Donald Trump spent the past week doing his level best to hit all the hot-button issues that helped him win over a small but ultimately decisive slice of the electorate through the Rust Belt region in 2016. But as November approaches, the very same issues that wooed white working class voters to his side are galvanizing a coalition on the left that promises to overwhelm Trump's 35 percent sliver of dead enders.
What Trump largely tapped into in 2016 was an ugly and virulent strain of anti-immigrant sentiment that represented something bigger than immigration. It was a festering nostalgia for a bygone era in which the promise of America's future gleamed brighter in the eyes of white men. Everyone else was left to benefit from that promise by degrees of how closely situated they were to the white patriarchy. But the forces that once churned in Trump's favor have produced an equally powerful and emotionally resonant set of issues that are driving 2018 in the exact opposite direction. And just like the emotional charge that helped Trump shock pollsters and defy political gravity, the countervailing jolt promises to be just as extraordinary.
Much of that force has been driven by Trump's comportment as president continually putting an exclamation point on two major issues—racism and misogyny. Last week was no exception. When the White House convened a roundtable on law enforcement last Tuesday, Trump framed immigration purely as a debate about stopping violence. He repeatedly referenced "killers" and the notorious Salvadoran gang MS-13, as if they were representative of the greater immigrant population.
"If we don’t change the legislation, if we don’t get rid of these loopholes where killers are allowed to come into our country and continue to kill—gang members," Trump said, linking immigration measures to the government funding bill, "If we don’t change it, let’s have a shutdown. We’ll do a shutdown. And it’s worth it for our country."
Naturally, it was all a stunt for him. Congressional lawmakers ignored him entirely—a necessity for passing legislation these days—and when a spending bill reached his desk that included nothing about immigration, he signed it anyway. For Trump, the essence of his rant existed outside the machinations of legislating. Indeed, it was the racist spirit of his message rather than the letter of the law that mattered to him.
But what Trump hasn't factored into his electoral equation going forward is that voters who vehemently reject his nativism have now tuned into the real import of his words, even if he doesn't know the first thing about governing. As Matt Barreto of the polling firm Latino Decisions wrote for the New York Times Monday, hateful Trumpian attacks on immigrants have been hurting GOP candidates such as Virginia's Ed Gillespie more than it’s been helping them in key elections.
In Virginia, polling data has made it clear that Mr. Gillespie’s MS-13 rhetoric backfired among minority voters as well as, crucially, among many whites. Mr. Northam won a majority of white college-educated voters, who made up a larger share of the electorate in 2017 than they did in 2016. Mr. Gillespie matched Mr. Trump with noncollege whites, but their turnout was down. And minority voters in 2017 matched their 2016 electorate share — for the first time ever there was no drop-off from the presidential to the gubernatorial election. [...]
According to an election eve survey of voters by Latino Decisions, Latino voters said that Mr. Gillespie’s MS-13 ads made them less enthusiastic about him, by a 45-point margin. But it wasn’t just Latino voters. By a 23-point margin (52 to 29), whites in Virginia also said the MS-13 ads turned them away from Mr. Gillespie, as did African-American and Asian-American voters by larger margins. (emphasis added)
In other words, opposition to the issues Trump has championed has become a unifying force.
Trump moved on from his race-baiting immigration rhetoric early in the week to send a giant missive to the #MeToo movement by week’s end. It went something like this: I don't believe women, respect women or think they're even worthy of consideration. The resignation of two Trump aides last week who had a history of emotionally and physically abusing their ex-wives reminded Americans that Trump—much like someone who doesn't like to drink alone—surrounds himself with men who treat women like he does: as property. Men's gratification is their only reason for being.
True to form, Trump saw the tragic stories of abuse entirely through the prism of a man wronged.
"Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation," he tweeted Saturday. "There is no recovery for someone falsely accused—life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?"
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has advocated against sexual assault and for transparency as a lawmaker, said what everyone who has known or been a target of sexual violence was thinking: "The lives of survivors of sexual assault and domestic abuse are being shattered every day."
Then she offered to take Trump up on his apparent call for fairness: "If he wants due process for the over dozen sexual assault allegations against him, let’s have Congressional hearings tomorrow. I would support that and my colleagues should too."
What Trump doesn't get is that the political tide has turned on him. It's not necessarily that people have changed their minds on the issues—it's that what he stands for is no longer a mystery. It's crystal clear.
In 2016, Trump continually served up racist, misogynist dog whistles to his base, and his base responded in kind. “Build the wall!” “Lock her up!” Though his dog whistles were shrill and plenty loud, Trump's fluidity and fungibility confused some voters and allowed others to ignore what they perhaps didn’t want to see. But after a year of watching Trump call neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville "very fine people," seeing his immigration policies literally tear families apart, and hearing him promote the candidacy of a serial sexual predator, there is no longer any doubt about who Trump really is. The not-so-subtle cues that may have slipped by some voters, the ridiculous debates about whether Trump is a racist or he’s just a “straight shooter,” are settled.
And importantly, rejecting bald racism and dogmatic misogyny transcends the realm of political issues—it is instead an ethos, an M.O., a matter of principle that speaks to a worldview rather than a set of policy points. Political issues become movements when they're about something bigger than a policy or a law. The issue of marriage equality swept the nation as a movement when it became a matter of freedom for a group of people that was being newly seen through a lens of humanity.
Standing in opposition to Trump has become an affirmation of a belief in liberty for everyone over the supremeness of one race or one gender dominating all. It is the reason why regions that gave Trump massive wins in 2016, from Wisconsin and Missouri to Alabama and Virginia, have consistently risen up and voted against him in elections since. And it’s also the reason why the very forces that propelled Trump to victory in 2016 will roll back over him and his party with an even greater ferocity this November.
