Former US Attorney Joyce Vance wrote in her newsletter last night:
There are lots of attempts to explain the 2024 election. Many voters said something along the lines of, they were unhappy with the government and wanted to try something new. These voters were concerned about the economy (although even The Wall Street Journal conceded it was the strongest in the world), the price of gasoline, and other similar issues that amounted to little more than a permission structure for voting for Trump. It was all summed up for me a few days after the election, in a conversation with an acquaintance who said they’d voted for Harris, but at least “my portfolio is doing great this week.”
Voters who ignored the facts about the economy and used them as an excuse to vote for Trump weren’t people who wanted a change. They were people who, actually, didn’t want any change at all. They didn’t like new policies advanced by the Biden-Harris administration, a more inclusive vision of America where traditionally marginalized people had equal opportunity. They didn’t want a new generation of leadership. They wanted the “old stability,” the patriarchy that has run the country for generations. In many ways, that’s what’s at the heart of the conservative coalition. It’s not a rejection of the established order; it’s an embrace of it.
[…]
Thinking a vote for Trump was a rejection of “elites” is part of the weak tea biography Trump sold to far too many Americans—the idea that he, the guy who started out on third base, hit and would continue hitting homes runs for them. Trump appeals to people who want to slide into home without having to run all the bases; that’s his ultimate appeal, the cheat who somehow manages to succeed, surrounded by his billionaire friends.
Two things there that ring especially true to me. The votes for Trump on the economy “amounted to little more than a permission structure for voting for Trump.” Yes. It was a rationale that people used to be respectable. It was not the real reason. And that reason was that they admire Trump because he is the cheat who manages to succeed. He slithers out from all accountability and they love him for it. It makes him supernatural, invincible.
How do you fashion a political strategy around that? I don’t know but I do know that coming up with a better set of 10 point plans on the economy isn’t gonna do it.