses support for the ones he likes. He does not threaten any state's COVID-19 funding. He doesn't say anything about the press coverage of COVID-19 (his surrogates can, but his kids should not).
7) Every once in a while he gives an optimistic, upbeat Tweet or other communication about how much progress we are making towards beating COVID-19, and encouraging Americans to keep up their efforts.
8) In other areas - tariffs, TikTok, taxes, border wall, immigration, environment, etc. - he does not do anything substantively different than what he has done.
9) People feel good about Trump's "leadership" on COVID-19, and he wins re-election, beating Biden in a number of key swing states.
This is just one reason why Biden's narrow lead (and potential victory) is not all that reassuring to me. (There are other reasons, too.) We are picking presidents more on in-the-moment feelings than we are on substantive policies. If Trump was just slightly more subtle and adept at playing those feelings, we would have had him as President for another four years. And if someone like that is out there learning from Trump's playbook and watching his mistakes, we could easily have someone like that in the future.
If I am wrong, please let me know.
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Was it ever different?
ReplyDeleteProbably not, but now it is clearer.
DeleteI agree that Trump exposed our weakness to a future, smoother authoritarian. One answer to your alternate history, and perhaps a protective factor for us, is that the variable you change to make your new timeline is the same variable that gave us Trump in the first place. You posit a Trump who is calm, measured and respectful to expertise. I suggest that such a Trump would have lost the 2016 election. Trump's appeal was his anger, his lack of measurement ("he's not a politician") and his contempt for expertise. Many (a majority even) of our fellow white men loved him precisely for his anger, his lack of measurement, and his contempt for expertise. Without those qualities, he never would have reached into the guts of our fellow white men and pulled out the passion and loyalty that he did. Nor do I think he could have put aside his trademark qualities in the face of the pandemic, even if he believed it was a good idea. The scorpion and the frog never make it to the other side of the river, even though the scorpion truly wants to get there.
ReplyDeleteHe clearly could not put aside (or go beyond)his basic personality, but if he had the ability to moderate it even a little bit, it would have made a big difference. And if he knew when (and when not) to do that, he still could have gotten elected.
DeleteOn your second point, about how we pick our presidents based on our feelings rather than on policy, I am starting to see that as a holdover from the decades of post-war New Deal consensus on most policy questions. From the 40s through the 80s, Republicans and Democrats ran for office and governed in a narrow ideological frame. On the right side of the frame was a guard rail consensus that capitalism needed a welfare state and a vital labor movement in order to survive. On the left side of the frame was a guard rail consensus that capitalism in its current form should survive. Within those rails, there just isn't a lot of space to talk about policy. During the same period, we see television grow from an experimental medium at the end of the war, to the omnipresent cultural pipeline into every home by the 1970s. Even before cable news and social media, TV needed to be fed content. And what was there to talk about without real policy differences between the parties? Personality and horse races. Reporters and editors learned to do that kind of coverage, and they mentored the people who run the media now in the art of covering personality and horse races.
ReplyDeleteThen the right wing blasted away the right side guard rail, and made it acceptable to enact policies that destroyed labor and he welfare state. Nothing comparable happened on the left because Democrats are too timid to talk about any alternative to capitalism as we know it. Instead, mostly Democrats whine about how unfair it was for the right to blast away the right-side guard rail; that is evil and racist to take away the old limits. And likely it is evil and racist. But it is happening anyway. Only recently do we hear people like Bernie Sanders and AOC talk about moving the left side of the guard rail. And young people born in the 90s and 00s never heard of old New Deal consensus and are kind of mystified by the Democrats adherence to the left side guardrail with the Republicans are free to roam into any policy territory they like.
But reporters and editors aren't keeping up. They are still covering what they learned to cover, personality and horse race. That's what we hear 24/7. The emerging policy differences remain invisible because journalists don't know how to cover them.
I think you have a good point. And I think your point is exacerbated by the fact that the parties largely agree on neoliberal economics that cater to the large donor class, so there isn't much to choose in the way of substance, just style. They do spell out differences on cultural issues, so those get focused on instead - abortion, gay rights, etc.
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