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Notes -
Do Trump Supporters Actually Want To Win?
Prompted by this sanctimonious, if interesting, FT column. Emphasis mine:
For a long time, a certain pro-Trump (or anti-anti-Trump, if you want) narrative on the 'intellectual right' was that there was no real alternative to Trump. Sure, they conceded that most criticisms of Trump-the-man were correct, but this was the Flight 93 Election. The alternatives were all versions of Mitt Romney or Marco Rubio, who didn't say the things Trump occasionally did. We can restate the Flight 93 theory like this:
DeSantis' presence complicates the Flight 93 theory. DeSantis has a record of some competence on conservative issues. Certainly not enough for the very online dissident right, but they had soured on Trump by late 2017 themselves, and so have no horse in this race. Whether DeSantis of Yale and Harvard is a 'true believer' is a complicated question, but then again the same could be said about Trump of New York via Wharton; the former certainly seems a much more capable administrator.
The column posits that Trump's success against DeSantis in this phony war stage of the 2024 primary campaign is a case of "vibes based politics" winning over 'substance based politics'. In 2016, intellectual conservatives could defend Trump because - whatever the vibes were - he was the only candidate on substance, too. In 2023, the banality of Trump's support is more clear. Ironically, it leads to a case for an interesting question - if Trump had merely attached his vibe to Ted Cruz' political platform in 2016, would he still have won? Was it less 'build the wall' and more who the frontman for building the wall was? The smart case for Trump would seem to be reducible to:
DeSantis is a "phony" or establishment conservative who will turn in office and resign himself to implementing the Mitch McConnell checklist of tax cuts, deregulation, more money for the military and cutting some welfare spending. The problem with this is that Trump was in office and accomplished little but (some of) the above, and hardly has a lifelong history of staunch conservative politics himself. If the problem is associating with elite circles, Trump has a long history of the same.
DeSantis can't win the presidential election even if he takes the primary, Trump can. This argument is more persuasive, if only because Trump's record shows he has technically convinced enough people in the right places to vote for him to show he can win. But Trump also lost a presidential election, never hit a 50% approval rating (even once, something Biden has apparently managed) and seems not to be experiencing any great groundswell of public support from swing voters. The promise of Trump is now tainted by the reality of Trump, so MAGA might ring slightly more hollow to those who aren't true believers.
I love this line because thinking about what your enemies fear is often an interesting thought experiment. Republicans are being presented with a choice between Trump and an American Viktor Orban. Nothing is settled, but they appear to strongly prefer the former.
A lot of the comparisons between Trump and DeSantis seem to rely on there being a consequential difference between them in power. I don't think that assumption is valid.
You can run a very explicit culture war campaign and 'actually do things' like DeSantis has done in Florida without doing anything of consequence in other areas. For instance, you can run a very traditional Zionist Heritage Foundation approved government that does nothing of value with regards to immigration and foreign policy and merely acts out on random anti-trans rhetoric. Can you imagine trans people not being allowed in womens sports and bathrooms? You can waste a year at least on just that and the only practical real world impact is an enraged left. Otherwise the decline can proceed as normal.
Trump did much less than that in 4 years and his supporters still adore him. Why do anything different? Pardon my cynicism but, is it for real now? Do we really believe? Are we fighting for real change this time?
3/3 good supreme court picks. Tax reform that hit one of the biggest left wing tax loopholes (SALT). Operation Warp Speed. Making the left and establishment right show their true colors.
I favor DeSantis, but lets not pretend Trump wasn't a great revolutionary president.
And nothing done about immigration, his biggest promise. I don't think it counts for all that much to make the establishment right show their 'true colors' just before you join them. Does anyone love Israel more than Trump? By the same token I don't think you can make much hay about his SC picks, given they are all basic establishment right shoe-ins. Trump had his chance with leveraging his wall funding with the government shutdowns. He caved and in return the US still has infinite illegal immigration.
If we go by rhetoric alone, he was the Che Guevera of US politics. By action? It was business as usual. Along with record low black unemployment numbers...
"Didn't accomplish X specific goal" != "waste a year at least on just that and the only practical real world impact is an enraged left".
The net result is the public has seen this, and Republicans have become better for it. Post-Trump DeSantis >> pre-Trump DeSantis, for example.
Trump never campaigned on being the white nationalist/antisemitic president you seem to wish he was. A reminder of his campaign:
https://twt-thumbs.washtimes.com/media/image/2016/11/01/Trump_c0-40-960-599_s885x516.jpg?f06bd400542c7f2dbc12a384be529bf86e07a1aa
https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.-_pm4l4mJKmt7kRHb0Y0dwHaJz?pid=ImgDet&rs=1
This is a bad strawman, but a worse argument. Halting immigration is a goal in and of itself. With obvious 'practical' impact. The fact it would allegedly 'enrage the left' is irrelevant.
The public has seen what? Republicans, outside of the most inane culture war rhetoric, are still the party of big business and Israel.
I never said he did. He did, however, campaign on BUILDING A WALL and DEPORTING ALL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. Maybe you missed it.
And he did more or less everything he could to accomplish this but failed to defeat the deep state. The courts shut down basically everything he did. In contrast, remember Bush teaming up with Pelosi to pass amnesty?
I do not dispute that Trump failed in this goal. I dispute that Trump was "business as usual."
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