Revenge of the middle class

Revenge of the middle class

By:

LeRoy Goldman

Columnist

Times-News Online

Sunday March 5, 2017

 

How did Donald Trump win the presidency when virtually everyone, including errant pollsters, most of the mainstream media and most elites, confidently assumed he was a goner? And will he be a one-term aberration, or a president who will successfully change the nation’s direction and be re-elected for having done so?

America is a deeply and dangerously polarized nation. The middle ground, heretofore the breeding ground for compromise and consensus, has become a no man’s land and a killing field for any elected official foolish enough to venture in. This long-standing polarization is best exemplified by the increasingly predictable split in the Electoral College between the blue and the red fortresses.

It has become a given that the Democrats will win 19 states and the District of Columbia with a total of 247 electoral votes, only 23 votes shy of the 270 necessary to win the presidency. It’s just as likely that the Republicans will win 23 states and 191 electoral votes. That leaves eight swing states and their crucial 100 electoral votes.

It is easy to see why Republicans hold the short end of the stick in this split. They must win at least 79 of the 100 votes in the swing states to get to the magic number of 270. And Trump did not do that. He won four of the eight swing states with a total of 68 electoral votes. Close, but no cigar.

But he won the election because he broke into Hillary Clinton’s blue fortress and won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin with their 46 electoral votes. Trump would have won the election by carrying any one of these states. His formula for success was the same in all three. Let’s look at Pennsylvania.

The Democrats regularly win in these three states by running up huge margins in their major cities, their surrounding upscale suburban counties, and in counties having large universities. The Democrats last lost Pennsylvania and Michigan in 1988 and Wisconsin in 1984.

The Democrats’ rule of thumb in the Keystone State is to carry Philadelphia by about 400,000 votes, its four surrounding suburban counties by about 125,000 votes and Pittsburgh by about 100,000. When they do that, they carry the state almost every time.

Comparing how Barack Obama did in 2012 with how Hillary Clinton did last November is revealing. Obama carried the Democratic strongholds by 676,000 votes. But, contrary to what you might suppose, Clinton did better than Obama. She carried those strongholds by 740,000. She did not lose Pennsylvania because she underperformed Obama among African-Americans or other urban/suburban Democrats.

Her defeat occurred in the votes cast in the rest of the state. Four years ago, Obama lost the rest of the state by 366,000 and still coasted to victory in Pennsylvania. But Clinton lost that same territory by an astonishing 784,000 votes. It cost her Pennsylvania and the White House.

A very large proportion of those votes for Donald Trump came from traditional Democrats angered by their belief that Clinton and the Democratic Party had abandoned them. Call their votes for Trump the revenge of the middle class.

In order for Trump to be a successful president, to have a fighting chance to push an ambitious legislative program through the treacherous waters on Capitol Hill, especially in the Senate, and to win re-election in 2020, he’s going to have to deliver for those middle-class voters, many of whom have been loyal Democrats for a very long time. That’s Trump’s prime directive.

His odds of success are very long indeed. Consider the peril he faces. For openers, he has surrounded himself with a White House staff that’s competent to run a political campaign but not competent to run, let alone transform, the executive branch.

In addition, his address to Congress last Tuesday previews what’s coming legislatively: fixing Obamacare, tax reform, border security and the infrastructure rebuild — a daunting agenda. The Democrats, berserk over Trump’s astonishing victory last November, will stop at nothing to destroy him, while at the same time Republicans on the Hill can’t get their act together. Look at their inability to agree on how to replace Obamacare.

Will Trump end up hero or goat? The Vegas oddsmakers will make goat the heavy favorite. But be careful. Trump has repeatedly proven to Republicans and Democrats alike that he can surprise to the upside against all odds. Fasten your seat belt. There’s turbulence ahead.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident and can be reached at:

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