Great thread by @LarryGlickman pushing back against the idea that Trump ran as a “moderate” in 2016.
I’ll add one thought: If we want to explain Trump’s appeal, isolating his supposed socio-economic “moderation” from the context of white grievance politics is misleading.
I’ll add one thought: If we want to explain Trump’s appeal, isolating his supposed socio-economic “moderation” from the context of white grievance politics is misleading.
https://twitter.com/LarryGlickman/status/1503091786302033928
As @LarryGlickman shows, Trump’s occasional nods to preferring “moderation” on financial / socio-economic / entitlements issues were always in contrast with his actual policy platform. And even those disingenuous nods did not come in a vacuum, but as part of a larger promise.
That core promise at the heart of the Trumpian political project was to uphold white patriarchal dominance by whatever means necessary, to mobilize the state in order to put those pesky special-interest “identity groups” in their place. This is America, after all!
Within this context and on this basis, I’d argue that the message Trump voters heard and found attractive was not primarily one of “moderation” – but rather one of white herrenvolk welfare: “We” are deserving of social democracy, “they” are not!
The difference matters greatly. Not “I’m not going to cut welfare” - but “I’m not going to cut *your* welfare, but definitely *theirs*!” Not “He’ll make sure everybody has great health care” - but “He’ll make sure *we* have great health care while punishing *them*!”
You might want to argue that this still represented a break with the Paul-Ryan-style orthodoxy – although it’s crucial to note that even Paul Ryan conservatism always had strongly racialized components, and again, @LarryGlickman is right about how limited Trump’s divergence was.
In any case, “Trump ran as a moderate, and it was his moderation that attracted voters” is very different from “Trump combined his white grievance politics with a (mostly disingenuous) suggestion of white herrenvolk social democracy, which appealed to white conservatives.”
Finally, isolating Trump’s supposed “moderation” as the reason for his success suggests that he stumbled upon / innovated a genius new platform – when really, there is absolutely nothing new about rightwing demagogues outlining a vision of a white herrenvolk welfare state.
Large parts of white America turned on the idea of “welfare” when it was expanded to include traditionally marginalized groups. It’s always been about who deserves aid and protection and who doesn’t, and race has always been the key organizing principle behind that question.
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