Justin Gest, Politico, 37 Comments
Over the past 14 months Donald Trump has upended much of what we thought we knew about American politics. He won the Republican nomination easily with no prior political experience, no filter, and an entirely new kind of political platform–one that, in an almost total rejection of conservative orthodoxy, is anti-free trade, isolationist and doesn’t really seem to care that much about the size of government. He’s also raised a crucial question: Is the Trump campaign about the man or the message? In other words, will Trumpism survive Trump?
Many in both parties are hoping for the former–that the Trump campaign turns out to be the brief, dramatic story of a celebrity sweeping up primary voters with lavish but empty promises, and that his harsh “America First” worldview will disappear once it’s no longer being flogged from a jet plane by a billionaire TV star.
For people who feel that way, I have some discouraging news. As part of a broad study of white working class politics, I solicited white Americans’ support for Donald Trump, but also for a hypothetical third party dedicated to “stopping mass immigration, providing American jobs to American workers, preserving America’s Christian heritage, and stopping the threat of Islam”–essentially the platform of the UK’s right-wing British National Party, adapted to the United States. How many white Americans do you think would consider voting for this type of protectionist, xenophobic party? 65 percent. Clearly, Trump’s allure is bigger than Trump himself.......To Read More....
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