Donald Trump a populist? Wrong. Trump has nothing to do with Andrew Jackson or Huey Long. He has everything to do with Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the modern Republican Party. Trump is a Mixmaster blend of the right-wing Republican politics of the past 50 years. CONT. Sean Wilentz (Princeton), […] Read more »
Outsiders Stir Politics, but Often Fail to Win or Govern Well
… Presidential candidates always use Washington, Congress and political insiders as whipping boys in seeking to capitalize on voter discontent. But that approach has taken on an outsize influence in the 2016 race. … What makes this venerable theme so striking is how rarely it succeeds. The last nonpolitician to […] Read more »
Maybe This Time Really Is Different
… This election season provides a fascinating frame to see if the polarization in politics, from Washington to the states to the public, is no different than what we have seen in the past; if the angry populism evident especially on the right but also to some degree on the […] Read more »
2016 Outsiders and the Economic Roots of Voter Anger
The conventional wisdom holds that those “outsider” presidential candidates in both parties who are resonating with angry voters–Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and Ted Cruz (who casts himself as an outsider)–will eventually give way to more “electable” candidates. But the more those candidates rise in the polls, […] Read more »
Why Donald Trump Won’t Fold: Polls and People Speak
… A review of public polling, extensive interviews with a host of his supporters in two states and a new private survey that tracks voting records all point to the conclusion that Mr. Trump has built a broad, demographically and ideologically diverse coalition, constructed around personality, not substance, that bridges […] Read more »
What Donald Trump gets about the electorate
… What if Trump actually represents a sizable electorate that Beltway elites have marginalized? The data on this is pretty clear. Put simply: While most elite-funded and elite-supported Republicans want to increase immigration and decrease Social Security, a significant number of voters (across both parties) want precisely the opposite — […] Read more »