Thinking Out Constructive Outreach to Trump Voters:
While Not Necessarily a Majority of the Country, There Are Too Many Trump Voters To Ignore, and Too Many Rewards for Popping the Right-Wing Echo Chamber
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Check your spam folders occasionally in the case blog posts go there from time to time, as a personal tip.
First, we need to call out Donald Trump himself for his blatantly anti-democratic moves. What he is doing in front of our eyes is weaponizing the justice system, going after lawyers, law firms, & all judges who rendered decisions against his unconstitutional actions, stifling popular dissent, deporting permanent residents with 1st Amendment and 5th Amendment protections, censoring the press, & politicizing the military during a critical time for national security. Every outside observer is seeing it. These next 3 months are going to be essential for our nation’s future. Democratic politicians must fight back.
The Ronald Reagan-Tip O’Neill days have long past us.
Here are some other headlines you might have not heard about recently:
Trump has a plan to put elections under his direct control—via Democracy Docket
The JFK Files release was an administrative fiasco for some federal government employees. Imagine what Trump could do with your Social Security numbers
Trump guts Voice of America, and China & Russia cheer him on
Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts are now impacting National Park Service operations, as well as dam & mine safety centers, and Social Security Administration offices
DOGE even raided the US Institute of Peace building with armed men
The Musk Cuts layoffs are disproportionately firing military veterans
Experimental Alzheimer’s treatments are being paused, amongst other scientific research projects
RFK Jr. wants to let the bird flu “rip” through the poultry farms while presiding over a 2-year record in measles cases within 3 months
The 47th President is also considering a travel ban against 43 different countries
The White House has cut off grants to libraries & museums
Private prisons stand to benefit from Trump’s mass deportations plan
Half a million migrant refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela will see their legal status revoked
The Trump-Vance Administration is undoing decades of civil rights protections going back to Lyndon B. Johnson
OK. As a college student, you may think I am not familiar with Trump voters. You would actually be quite mistaken, believe it or not.
Many of my RI state retiree friends are Trump supporters. Some were Republicans for a long time who just liked Trump’s social conservatism or simply his campaign style. Some are disillusioned Democrats who once supported the party but viewed they sold voters like them out and took the regular common man and woman for granted.
At Providence College, there are plenty of Trump-supporting Republicans. Some of them like his masculinity and brash demeanor. Others, who are generally not in college, favor his smashing of a system that has never worked for them.
There is something to Donald Trump that revolved around more than just policy. It’s about style and temperament. That is what populism means: a connection of demeanor and relatability between a political leader and the common masses. It can be centered around ideology, but populism deals more with a personal charisma or connection to the plight and struggles of working people.
Does that mean Democrats will win every Trump voter? No. Especially not if they follow the Clinton Playbook of triangulation/stilted pro-corporate politics. That doesn’t work, and perhaps it never really did.
The key for Democrats, and anyone in the pro-democracy/anti-Trump movement is rather to do more communication with MAGA supporters, and differentiate between the rank-and-file voter and the elite politicians who lead the movement.
Trump turned out plenty of new voters in 2020 and 2024, partially to my own surprise and partially not. Many voted for him, and for him only, but either skipped the rest of the ballot or even voted Democratic down the ticket. That tells me a lot about his unique appeal.
It means so many voters out there are very frustrated with how the government has treated them, or at least neglected their concerns for those of the special interests. They saw Trump as a wrecking ball to business-as-usual who would bring change to the way things were done. That was what people found appealing in another President—one by the name of Barack Obama.
Obama promised something different. Unfortunately, in his Presidency, he put himself in a bind by surrounding himself with advisors from the past who served in the Clinton White House. And that advisory circle did translate into policy, and into a failure to deliver anywhere near fully on the change he promised change-hungry American voters.
Likewise, Trump has now become the GOP establishment and may pay that same price soon enough. When people realize Trump governs and plays by the same rules and then some with oligarchic corruption, economic instability, and other bad instincts in foreign policy and culture wars, the punishment will come.
But that doesn’t mean Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans can’t do more. They must.
Instead of merely defending institutions for the sake of defending them, Democrats (preferably Progressives as the best messengers) have to admit some norms need to be reformed and rebuilt in significant, bold ways.
The justice system is not fair, but Trump’s way of doing things is even worse. We need a major alternative.
Congress is not perfect at all. It actually is pretty dreadful at times. But Trump’s vision to consolidate power for himself and the billionaire class is far worse. We deserve something far better.
The free trade system as structured today is not good. It needs a lot of improvement. Even tariffs may be a necessary tool in appropriate cases to address such issues against our adversaries. But the Trump Tariffs are not the constructive way to level the playing field, because it doesn’t work now and it did not work in 1929 and 1930.
The healthcare system needs to be cheaper and more accessible. We all agree on that. But what Trump is doing will make it worse. Democrats can offer something different instead—particularly if they heed the advice of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Their anger is justified; not at immigrants and minorities, but at corporations, oligarchic elites, and the political establishment who rig the rules of the game.
Many Trump voters, and low-propensity voters, distrust politicians in general. They found Trump specifically to be authentic (which is misleading, but you can say he sticks to a message, never departs from it, and comes out with that message like a bat out of hell).
Democrats should do everything possible to win back such voters by meeting them where they are. By not being afraid to head to boxing matches, popular sports games, union town halls, and small business storefronts. By being able and willing to answer tough questions and being blunt about where they stand on any issue the voters are thinking about. By going on podcasts and streaming programs, playing video games on Twitch, and the like.
To some of their credit, this is already happening to some degree. But Democrats should continue to move out of the Beltway and head into their communities much more often, especially the areas that most consistently vote for Republican candidates instead.
One more important point: Here’s why Democrats can’t give up on winning over at least some Trump voters. They are being given a different sense of the world with figures like Greg Gutfeld, Sean Spicer, Matt Gaetz, and Joe Rogan and channels such as Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN. Trump voters are living in a flood of misinformation, disinformation, and pro-Trump propaganda. A lot of voters use such talking points from those shows as their main source of news.
Democrats engaging with such voters would help dispel some of the stereotypes and other nonsense assumed about their policies and personas being radical and beyond sanity. It also will show a willingness to confront criticisms that are rarely addressed on mainstream media because the mainstream sources simply don’t give oxygen to such garbage from QAnon, 2020 election denial, or the Great Replacement Theory. Plus, they need to hear what the other side is saying, something we often don’t do enough on our end because of our personal and legitimate disgust for Trump, and keep the focus on the issues.
Remember too that many voters at large rely on social media more than they do on cable TV for news. They’re not hearing everything out in the world.
Even beyond politics, just do small talk, for starters.
The right-wing media bubble relies on everyone else ignoring and giving up on its followers. It is more important than ever to break the propaganda bubble, especially with an electorate that is looking for change on behalf of them, and likely will not find it in the Trump 2.0 sequel.