Ron Brownstein
speaker
109 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Jan 2025
Ron Brownstein’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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They had this point of reference, this idea that it was, that was easier under Trump. They had more money in their pocket under Trump. And even though his agenda was, by most serious analysis, had more inflationary risk than Harris. It's kind of hard to convince people that it's going to be worse under the guy that they remember it being better under.
Totally. I mean, look, I mean, the core of the Trump coalition, the core of the Trump coalition are voters who are hostile to the way America is changing on every front, culturally, demographically, and economically. If you go back to 2016, the very clear research off the CES, the cooperative survey, was that the best predictor of support for Trump was not economic distress.
It was the belief that whites face more discrimination at this point than non-whites and that women are really seeking special favors when they ask for equal treatment. And that cultural resentment is at the heart of the Trump coalition. I mean, without that, and still is.
The last piece that I would say, the last piece that gets him over the top is in this election were voters who may actually be even inclined toward those positions or not, but are not really moved by them. I think they are voters who are moved more by performance, by Biden's performance and believing that Trump gave them a better chance to kind of get what they wanted out of their own lives.
I agree with you that I think it is inevitable. that the next Democratic nominee, a la Clinton after Dukakis in 92, a transition that I covered really intensively, is going to be more centrist on all of these cultural hot point issues. There's no, I think there is- You do? I do, yes. It's inevitable, you think? I think it is highly likely. I have a hard time after this result
seeing the Democrats just kind of ignoring any of the signals they were getting on crime or immigration. But, you know, there's a way.
The problem with that line of argument, even in the Democratic Party, is that even if you believe that voters were not making decisions based on these cultural issues, the cultural issues still had an economic impact because at the least, at the least, it is, I think, indisputable.
And I think widely accepted across the Democratic Party that the way Trump used cultural issues sent the message to just kind of a wide swath of voters living paycheck to paycheck that Harris and Democrats care more about various, you know, kind of small groups with specific problems than they do about you. You know, she's for they, them. Right.
So like whether or not you think I think I have this right in the vote cast, most voters opposed banning gender affirming care for minors. OK, most of them opposed it. But a lot of them who.
Yes. And but a lot of them who opposed the ban voted for Trump anyway, in the same pattern that I'm talking about. And where this hurt Harris, I think unquestionably, like where there's no doubt this hurt Harris is the sense that her priorities were askew. that Democrats were not really worried.
They were more worried about undocumented immigrants in New York and criminals rights and transgender teens than they were about me putting food on the table. And I suppose there will be a fight about this, but I suspect the nominee in 28, the governors will have a leg up. And I think any governor who might be nominated will pursue a more centrist overall cultural message.
And I do think that, look, the kind of consulting class doesn't always get its way, and they shouldn't. But if the consulting class did get its way, there is as close to 100% unanimity as I think you can find.
that Democrats have to avoid taking the bait on all of the cultural fights Trump provokes and really try to center their messaging over the next two years on the core argument that he promised to solve your problems, but all he's really doing is enriching further his rich buddies. Like, that's what they want the next two years to be about.
Trump will certainly give them a lot of ammunition to make that argument, but, you know, again, not... getting drawn into these culture battles. And look, some of them may be unavoidable. I mean, if he takes mass deportation to the level that he's talking about, it's kind of unavoidable to display some resistance to that. But I do think coming out of this election
even amid disagreement about how much the cultural issues, how much voters voted on those issues, I think there is a basically party-wide consensus that it projected the message that we're worried about these somewhat, you know, fringe or esoteric concerns than we are about the broad mass of people.
So, you know, I'm trying to remember whether it was the exit poll or the vote cast, but I think it was both. Among people who voted in 2020, it was basically even, Trump and Biden. The returning voters from 2020
split evenly between biden and trump in 2020 which means that there were a lot of by definition there were a lot of biden voters who didn't show up right because biden won by you know seven million votes so the fact that the returning electorate was you know basically 50 well not necessarily i guess some of those maybe my math is bad here couldn't sound couldn't that be based on people just switching biden people switching to trump or the actual turnout number was less
No, this is, I'm trying to remember if it was the exit or the vote cast or maybe both of them. You ask people whether they voted in 2020 and who they voted for in 2020. Yeah. OK, so this is these are actual 2020 voters.
So there should be like, you know, four point Biden advantage and there wasn't. OK, so that pretty clearly, I think we'll say, you know, when we get to catalyst will be the best. The catalyst analysis will be the best analysis of the drop off. And I think that's real. But, you know, Trump won new voters, people who had not voted in 2020. And so you can't ignore that. I mean, that's real, too.
I mean, I don't think Trump vastly expanded his support. I mean, you know, he got he did get more votes than he certainly did in blue states.
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