Trump is a Democrat, and he’s on the ropes

Trump is a Democrat, and he’s on the ropes

Op-Ed: No matter what happens in the midterms, pundits will trot out familiar narratives about the Trump phenomenon — including a belief “that the president is in a losing battle against the nation’s political elite,” says an anonymous Democratic strategist.

That narrative says the following:

Trump is on the ropes because, quite simply, he’s “not a Democrat” and because “he is a master of the Twitter mob.”

Trump’s appeal, in the view of this Democratic strategist, depends on a “lack of understanding about what it means to be a Democrat or a Republican or, rather, any kind of a Democrat or Republican” and on a “lack of appreciation for how and who they are.”

What this Democratic strategist doesn’t say is that Trump has been far and away the most popular politician since John F. Kennedy took the podium in 1960 — and he’s probably on track to win re-election in 2020.

This fact, not to mention the current Democratic nominee, Joe Biden’s apparent inability to communicate basic facts to the American public even on the front page of the most prestigious newspaper in the country, is why Democrats are in the position they’re in today.

The real problem: Democrats have allowed their identity politics to get in the way of their ability to win an election that in all likelihood will not be contested at all. In other words, Democrats are so out of touch with voters that they’ve let their base and identity politics get in the way of winning the presidency.

In some ways, Trump seems to be doing a bit better than his predecessor, Barack Obama: Trump has lost the presidency by the same margin that Obama lost in 2012. However, Trump’s “losing” the presidency is less a defeat than it is a case

Leave a Comment