The Emerging Trumpian Majority

First of Three Parts

1. Populists vs. Elitists

Something big is happening in American politics—bigger than this election. And so even if we can’t precisely predict the winner this November, we can know the general contours of American politics in the decades to come: populists on one side, elitists on the other.

But first, let’s start by thinking about what we’ve seen at the party conventions in the last two weeks: the Republicans nominating Donald Trump and the Democrats nominating Hillary Clinton. And maybe it’s best if we’re sitting down, because the changes are such that we could get dizzy.

Here’s the July 28 headline in The Washington Post: “We are witnessing a visceral shift in the way the parties speak to the country.” The story continued, “The country’s two major political parties, emerging from their conventions to square off in the general election, are speaking to Americas unrecognizable to each other in voices that sound like a political and ideological role reversal.”

“Role reversal”? Well, actually, that’s overstated: The Republicans are still on the right, and the Democrats are still on the left. In Trump’s Cleveland, for example, the police were the heroes, frequently applauded by GOP delegates, as well as by speakers; yet in Hillary’s Philadelphia, the cops were regarded with stony silence.

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