The 2016 election pre-mortem
You’re going to die anyway; it may well be this election that kills you. At least you might know the cause of death ahead of time, and there’s some comfort in that.
It’s late Sunday night. Not just any Sunday: it’s the 6th of November, 2016 — election-day eve eve. I, a resident of the District of Columbia, am here in Pennsylvania visiting my family. My home is the furthest thing from a battleground — Hillary is a lock for our three electoral votes, Congresswoman Norton is running virtually unopposed against a Green and a Libertarian for the privilege of visiting Congress and never voting for the next two years — but I’d be lying, though, if I were to make it seem like there was nothing interesting on our ballot. We’re being asked if the District of Columbia should become the State of New Columbia. Sure, why not get in line behind Puerto Rico?
But Pennsylvania is a different world being the quintessential battleground. Notoriously, the commonwealth is split into its urban cores — Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and the smaller Allentown and Harrisburg — and the large swath of land in the middle referred to both lovingly and derisively as Pennsyltucky.
It’s not hard for me to figure out which part my family lives in — in the ten or so miles leading to my parents’ home, I counted thirteen Trump or Trump/Pence or #MAGA signs planted in the ground. You get a good sense for where a community stands on a candidate when their signage turns up at a rate better than one-per-mile. Welcome to Pennsyltucky.
Of course, that’s just me stereotyping, right? Not even a subtle stereotype: look at the dumb hicks voting for Trump! You know what they mean by MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, right!? The high-minded liberal that I am, it’s easy for me to dismiss their support of Donald J. Trump as an expression of their faults or flaws, read specifically as their racism or sexism or xenophobia or bigotedness. I don’t lose much sleep for my generalizations.
A thirty-minute drive from my family’s house sits Allentown, the All-American City that lent its name to the Billy Joel song about neighboring Bethlehem. (This is a true, irrefutable fact.) Allentown and the surrounding Lehigh Valley encapsulate the unusual challenge to my stereotype about Trump supporters. Like a lot of rust belt cities and regions, manufacturing left the Lehigh Valley hard — formerly a world-center for steel (Bethlehem) and trucks (Mack), the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton region of Pennsylvania was decimated by the exit of American industry. A drive down U.S. 222 to Reading tells an even worse story — Reading, Pennsylvania is the poorest of cities with a population of 65,000 or more in the nation.
Here, then, is the rub — these communities are reliably Democratic, historically, but presidential-hopeful Trump’s message of “bad deals” and “China” and “something something great again” actually resonates. If people don’t outright reject Trump and what he’s saying, they’re at least pausing and listening, even for a moment.
Let’s apply my same, completely unscientific test to these areas of Pennsylvania — whose signs are on the porches and in the lawns of people closer to Center City Allentown? It must be Clinton — Trump is enticing, but the Dems will be soldiers for their party.
Truth be told, though? No one had signs out at all.
No, that’s not the whole truth. I saw some Clinton/Kaine and Stronger Together signage, but it was nowhere near the thirteen-per-ten miles clip I saw for Trump in the sticks. Even if it’s not a good way to measure support, this is a good way to measure enthusiasm for a candidate, and wow does Donald Trump have some enthusiastic supporters. All the while, Clinton’s supporters rate somewhere between meh and okay, I’ll vote, please stop emailing me about how my area needs six more people to knock on doors or chip in $1. This does not include your Amy Schumer’s and Jay-Z’s, naturally — celebrity support this cycle is the far outlier to the norm.
Our pre-mortem of this year’s presidential election starts here — how does the very noticeable enthusiasm gap translate to a post-election world?
Much has been said about why this enthusiasm gap exists: chiefly, that Hillary Clinton just doesn’t strike chords with her fans the way Donald does with his, and this is almost certainly true. That theory doesn’t explain the very similar enthusiasm gap that existed between Clinton and her leading primary challenger Bernie Sanders. (To be transparent, I supported and volunteered for Senator Sanders during the primaries.) I’m a believer that there’s always a lowest common denominator, be it a numerical fraction or a presidential candidate who is seemingly well-equipped to win but just can’t get good traction with those who should fervently support her. Allow me to theorize: Clinton hasn’t struck a chord among the electorate, even among her base, because her challengers have and are speaking the voters’ language more fluently than she is.
It’s not hard to buy in to this theory, especially if you extend it back to the primaries — even for all of the machinations that Hillary supporters will admit tipped the vote for the Democratic nomination in her favor, Bernie Sanders put up a fantastic-if-disorganized fight. Really, for someone who didn’t stand a chance, he almost had a chance. Why? Because he spoke the liberal language better than Hillary Clinton ever has, and the enthusiasm his supporters had for his campaign demonstrated that fact well. Sanders’ greatest victory heading into the convention this summer didn’t come from any of the 23 primaries he won. Sanders came out a winner by making the eventual Democratic nominee campaign like an underdog for the first half of 2016.
Now, enter Trump. He’s claimed that he could kill someone in the middle of the street and lose none of his supporters. Donald Trump is not wrong, frighteningly so, and the enthusiasm his supporters have for him is testament to (and the reason for) this. Perhaps this near-deification of Trump by his presumptive voters when paired with the fervent support previously given Sanders can explain the comparable lack of enthusiasm Clinton enjoys better than simply positing that Hillary is just bad at getting people excited about Hillary.
Again, no, that’s not wholly true to say. Hillary is bad at getting people excited about Hillary, but that lends less to her enthusiasm deficit than the influence of her opponents. Consider it this way: Clinton supporters might be louder and prouder if Trump and Sanders before him weren’t saying something that flipped that switch in their brains that makes them go hey, yeah, that’s right and then why isn’t my candidate saying this? The obvious caveat applies — if you’re a steadfast, excited, sign-displaying Clinton supporter, you’re not in this subset of the electorate. Nothing Trump says is going to allow him any benefit of the doubt with you.
Giving me the benefit of the doubt, however, isn’t too hard I hope. Let’s agree on the merits of my theory and envision a Tuesday night that meets us with President-elect Clinton. It’s not impossible to think that Clinton’s missing enthusiasm continues to be missing even through a Democratic victory, and before you say not so, let’s revisit the Lehigh Valley. In early October, Muhlenberg College and The Morning Call, Allentown’s daily newspaper, conducted a survey of likely voters in the Valley. When it came down to which candidate would be getting the voters’ votes, Hillary had the advantage, 47% to 40%. That’s not the key data point produced by this survey.
Liar. When asked to ascribe one word to Hillary Clinton, this is what 32% of the respondents said. Now, it can absolutely be argued that you may describe Clinton as a liar without someone explicitly encouraging you to call her a liar. I’d contend, though, that Donald Trump’s “Crooked Hillary” campaign has done more than a little damage here. Really, you don’t get excited about a candidate; you get excited about a person. “Liar” is something we expect of our politicians — there was nothing earth-shattering about Hillary Clinton’s admission that a politician sometimes has conflicting public and private positions — but as a component of a person’s character, liar can be a dealbreaker. Donald, as is his wont, made it personal: Crooked Hillary is a crooked liar who is crooked. Here, then, is another altar-call moment for Clinton supporters: I don’t like him, but maybe he’s got a point. Enthusiasm repressed.
And why would that enthusiasm suddenly surge with a Clinton win? Yes, she’s won, but who is she? A liar? Someone who doesn’t really stand for what I stand for? Bernie said it better, or Donald said it in a way that didn’t make me feel all that gross. In an election where the majority of voters are holding their noses to do so, no one is going to be entirely happy, but there’s a large group of people who will be entirely unhappy.
Donald J. Trump’s enthusiastic coalition — you know the ones who put up a lot of signs on short stretches of rural highway — will be punched in the gut on Tuesday night, assuming a Clinton victory. That enthusiasm, at that level, doesn’t just dissipate. Where does it go? Well, a lot of it will turn outward: the claims of vote rigging and fraud will come fast and hot, be sure of that. A lot more will turn inward: the GOP as we know it will be on life support not only because Trump lost but because more than 40% of the party will be utterly disaffected. Self loathing doesn’t make for a strong party, and while the conservatives and neo-conservatives and arch-conservatives might take some solace in getting their party back, they’ll be receiving it with a broken coalition and a steep, uphill climb back to the White House (and pretty likely control of the Senate, too).
Thus, the morning of November 9 proves to be an interesting one. Democrats miserable after a victory, and Republicans miserable in defeat — miserable and agitated.
We can assume that Donald J. Trump, by benefit of all his social media presences, will not go quietly into the night. Being fair, we can’t assume that he’ll even give a proper concession speech. (I’m sure it would be the best concession speech if he does give one.) This is only going to encourage his dejected supporters to keep acting up, but November 9th is going to give way to November 10th and December 1st and, eventually, January 20th. It is a presumed truth that Trump will have to, at some point, just go away. Can he, though?
The trouble with Trump — does a celebrity candidate become a celebrity elder statesman or a celebrity rabble rouser?
The closest modern analogue to Trump is, to the dismay of Ted Cruz, Ronald Reagan, and to Cruz’s delight, he is a poor analogue at that.
Yes, Reagan like Trump was not born into the political class. Reagan spent his life as an actor, and his most relevant executive experience prior to becoming Governor of California was his time as President of the Screen Actors Guild. Trump spent his life as… Actually, I’m not sure. He says he was a carpenter. He’s been a real estate developer. He’s been an executive. He’s been a reality television star. Mostly, I think, he’s been an heir. He doesn’t come to the presidential election with the same bona fides as Reagan, but you can say they come from the same (or at least similar) outsider position.
Reagan, of course, did not lose the election to Jimmy Carter in 1980, but that wasn’t his first time in presidential politics. Unelected President Gerald Ford faced Regan in the highly contested 1976 Republican primary. Ford defeated Reagan by a slim margin of 117 delegates, a result that still didn’t let on how close the race truly was. Seeing the victory in his defeat, Reagan saw an opportunity to stick around. Instead of walking away, he consolidated his power by forming a political action committee and remaining on the public stage — before and after the primaries in 1976, Reagan was a proto-Rush Limbaugh of sorts, evangelising conservatism on the radio. This served him well come the next presidential election.
Likewise, Trump will still have his celebrity, as he had before the election. Who of us comprise his audience remains the question as our understanding and perception of him is now shown in more distinguished light. Pre-2016 Trump was passably lecherous because we expected so little of him — most Americans aren’t pointing to Donald Trump as he yells “you’re fired” at George Takei and telling their children to aspire to that as they grow up. Present-day Donald Trump, though, is met with the impossible task of still being that lech from 2005 now cast as a major party’s candidate for President and held to the standards that come with it.
As an aside, who are we to be disgusted by this? We all knew Donald Trump, right? — the Stern interviews, the Playboy spreads, the marriages, the adultery, the divorces, the tweets (oh god, the tweets). This man was nothing but what we already knew of him. Not to give him a pass, but this outrage about Donald J. Trump was better placed at the end of 2015 as he was positioning himself as a legitimate person to hold the office of President of the United States. Instead, I recall half of Republicans panicking that this might be their guy, the other half of Republicans exhilarated that this might be their guy, and we Democrats absolutely beside ourselves that THIS MIGHT BE THEIR GUY!!!!! Now, then, here we are.
For the voters on that ten-mile stretch of road leading to my parents’ house, Donald Trump’s self-incriminating statements made to Billy Bush in assumed private aren’t going to sway them away — they’re loyal, and they doubtless see this lack of political (really, social) correctness as one way Trump is going to make America great again. These people become the core of Trump’s new, post-election audience, but that’s no surprise. Instead, Trump’s relationship with this group may bear the surprise: before the election, these people were not staying at Trump’s resort properties or playing a round at Trump’s golf clubs. Trump does luxury; Trump’s supporters are not luxury consumers. This is the bottom line for Donald Trump, literally and figuratively. Donald Trump the Brand has suffered at the expense of Donald Trump the Candidate. He may well be left with only his political supporters as his rhetoric keeps his paying customers away. To that end, how much longer does Trump continue playing politician, and how much longer does Trump keep his supporters on the hook? What’s more, how long does Donald Trump remain a Republican?
That’s cutting almost too directly to the heart of it. Donald Trump has been a Democrat or a Republican as it suits him. (Trump’s primary opponents would go so far here as to note that he specifically was a Clinton supporter in the past.) He’s not ever going to be a Democrat again, and Republicans eager to restore the status quo ante bellum will be quick to overwrite in their history that year-and-a-half where Trump and his chaos led the party to the abyss. Donald Trump, by this time next week, will be a political leader without a political party to lead. Much can be done as an independent — Ross Perot taught us that. But no one wants to contend as an independent — Ross Perot taught us that, too.
Does Donald Trump form a new party? Conventional wisdom suggests he doesn’t, but what at all is conventional about Donald Trump? More likely, he’ll try to do as Reagan did — take to Twitter and television and maybe radio, form a PAC, try to influence. Besides, why would Trump want to play in the kids’ pool that is the non-major parties in the U.S.?
An unmitigated disaster. If The Morning Call got me on the phone and asked me for a word or two to describe the third- and fourth-party campaigns this year, that’s what I would give them. What a lost opportunity — the Libertarians, for the second time behind Gary Johnson, and the Green Party, for the second time behind Dr. Jill Stein, had the best opportunity since Perot in 1992 to spoil the election for someone. If the polls hold, neither will. Johnson had a chance (and, yes, maybe Jill did, too) at the vaunted 5% — the percent of the popular vote needed to get public funding in 2020. Johnson will likely not hit the mark. One wonders if these parties ever will.
Our pre-mortem ends here — America does not have a two-party system, but when will the other parties actually prove that’s true?
Bernie! they cried. Run with Jill! Run as an independent! Run as a Democratic Socialist! Just run! That was never going to happen, but the ideologues that were swept up in the Bern still made the case for it. Honestly, could he have made a dent? Yes, unreservedly. It is clear in hindsight that Bernie Sanders the independent/Green/Democratic Socialist would have cleared 5% of the popular vote. The question Sanders no doubt asked himself when considering this is at what cost? Committed as he has made himself plain to be in preventing Donald Trump from becoming President, the cost was exactly that. The number of Clinton voters switching to Sanders would have been greater than the number of Trump supporters making the same switch. The election would be lost for both Clinton and Sanders. (The prospect of becoming chair of the Senate Budget Committee also loomed large over his decision, I’m sure.)
If not Bernie, who? We had two options, each with some clear benefits depending on where you fall on the political spectrum. Former Governor, former Republican, Libertarian Gary Johnson is tailor made — or rather, tailored himself to be tailor made — for the #NeverTrump Republican. He checks a lot of boxes, and he even went ahead and checked some of the boxes he didn’t check the first time through — fiscally conservative, proponent of States’ rights, Bill Weld makes the ticket solidly neo-conservative. (Bill Weld also now endorses Hillary Clinton rather than the person above him on the ticket, but who’s counting that?) For a conservative, you just had to look past the marijuana. For everyone else, you just have to look past the fact that he didn’t know what Aleppo was, that he can’t name another foreign leader, and that he might have a little bit of a temper. Gary Johnson held, at one point, 9% of the vote according to polls. Going into election Tuesday, not so much.
Dr. Stein must be better, though! The Green Party leader is the natural transition out of major-party politics for the Bernie Sanders supporter — staunchly anti-war, fights for the cause of those burdened with student loan debt, brought human rights activist Ajamu Baraka on to the ticket. For a checked-out Johnson supporter, she naturally promotes pot legalization, so you’re even covered there. You’re also covered by wifi signals, which might be making our children sick, like vaccinations. Et tu, Dr. Stein?
That of course is a simplification of both candidates. Neither is truly that inept — Johnson was an able Governor of New Mexico with quite a few budgetary accomplishments to his credit; Stein graduated from and instructed at Harvard Medical School. Johnson and Stein are not slouches by any definition, but they can’t campaign, not against Hillary Clinton and not even against Donald Trump. These two minor parties in the hands of more apt campaigners might have seen more success, especially in a year where voters from both parties are leaving the booth on Tuesday in misery.
What’s next for the Libertarians and the Greens? If anything, better bottom-up organization. For the Green Party this may be an opportunity already missed — Bernie Sanders has begun the work of bottom-up organizing through OurRevolution. Troubled as OurRevolution’s start has been (a number of the staff quit at launch), it will be effective, especially with Sanders at the top. With other progressive leaders such as Hawaii’s Tulsi Gabbard and a resurgent Russ Feingold at his side, the Democrats are poised to take back whatever inroads the Green Party might have made in the wake of Sanders’ primary loss.
The Libertarians are presented with a more clear chance at gaining ground. To many, the Libertarian Party is “Republican Light” — almost proving this idea, the two candidates on this year’s Libertarian ticket are former Republican governors. The disarray in the Republican party makes an opening for Libertarians to find common ground with their fiscally conservative friends and make bigger their tent. Still, they need to start at the bottom and work up to the White House — a Libertarian Congressperson or Senator would be a good start in establishing legitimacy for the party.
Whatever they do, each party must part ways with their quadrennial candidates. Johnson and Stein have served their parties, but it’s not apparent that they’ve served their parties well. A third go for these candidates will make 2020 just as futile for the Libertarians and the Greens as was 2016.
We’re not dead yet, of course. Tuesday brings our reckoning, and there’s a lot of time between now and then. What if there are more emails? What if there’s another recorded conversation? What if there’s another bout of pneumonia? What if there are more tweets?
There’s no predicting the future, but we can have a good idea of what’s to come by looking back at what’s already been. Has anything close to this ever happened? Yes! Maybe — the election of 1836 featured a political party building its platform with the lone plank of not wanting Martin Van Buren to become President. The Whigs were so focused on this one goal, they didn’t bother to rally around anything else. (I hope you’re drawing neat lines of comparison to this cycle’s Republican party with me.) The intraparty fighting was so bad they held no convention and ended up putting four Whig candidates on the ballot. (The Republicans had many candidates compete in the primaries, officially have only one candidate, but the party is similarly fractured with a second unofficial Republican candidate on the ballot in Utah.)
The result in 1836: Martin Van Buren won the election.
The result in 2016: to be determined, though I think my pre-mortem made some safe predictions. If I’m wrong, I promise to write a fully corrected post-mortem on January 20th when President Gary Johnson is inaugurated.
Come on, I won’t be wrong about everything.
I hope.
