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The 2016 Presidential Election Supplement Supplement

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The 2016 Presidential Election Supplement Supplement THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SUPPLEMENT SUPPLEMENT The 2016 Presidential Election A Note to Students This supplement is designed to bring Presidential Government up to date with a discussion of the 2016 presidential election. It not only updates our inves- tigation of presidential elections but also uses the events of 2016 to illustrate key themes of the presidency. To begin with, the election shows how impor- tant the president has become in the American system of government. The new president has the power to drastically change many features of American domestic and foreign policy. The framers of the Constitution believed in checks and balances, but in many ways today’s presidency is unchecked and unbalanced. Second, I aim to underscore the weakness of America’s political parties. On the Republican side, Donald Trump brushed aside party leaders and seized the Republican nomination. On the Democratic side, the Demo- cratic National Committee and other party institutions acted as appendages of the Clinton campaign. Finally, the events of 2016 highlight the issues posed by the concluding chapter of the book. Americans have an unfortunate tendency to venerate or demonize presidents, and the reaction to President- elect Trump is no exception. Trump is neither a devil nor a saint; he is a hu- 1 2 THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION man being with good and bad qualities. One of the great virtues of a republic is that the president is a fellow citizen, elected to one or two terms in office and then retired. We should thank presidents for their service and criticize their misdeeds, but to venerate or demonize presidents is beneath the dignity of the citizens of our Republic. In November 2016, Americans elected a new president. The surpris- ing choice was real estate magnate and reality television star Donald J. Trump, an individual who had never previously held or sought political office. Trump was a national celebrity because of his starring role in a popular television program, The Apprentice, where at the end of each episode he would turn to a contestant and declare, “You’re fired!” Trump and his vice presidential run- ning mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, lost the popular vote by more than 2 million votes but, contrary to poll predictions and media expectations, won a solid majority in the electoral college. Republicans also retained control of the House and Senate, promising the first period of unified partisan control of America’s government since the end of Barack Obama’s first term in office. Let us consider how these results came about and what we might expect from a Trump presidency. The Democratic and Republican Nominations During the past fifty years, America’s two major political parties have ex- perienced ideological realignments, making both philosophically more homogeneous. Today, the Republican Party is the party of conservatives, while the Democratic Party is the party of liberals. This apparent coherence, though, masks subtle differences within each party. The Democratic camp includes different varieties of liberal opinion ranging from the traditional New Deal social welfare liberalism of Bill and Hillary Clinton to left-liberal progressivism envisioning a greatly expanded regulatory role for the federal government, bold policies to prevent further climate change, more help for minorities and immigrants, and a social justice agenda designed to reduce income inequality. This set of ideas is championed by such politicians as Mas- sachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, and THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 3 Ohio senator Sherrod Brown. The Republican camp includes many shades of conservative opinion, and is sometimes united only by opposition to the Democrats. In 2016, each party’s nomination was sharply contested by candi- dates representing different factions. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton was challenged by Bernie Sanders, a left-liberal progressive and self-styled democratic socialist. Though Clinton’s experience, control of the party machinery, support in minority communities, and fundraising prowess seemed to make her nomination a foregone conclusion, Sanders mounted an aggressive campaign that won the support of young voters. To so-called millennials, who came of age in the twenty-first century, Clinton seemed associated with the old politics of cor- ruption, compromise, and special interests, while Sanders appeared to prom- ise new ideas for a new age. Young voters were especially drawn to Sanders’s plan for free college tuition, an aggressive fight against climate change, and a sharply increased minimum wage. Initially, the Clinton team dismissed the possibility that Sanders might be a threat, viewing him merely as a useful sparring partner who would create the impression of a competitive process in the primaries while offer- ing Clinton an opportunity to prepare for the general election. The Clinton camp, however, underestimated Sanders and overestimated the appeal of its own candidate. Though outmatched in money and organization, Sand- ers won 43 percent of the Democratic primary vote and carried 23 states or territories compared with Clinton’s 34 victories. Clinton was nearly forced to fall back on the large number of unpledged “superdelegates” at the national Democratic convention to secure the nomination. Information released by WikiLeaks, an international nonprofit organization that discloses govern- ment secrets, indicated that the Democratic National Committee had worked actively to derail the Sanders candidacy and that a Democratic Party strategist and later Democratic National Committee interim chair, Donna Brazile, even provided Clinton with advance knowledge of at least one of the questions asked by CNN correspondents in one of her nationally televised debates with Sanders. Many Democrats feared that Sanders had exposed weaknesses in 4 THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION Clinton’s appeal to the electorate—a fact underscored by poll data showing that even many loyal Democratic voters disliked and distrusted Clinton. Of course, many Republicans also disliked and distrusted their party’s eventual nominee, Donald Trump. Trump was an outsider, not a member of the Republican Party’s “establishment,” but he nevertheless can be situated within the GOP’s ideo- logical structure. The conflict within the GOP over the 2016 presidential nomination laid bare the various divisions within the Republican Party, par- ticularly the ongoing conflicts among the paleoconservatives, social conserva- tives (Evangelicals and Pentecostals), libertarians, establishment conservatives, neoconservatives, and conservative populists of the “alt-right” who make up today’s Republican camp. Trump was a populist. He successfully sought to mobilize white, working-class voters on a platform of ending immigration, bringing jobs home, reducing what he and his supporters believed to be deferential treatment of women and minorities, increasing military strength, and instituting a less interventionist foreign policy. The populists are a small element in the GOP’s leadership but constitute a powerful force in the party’s membership. Among Republican elites, the groups that had the most in common with Trump are the paleoconservative wing and the alt-right. The paleocons, perhaps exemplified by Pat Buchanan, and the alt-right, exemplified by Trump adviser Steve Bannon, are nationalist, isolationist, xenophobic, suspi- cious of free trade, and favorable to the idea of American military dominance. Where the paleocons and the alt-right differ is on the question of popular mobilization. The paleocons are suspicious of rabble-rousing, while the alt- right figures see themselves as leading a conservative mass movement. Also inclined to be supportive of Trump, though initially favoring Ben Carson, were the social conservatives. In secular society, most Evan- gelicals and Pentacostals were members of the white working class and were drawn to Trump’s economic ideas. Many Evangelicals were also staunch nationalists and saw in Trump someone who advocated a strong military program. As far as religion was concerned, some Evangelicals and Pentecos- THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 5 tals continued to harbor fear of Catholicism, which they distinguished from Christianity, and saw Trump’s stand against Latin American, predominantly Catholic immigration as a positive aspect of his candidacy. Social conserva- tives were concerned about Trump’s personal moral deficiencies, including his divorces and rumored infidelities, but most were willing to overlook them, especially when Trump named one of their own, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, as his running mate. Not at all happy with the idea of a Trump candidacy were the lib- ertarians. This group is important in Congress, where it dominates the Tea Party Caucus and fights for reduced federal spending, elimination of the na- tional debt, and fewer restrictions on the right to bear arms. The libertarians supported Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky for the presidency. When Paul was eliminated, many libertarians supported a third-party ticket led by former governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico. Also strongly opposed to Trump were the establishment conservatives, including the Bush and Romney families who represented the internationalist Republican business elite, which is generally the major source of funding for GOP candidates. Establishment Republicans speak for Wall Street and those elements of the American business community that benefit from free trade and open access to world markets.
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