Bret Stephens of the NYTimes wrote a detailed answer to this question last week. It's paywalled, and my means of reading it are confined to a phone app. Stephens overall has political views that are in the range of mine or Jimk's but believes Trump is every bit as dangerous as tseeb or ChrisC do. After months of prodding from liberal columnist Gail Collins in their joint Monday column, Stephens very recently said said he would hold his nose and vote for Harris vs. abstaining, reiterating that his vote was 99.999% a vote against Trump.
The article is titled
"There's One Main Culprit if Donald Trump Wins," that being
"the way in which leading liberal voices in government, academia and media practice politics today."
The politics of condescension: Those non-college educated men tseeb cites do have stagnating real incomes vs. the 2016-19 period and were hurt by the inflation spike, and don't need to be lectured about how their counterparts in other countries had it worse.
The politics of name calling: Characterization of Trump voters as racists, misogynists, weird, phobic are a turnoff, especially since most of those voters think the Biden/Harris years have been bad for them and the country. Engage the argument without belittling the person.
The politics of gaslighting: The Democratic establishment and their MSNBC cheerleaders repeatedly vouched for Biden's mental and physical fitness for months in advance of the June debate debacle. Even if they are correct in extolling Harris' virtues now, why should the public trust them?
The politics of high handedness: Do liberals believe there is no resentment about Harris being the nominee without running in a primary or facing a challenger? My Trump supporting friend at last night's World Series game delivered the same talking point Stephens made: "A Democratic Party that claims to defend democracy is not bothering to practice it."
The politics of Pollyanna: Just because inflation has subsided recently, that does not relieve the legacy of higher prices and interest rates. This is undoubtedly a bigger deal to younger people who don't remember the 1970's inflation and 1980's mortgage rates. Biden's change in border policy immediately unleashed a flood of unregulated immigration and the Democrats waited until the election year to acknowledge the problem. Any Trump supporter you talk to will skewer you on this topic. And while the crime piece of the border argument is mostly BS, they are right about the sheer numbers, as lots of Democratic mayors will tell you.
The politics of selective fidelity to traditional norms: Trump's threats against the media, political opponents and the civil service need no repeating here. But the liberal establishment is not above strong arming social media into quashing stories/opinions it dislikes (Hunter Biden's laptop, origins of COVID, etc.). Many people who warn of Trumps' dictatorial aspirations are fine with sweeping executive orders (i.e. student loan forgiveness) done by "our side." The New York cases against Trump look political to many people, so Trump supporters make the argument that the more serious election obstruction cases are also political. I heard this argument last night too.
The politics of identity over class: This is the "woke/critical theory ideology" that people like Bill Maher and Andrew Sullivan have been bemoaning for years. It's a huge turnoff for centrists/independents and and an easy target for politicians like Trump and DeSantis.
Hopefully the above is illuminating to sbooker. I've said before that even those of us who are history junkies usually know minimal details of the nuts and bolts internal politics of foreign countries.
