With Donald Trump coming in behind Hillary Clinton by an 11-point margin in not one but two major national polls this week, the blaming season is upon us and the recriminations have already begun. And with Trump increasingly seeing the writing on the wall, the excuse-making has begun in earnest.
In July, I wrote that I expected Trump to go on a Nov. 9th tweetstorm blaming “the Establishment” for his loss. Turns out my error was simply that I missed the date by a month.
But does Trump have a point? If Trump loses, will he have Reince Priebus and Paul Ryan’s lukewarm support to blame? Do nominees deserve the support of their fellow partisans, hell or high water?
Let’s go back to the roots of the Case for Trumpism in the GOP in the first place. In both 2008 and 2012, Republicans failed to put together a large enough coalition to win the White House. While in midterm elections, individual candidates adapting a Republican message to their own state and district were able to enjoy victories, the national Republican message had not worked at the presidential level. The search was then on: How can the Republican Party grow its ranks of supporters?
Actions do not happen in a vacuum, of course. In the business world, cater to a new type of customer and you risk alienating your core customer base. If a restaurant shakes up its menu to reach a new clientele, do the old diners go elsewhere? If a company reformulates its product to try to hit a new market, do they lose their former base? (When JCPenney tried to revamp its brand to hit a new market, it wound wind up losing its old customers and had to fight to undo the damage.)
Take a position to win one group of voters, and you risk losing your shot at voters with the opposite view. If you make protectionist trade policy a part of your platform, you may gain many union workers while only losing some white-collar voters. If you make a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants a part of your platform, you may gain some Latino voters while losing some immigration hawks. If you come out as brash and vulgar and politically incorrect, you may endear yourself to a group of voters hungry for that style, while also repelling those who were in your party who can’t stomach that shtick.
When advocating for my party to take a more tolerant stance on LGBT issues or to put forward some kind of plan that allows otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants to stay here, I often meet resistance in the form of political calculation. “Wouldn’t doing these things just mean pointlessly chasing voters we can never win, all while losing our core supporters in the process?” Beyond the important question of whether the policies are right or wrong, the political question is a valid one: If I really want to create a majority, don’t I need to be sure that the changes we make would add more than they’d subtract?
This is exactly why watching the Trump experiment fail has been so illuminating. Trump explicitly campaigned on the idea that he was engaged in a game of addition: Addition of a “silent majority” of mostly white, mostly very anxious voters who felt disenfranchised. To be sure, there are a lot out there, and if actually activated could be a formidable force. There was a market for what Trump was selling.
But was the new market for Trumpism greater than the voters who would be lost in the process? Surely, even Trump cheerleaders knew that not everyone in the party was buying what he was selling. But the argument is always this: that “Never Trump” is just a few bitter elites at a Washington cocktail party, and losing their five votes will be nothing in the Vast Trump Wave that is about to wash over America. Explicitly, the argument was that Trump could afford to alienate those of us with more delicate sensibilities, because he would bring in more than he’d lose. Net-net, he’d add, not subtract.
Well here we are. Trump’s actions turned off exactly the folks you’d expect them to. And it’s energized exactly the folks you’d expect it to. Trump’s boosters shouted from the rooftops that he was bringing in new voters, and that whoever was sore about the way he did it could march straight out the door for all they cared, because the real majority was coming together. But he’s lost more than he’s gained, due to actions entirely of his own making.
Millions may have voted for Trump in the primaries. Millions may turn out for him in the general. But millions more will likely vote against him.
Trump gambled that he’d gain more than he’d lose. He was wrong. And when he loses, he and his champions will have only themselves to blame.
Kristen Soltis Anderson is a columnist for The Washington Examiner and author of “The Selfie Vote.”
