Thread by @magi_jay

Elections are complicated, as are shifting coalitions, but I think a lot of the preconditions for Trump's victory were in place in 2008/2012. The GOP just didn't realize it, nor had they found the right candidate. Their base was already the party of Palin/Trump, not McCain/Romney

I don't think white working class voters moved away from Dems after 2012 in substantial numbers b/c of specific policies. They were already moving away, but there were still some pockets of Blue Dogs in the Midwest who disliked GOP candidates more than the Democratic party.

Romney/Ryan were especially weak in this regard. The GOP base was not about conservative economics--they didn't really like these policies--they were already about culture wars. Trump as a candidate flipped a switch that was already years in the making.

Look at Palin. People don't believe me, but other Alaskans will back me up: She changed when she got to the national stage. Maybe she was always like that internally, but her outward behavior was influenced by the GOP audience. She didn't change the base, the base changed her.

2008 was an outlier for Democrats. Obama was a unique candidate. Yes, b/c as a Black man, he was making history. But also he is just a uniquely talented individual. Importantly, *young* voters--who are unreliable, but lean Dem--had never seen any politician speak like him.

In the meantime, Bush was not just uniquely unpopular, but he was hated *among the GOP base*. His politics were not their politics anymore. Nor were McCain's. Add a recession to that & more working class white people chose the Democrat, even though many were racist towards him.

So a lot did happen btwn 2008 & 2016, but I think we're missing a big piece of the puzzle when we ignore the nascent forces in the GOP. They were already Trump's party. Many factors--like a Black man in power--brought what lay beneath to the surface. We see that, again, w/ Palin.

White working class voters have been trending GOP since the 60's. There have been blips (Bill Clinton; Obama: 2008), but the trend is there.

What we forget is, while many of these white working class voters loved Reagan-types, they *hated* Romney types. In a forced choice between a Romney-Type & a Democrat, a sliver of these voters could go either way

Yet all of those voters love Trump. It's like he freed them.

Again, I talked a lot about 2008-2016, but all of this starts in the 60s. As party realignment was underway post-Civil Rights, George Wallace was strong in the midwest & Nixon & Humphrey were in direct competition for those 3rd party votes. These voters didn't like either party.