Arkady
President
I think that when historians look back at the 2016 election, the rise of Trump will seem like an inevitability -- someone like him was bound to take over the GOP, it was just a question of when. The reason for that was a clear opening in the Republican strategy. Going back to Nixon, the GOP used the so-called "Southern Strategy" of appealing to bigotry to get working class whites to support the policies of the oligarchs who exploit them. The way the strategy worked for so many years was to keep the appeals coded. It was all about the "dog whistles" that the racists, xenophobes, and religious bigots would hear, to signal to them that the GOP was more aligned with them, without coming right out and making it overt. So, for example, you might start a political campaign with a states-rights speech near the site of an infamous murder of civil rights workers by white supremacists, so people could connect the dots and understand whose side you were on, but you would be careful not to decode the anti-civil-rights appeal of "states rights."
The clear opening that left was for someone to step in and ignore the unwritten rule that you don't make that sales pitch too explicit. Trump showed up, called Mexican immigrants rapists, used anti-semitic iconography, called for religious discrimination against Muslims, etc. His more frank appeal to the base's basest instincts proved unbeatable for those still trying to keep the bigotry on the down low. It was inevitable someone would eventually seize that opportunity to go full-bigot to win the GOP -- it was just a question of how long the unspoken arrangement not to do so would hold up before some amoral opportunist broke ranks.
So, the question is this -- is there a similar opening among Democrats? Is there some unspoken sales pitch the Dems have been making long-term that an ambitious demagogue could come along and just say outright, seizing the nomination? I can think of examples that would be roughly parallel, but I doubt they'd work out the same way. For example, Democrats generally avoid using openly redistributionist rhetoric of the sort you see from actual communists, even though they pitch more subtly to similar sentiments. They might call John McCain out for owning so many houses that he has lost track of how many he has, and doing that may make an implicit promise that they'll favor policies that work against such excessive pooling of wealth. But, they don't come right out and say they're going to seize all the "extra houses" and distribute them to the homeless. There's clearly an opening for a more fiery lefty to come along and do exactly that -- pitching the dog whistle way down to where it can be undeniably heard by all.
Would that work? If a lefty demagogue channeled Trump-style vicious rhetoric towards the wealthy, and started making elaborate, unrealistic promises to the base (like Trump's magic wall to be paid for by Mexico), would the dispossessed masses line up for the candidate? If a lefty Trump spoke the previously unspoken, would he or she actually run away with the nomination the way Trump did?
The clear opening that left was for someone to step in and ignore the unwritten rule that you don't make that sales pitch too explicit. Trump showed up, called Mexican immigrants rapists, used anti-semitic iconography, called for religious discrimination against Muslims, etc. His more frank appeal to the base's basest instincts proved unbeatable for those still trying to keep the bigotry on the down low. It was inevitable someone would eventually seize that opportunity to go full-bigot to win the GOP -- it was just a question of how long the unspoken arrangement not to do so would hold up before some amoral opportunist broke ranks.
So, the question is this -- is there a similar opening among Democrats? Is there some unspoken sales pitch the Dems have been making long-term that an ambitious demagogue could come along and just say outright, seizing the nomination? I can think of examples that would be roughly parallel, but I doubt they'd work out the same way. For example, Democrats generally avoid using openly redistributionist rhetoric of the sort you see from actual communists, even though they pitch more subtly to similar sentiments. They might call John McCain out for owning so many houses that he has lost track of how many he has, and doing that may make an implicit promise that they'll favor policies that work against such excessive pooling of wealth. But, they don't come right out and say they're going to seize all the "extra houses" and distribute them to the homeless. There's clearly an opening for a more fiery lefty to come along and do exactly that -- pitching the dog whistle way down to where it can be undeniably heard by all.
Would that work? If a lefty demagogue channeled Trump-style vicious rhetoric towards the wealthy, and started making elaborate, unrealistic promises to the base (like Trump's magic wall to be paid for by Mexico), would the dispossessed masses line up for the candidate? If a lefty Trump spoke the previously unspoken, would he or she actually run away with the nomination the way Trump did?
