You're likely correct about that although I maintain that a big chunk of that 70 million votes represents people who held nose, voted for Trump (even again, yeah) because they are
Republican-leaners on policy matters like taxes and deregulation.
I know it's hard to get one's mind around the idea of tolerating the behavior and motivations of this crew in the White House for the sake of policy expectations, but some voters do just see tax cuts and dereg as the linchpin of their political frameworks.
And...some voters see religious / social issues as determining their votes, even though they may not approve in the least of Trump as he presents personally.
Personally there's no way I can compartmentalize to quite that extent. Trump was always going to be a bridge too far for me, in so many ways. But I can almost understand it.
We've probably all voted for a presidential candidate in the past at least once or twice where their expected policies were preferential to those of the opposing party's candidate, even if looking at the candidates themselves we might even have felt like voting for the other guy.
Back in 1988 I was very conflicted before the election because I had a lot of respect for Bush 41 as a person. But I preferred the policies of the Democrats to what looked like could be an extension of Reagan policies by Bush, although "maybe not", I told myself. And I didn't much care for Dukakis personally; I thought he was wrapped way too tight, although I admired his progressive track record in Massachusetts.
Then Bush throws a wrench into the picture with that Willie Horton ad, which made me loathe him and his campaign staff and his party. Then Dukakis answers an outrageous question in debate about a hypothetical rape and murder of his wife: would he favor the death penalty, and Dukakis answered it with about as much emotional engagement as if he'd merely been asked what he thought of last year's Farm Bill, or did he like chicken or tuna salad better and why. I was like WTF man, why are you not shouting at Bernard Shaw to have some f'g respect for Kitty Dukakis. I felt like Dukakis was wrapped way too tight.
I voted for Dukakis anyway. I told myself he'd been a good governor in Massachusetts and he wasn't going to run 4 more years of Reaganomics on his watch. I wasn't unhappy on Election Night that he lost though. I always liked Bush 41 better than Reagan, so if the country was gonna roll with the GOP again in 1988, at least the guy in the WH was someone I felt was far more informed and engaged than Reagan ever was.
So when I think about trying to sort out why people voted for Trump v Clinton or Trump v Biden, I still do look back at 1988 when I had all kinds of reasons to vote for the Dems and yet was not unhappy they lost, because honestly just the personalities of the two men was looming as the differentiator for me that year. It was not quite enough to make me vote for Bush (because I really am a policy person) but very damn near it. I think if it hadn't been for 8 years of Reagan before that, I would have helped elect Bush 41 myself, even being a Dem and while being pissed off about the Willie Horton ad.
In a way my reaction to Bush winning in 1988 is a little like Biden winning in 2020... sheer relief that someone actually engaged and competent although awkward sometimes would be in the White House again.
As far as the 70 million Trump votes though, I expect we will see fairly soon how much of that was hardcore Trump cult followers and how many voted to acknowledge preference for Trump picking conservative high court justices or doing a lot of deregulation plus the tax cuts. The people who went for him on policy will accept Biden's presidency but then just lean on their congress critters to fight the House tooth and nail, and will expect McConnell to shape Biden's agency picks and try to keep legislation to the right of center where it's been for so long already.
The unknown factor is whether the extreme right in the House will act the same without having Trump as their foil every morning on Twitter, or whether Trump will try to play head of a shadow government.
It could get uglier than most of us would like to think right now because a lot of norms about new administrations --surface civility and honeymoon periods, previous admin figures staying low profile for awhile except for consulting behind scenes if asked, etc.-- are not things that would stand in the way of Trump pretending he's still the president, and so addressing only his supporters the way he does now, as if they and they alone are "Americans". I'd like to think Fox et al would not enable that but I'm not really hopeful about it. Some fair chunk of their audience won't even think Trump isn't speaking as the President any more; it's not like they're all that connected to reality outside the screens of the Fox shows or Fox wouldn't have been playing this post-election game so long...
Still I think more of the Trump voters of 2020 are policy people than they are the vociferous and fringe extreme right helping Trump write a dramatic exit from his one term Presisdency right now. The clothespin-on-nose voters just have really good clothespins. The platform in 2020 was far simpler: "Trump!" -- and aimed at glossing over deep fractures in the GOP-- but that still translated to policy in the minds of those fans of tax cuts and deregulation who had clothespins in their pockets ready to use again.
www.nbcnews.com
, I’ll maintain that 70m votes says we will continue to be in dire trouble for the foreseeable future.
thehill.com
