Trump Broadens the Tent

By Aaron Kliegman Republicans should feel good about the 2020 election. Above all, they can finally exhale now that the GOP looks poised to hold its majority in the US Senate. That means no progressive agenda, even if Joe Biden becomes president. The filibuster survives. No packing the Supreme Court. No statehood for Washington, DC and Puerto Rico (and therefore no new Senate seats). No public option or Medicare for all. No ripping up President Trump’s tax cuts. No Green New Deal. America will remain America — that is, a republic not governed by overbearing, one-party rule. At least for now. A Republican-controlled Senate also means Biden would need to pick a more moderate cabinet, knowing the GOP would reject figures who are too left-wing. All of this comes despite Democrats spending record amounts of money to flip key Senate seats. Republicans also gained several seats in the House, including the addition of at least 13 non-incumbent women — that’s a record. True, Democrats will remain in control of the chamber, but they’ll have much less legislative leeway. And their majority is now at risk moving forward. Furthermore, Republicans clearly won the battle for control of state legislatures, despite Democrats pouring millions of dollars into those races. Now the GOP will have a crucial advantage as the states begin the process of redistricting congressional boundaries. But what about “the big guy?” Biden may win, but if he does, his victory will be narrow — too narrow to give him an electoral mandate and too narrow to repudiate President Trump’s agenda. Indeed, Biden barely mentioned his agenda throughout the campaign and had to backpedal when he did. (It turns out most Americans realize the absurdity of trying to eliminate fossil fuels.) His entire message was, first, that he’s a nice guy who’s not Donald Trump and, second, that he’ll do a better job fighting the coronavirus. And in the end, no blue wave came, because voters clearly rejected left-wing transformation. All the above would have the effect of neutering a President Biden, forcing him to make bipartisan deals if he hopes to be a president of consequence. (One can only go so far with executive orders.) But the main reason why Republicans should be optimistic after Tuesday’s election is how much the results show the GOP has expanded demographically. And there’s one man responsible for this expansion above all others: Donald Trump. Preliminary figures indicate that about 26 percent of Trump’s support came from non-white voters — the highest percentage for a Republican presidential candidate since 1960. Exit polls conducted by Edison Research show that at least 18 percent of Black men voted for President Trump this year, an increase of five percent from 2016. Only 8 percent of Black women voted for the president, but that’s still double the percentage from four years ago. Trump also broke Republican records among Latinos. According to Edison Research, he won 36 percent of Latino men and 28 percent of Latino women. The president’s Latino support in Florida was especially impressive. If President Trump is a racist, then someone should tell racial minorities. They didn’t seem to get the memo that went out to the New York Times, the Lincoln Project, and Democrats on Capitol Hill. Or perhaps they did but realized it was nonsense. They instead saw a president who took the time and energy to speak directly to the Black and Latino communities, pushed specific policies that helped them in concrete ways, and oversaw a booming economy that offered them more jobs and higher incomes. Trump’s historic success with traditionally Democratic voters extended beyond Blacks and Latinos. An astounding 28 percent of the LGBT community, for example, voted for him, doubling the figure from 2016. Exit polling also found that Trump won 30.5 percent of the Jewish vote, up from 24 percent in 2016 and the highest portion for any Republican candidate since 1988. President Trump even gained more votes among white women, garnering the support of 55 percent of them (a slight increase from 2016). Moreover, early exit polls indicate that Trump did better among college-educated white women than Biden, not just among those without college degrees. Ironically, Trump’s support only dipped significantly among white men, his supposed base of support. In other words, if Trump loses, it will be because he lost the support of too many white men — not exactly typical of a racist misogynist. All this data contradicts the caricature of “typical Trump supporters” perpetuated by the political left and “Never Trumpers” — namely, that they’re angry white people, especially working-class males, without college degrees who are bitter about their race becoming a minority in America. And those shameful enough to support the president who aren’t straight white males are traitors to their race, gender, and sexual orientation, pathetic beggars crawling on their hands and knees to pick up the crumbs of their oppressors. Those who believe such vile bigotry will never acknowledge the truth, which is that Trump has expanded the Republican Party by welcoming a diverse and exciting coalition into the fold. And he has done so by offering a vision of hope and opportunity, not darkness and oppression. Democrats should be concerned that their stranglehold over minority groups is eroding. Perhaps that is one extra reason why they are so deflated, despite being so close to achieving their great obsession: unseating President Trump. The reality is that, regardless of who’s inaugurated on Jan. 20, Republicans won the 2020 election. Or at the least, Democrats lost it. Order Newt's Latest Book: https://www.gingrich360.com/trump-and-the-american-future

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