2020 Election Winner: Trumpism

I became convinced of something partway through Trump's term. What I became convinced of is that Trump represents a realignment. It was not fully clear to me what that realignment meant. I got an early clue of it in Mark Steyn's observation, that "if the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain issues, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable ones." 

You can get a sense of the Trump realignment if you watch the recent clip of Andrew Yang railing against the Democrat Party because it has held itself out as a party of "coastal elites" completely out of touch with the concerns of working-class America. There is a hint of the Trump realignment also in Elizabeth Warren's pre-political thesis that single-mindedly sending our wives and mothers into the workforce only enriched Wall Street: it made two-income families work twice as hard to stay in the same place, and it impoverished single-income families. (Warrenism is heresy today, so if you want pre-partisan Warren femininsm you have to tune in to Tucker Carlson.) There is also a clue of the Trump realignment in the fact that the science is now clear that an adult human, of average height and weight and without any comorbidities, can absorb only so much Identity Politics claptrap, yet Democrat politicians and media and professors keep ramming endless helpings of it down Americans' gullets with reckless abandon. 

And you can see a Trump realignment, bigly, in the fact that Trump markedly increased support among blacks, Hispanics, and Asians (not to mention the Holy Grail of Intersectionality, "Other"). And in the fact that Trump doubled his support among LGBT voters. And in the fact that Trump only seemed to lose ground among... Whites. 

Trump may lose the election. The smears on Trump may have worked well enough. The media bias against him may have worked well enough. The journalistic nonfeasance to protect Biden -- and to keep America from knowing anything probative about his past, present, or future -- all of it may have worked just well enough. 

Trump may still win — the fight is not gone out of him or his supporters. But yes, Trump may well lose this election. But that does not mean that Biden won. Because no matter what happens, the only clear winner of this election is Trumpism. Biden may beat Trump. But Biden could not beat Trumpism. Trumpism grew. Trumpism expanded. Biden's only real base is people living off their investments. It is people without religion, other than political religion. It is people with more loyalty to the world than to their own nation, their own communities, their own families. Trumpism is people starting to notice the "Made in China" labels on every crappy brightly-colored piece of plastic, and on everything else, and it is the spark of curiosity that is beginning to wonder, what, exactly, is up with that? The working class love Trump because they love America. Biden's base is the globalists still looking to turn a buck off it.

Trump may lose. But Biden will not win. Because in this election, Trumpism won. Hispanics get it. Blacks get it. The working class gets it. It is the globalists and corporatists and ideologues — who see America as a corporation, and market it as a crappy brightly-colored political religion — who oppose it. This election proved that a new political idea has arrived. Or perhaps it just proved an old political idea had not died away. It is an idea that says one may take one's own side in a debate. It is an idea that one ought to be judged by deeds and not by mere promises. It is an idea that rejects ideology and gets on to making deals, and building things, and stamping "Made in America" on something, and improving our own lives. And, yes, in that very practical, concrete way, making America great.

Trump gave America back to us. Biden may take the White House away from Trump. But he cannot take America away from us.