Thursday, March 12, 2020
PMT: Movements v. Coalitions
IPLawGuy sent me this fascinating article by Jonathon V. Last, which contrasts politicians who build coalitions (Obama, Reagan) with those who lead movements (Trump, Sanders). Here is the meat of the analysis:
Joe Biden sits at the head of a very broad coalition. It is similar to the coalition Barack Obama assembled—and keep in mind, Obama got more votes than anyone to ever run for president. The most substantial difference is that hat Biden has traded some progressive voters for some blue-collar whites. We do not yet know the net effect of this transaction, but I suspect it will be in his favor.
Trump does not have a coalition. He has a movement. His movement was enough to win in. a multi-polar primary field with a mere plurality of the vote and then to attain a perfect-storm victory against a very bad general election candidate. But once in office, Trump declined to turn his movement into a coalition: His every action has pushed marginal supporters away while cementing his relationship with the voters already in his movement.
In the short term, this served him well: Had Trump not bound his base more tightly to him, he might not have survived impeachment.
But in the long term, it has made him extremely vulnerable in his reelection campaign. His best hope had been to match up against a Democrat who, like him, had only a movement. That’s why he was desperate to avoid Biden and draw either Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.
And now that he has to face Biden, I do not see how Trump builds a coalition at this late date.
Biden already commands the support of African-Americans, college-educated professionals, and suburban women. He is going to spend the next eight months eating into Trump’s margins with blue-collar whites while college-educated whites continue to flee the Republican party of their own accord.
It's hard to disagree with that. Later on, Last also makes a point that I keep conveying to people-- that President Trump won the narrowest of victories, and the idea that he will be difficult to defeat is ludicrous. I'm not saying the Democrats will win the White House-- they have a tendency to mess that up (see 2016)-- just that a decent candidate building a decent coalition should be able to get there.The reason is rooted in Trump's constant play to his base; that is, the base of his movement. It alienates some people, who seem to be pushed into a Biden coalition.
That said, in my own field of study it is clear that Trump is making a play to African Americans by promoting his efforts-- well, effort (it is pretty much just the First Step Act)-- in reforming criminal justice. Sadly, Biden is vulnerable to that, since he pushed the 100-1 ratio between crack and powder, a raft of mandatory minimums, and tough sanctions on MDMA, among other things. And Biden has no real plan to address criminal justice going forward, other than a softer approach to marijuana, spending lots of money, and variations on "what Obama did"-- and that is no plan at all.
