13 October 2016
True Colours
Four weeks to go
by J.R.Thomas
There are two strands of opinion on what Donald Trump is about. Well, there are a lot more, but they certainly fall into two schools of thought. One is that The Donald is actually an astute carefully calculating politician, adept at reading the popular mood and playing to it. So all that glitz and outrageous outspokenness is his channelling of what a certain section of the electorate want to hear, his crafted building of a constituency of electors that will deliver him the majority of electoral college votes he needs next month. As Hillary corrals a rainbow alliance of minority groups and the Democrat traditional heartlands of the liberal-left east and west seaboard, so Donald is gathering up all those outside Hillary’s big tent. Which means in particular, it is not difficult to deduce, blue collar white males. Demographic voting is of course much more complex than that, but as shorthand for voting blocs, it is not a bad summary.
This theory accommodates the Trump history, of being intelligent and resourceful enough to make large sums of money in running a complex business empire, and also explains the Donald’s long and close friendships with a range of liberal and East Coast politicians and activists – including Mr and Mrs Clinton. It even gives additional fuel to your correspondent’s favourite conspiracy theory – that the Trump campaign is designed to let Hillary win – though that may be going wrong – he could yet do it himself. But good movies have been based on worse plots – Being There, where Peter Sellers, as the manipulated innocent gardener caught in the world of politics, ends up as President, sets the precedent.
The other school of thought is that what you are seeing is exactly what you are in danger of getting. Mr Trump is unfocused, has no core set of values, is unmanageable either by himself or his team, and trots out whatever comes into his head. What he trots out just happens to accord, for the moment, with what a good chunk of the electorate happens to think; and they like his outrageous lashing of an establishment that seems to have failed America. He is, in short, a populist, a type familiar to the political system in the nineteenth century, culminating perhaps in Theodore Roosevelt before the First World War, before the professional politicians took over.
The Republican Party does not like either theory. The GOP has been stolen, a sensation that must be akin to that of a millionaire whose grand motor yacht is purloined by a drunk now seen steering it directly toward a reef. But then they ask hopefully, is helmsman Trump actually well in control? Prior to the first televised Presidential debate Mr Trump seemed to be developing a mien which was almost statesmanlike. The word from his campaign offices was that his new team was working well together and that Mr T was listening to its advice. Then he hit the reef of the first debate, badly prepared, lacking coherency or polish, flailing and easily provoked. Hope sank.
Last week saw the Vice Presidential debate, between Mr Trump’s chosen one Mike Pence, and Hillary’s selection, Tim Kaine. Neither of these two were obvious choices; not especially well known, with no great followings nationally or regionally. Both are middle aged white married Catholics. But, given the age of both of their Presidential candidates, it is not impossible that whoever finds themselves with that White House outer office next year could end up moving into the Oval Office; or being well positioned after a single term presidency to be the lead candidate in 2020. Mr Pence in particular is thought to have ambitions for greater things.
So the debate got more attention than Vice –Presidential debates sometimes do; and Mr Pence emerged a clear winner. Mr Kaine was aggressive and noisy, whilst Mr Pence was thoughtful, calm and witty. The post-debate opinion polls called it a clear victory for Pence. The Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway was particularly loud in her praise for Mr Pence, making several points about his preparation and calmness (“are you listening, boss?”). Was Donald listening? He was certainly watching – retweeting a message that Mr Kaine looked like “an evil crook out of the Batman movies”.
This piece began with an allusion to the demographics of voter coalitions. Traditionally such considerations were less important – although historically the Democrat Party was strong in the south where it captured the black vote because of its support for equal rights and desegregation but also the white vote because of its historic roots in the Confederacy – a bizarre meld indeed. It could not and did not last, and in the 1960’s the white south moved to become a generally loyal component of the GOP, as it remains. But across the rest of the country there is little evidence of voters behaving on identity group lines. Mr Trump though has stacked up the demographics against himself. He has (so far) stolen the Democrat white blue collar vote in the north east and pulled the small town mid American vote in his direction. He has lost the Hispanic group vote in a big way – this is a group that has in the past leaned more Republican than Democrat but not this time, not at Presidential level (it may well be different at the Senate and House elections). But if he loses and conducts an inquest into why – we don’t see Mr Trump as spending much time on post mortems, but his team might – it may occur to him that he has managed to lose another group where the Republicans traditionally do well, women.
That is probably less to do with Trumpian policies and more to do with the way Mr Trump has been portrayed as relating to women. He is not, so far as one can tell, an exponent of modern political correctness in behaviour between the sexes, and he has had a couple of very public fights with women during this campaign which have not gone down well with female voters. That does erode a natural support group; especially against a woman looking to make history as the first woman President.
Mrs Clinton has tasted blood on this issue. Whether it was a coincident news editor’s memory of eleven years ago, or a nugget carefully salted away and let rip with brilliant timing to impact the Sunday night Presidential debate, Mr Trump is well and truly back-footed. Banter that was no doubt funny at the time is bad taste in the modern public arena. All Donald could do is fight back with Bill’s indiscretions. It was a strategy that worked as well as any could, confronting Hillary with her husbands alleged past. Donald looked vaguely on a higher moral knoll than Hillary, who looked off balance and made no attempt to defend her husband. But what a sleezy mess for two candidates to grapple in. The debate was probably a draw, but, as the top brass run away from the Trump tent, things do not look good for the big man.
But Donald need not be entirely gloomy. We have occasionally touched on the two significant minority candidates, Jill Stein for the Greens and Gary Johnson for the Libertarians. They both had some success in the opinion polls, the Libertarians getting up to around 9% nationally, and the Greens around 4%. But they peaked – Ms Stein around the time she admitting painting graffiti on a pipeline worksite, Mr Johnson after failing on national TV to name any overseas premiers or presidents. As the election approaches those votes are melting; at a guess the Green vote into Mrs Clinton’s mixed pie, and the Libertarian’s presumably reject the state by staying home, or voting for Donald. That may benefit Donald more than Hillary. The other dozen or so candidates (hello Nuitrition Party, running only in Colorado), have not troubled the pollsters. In a tight contest, how minority votes move to the two major parties could determine the election. Four weeks to go, folks!
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