2 Comments

Could you be a little more specific about who is realigning with the emergent MAGA party, and why? As far as I can tell, it’s a coalition of overwhelmingly rural and exurban; heavily white; mostly not college-educated; often current or former blue-collar or pink-collar workers, owners/managers of small businesses, or professionals who no longer own their own practices; often people who identify themselves socially or politically as evangelical Protestant Christians or “traditional” Roman Catholics; usually fairly xenophobic people, particularly as to skin color, assumed or avowed religion, and assumed or avowed sexuality and gender; and emphatically isolationist. This emerging coalition’s grievances that—until this realignment—have not been addressed by any major political party have mostly to do with harms to their social status, physical and mental health, economic security (especially with respect to employment, housing, and food), or geographic access to standard-of-living components such as health care, education, mobility, recreation, and entertainment. The harms have been real, and for a variety of reasons they have often been more pronounced in rural and exurban areas.

The MAGA party’s proposed remedies, however, seem to be a hastily conceived pastiche of the traditional GOP’s economic policies benefitting large multinational corporations and extremely wealthy individuals and the most performative expressions of the emerging coalition’s xenophobia and isolationism. There’s not much there addressing the harms that the emerging coalition groups have actually experienced. That doesn’t bode well for the outcome of the realignment.

Expand full comment

I find J. D. Vance to be much scarier than Trump. Vance is very smart, literate, and is a deliberate code switcher with a variety of personas.

You might be interested in this backgrounder on Vance: "The Seven Intellectual Forces Behind JD Vance's Worldview" (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/18/jd-vance-world-view-sources-00168984)

I think that there is strong evidence that Vance is some sort of neo-monarchist. Consider his admiration for “Dark Enlightenment” blogger Curtis Yarvin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin) and for fellow reactionary, Peter Thiel, both anti-democracy cranks.

No good news here.

Best,

Daryl

Expand full comment