Prime Minister Trump

Where the two party coalitions are going next.

Nov 19, 2024

AI generation of “Donald Trump in parliament”

Donald Trump has made a number of controversial Cabinet picks, and everyone has a theory as to why.

Maybe Trump is trying to test how far he can push Republican senators. Maybe he knows some of these nominees will be rejected, but thinks that will make it easier to confirm his next choice for those jobs. Maybe, in the case of Matt Gaetz, he wanted to offer an escape route to an ally facing an ethics probe.

Personally, I think the best theory is pretty simple: Trump would like these people in his Cabinet, and he is nominating them for that reason.

But my second-favorite explanation was put forward by the journalist Matt Zeitlin last week. The “best way to understand the RFK and Tulsi appointments,” Zeitlin wrote, “is that Trump [is] assembling a government based on his electoral coalition and Tulsi and RFK Jr. are essentially small party leaders.”

On paper, of course, the U.S. only has two political parties — but 330 million people is an awful lot to fit tidily into just two tents. As I’ve written previously, sometimes, American politics is best understood as having “the skeleton of a multi-party system…just with several ‘mini-parties’ operating under the roofs of the two big parties.”

There are several ways you could conceptualize these “mini-parties.” Echelon Insights, a Republican polling firm, has mapped out five of them, and regularly polls Americans on which one they’d fall into. Here are their latest results, from June:

By this metric, Trump’s Cabinet begins to make sense as an impressive exercise in coalition management. For the “Nationalist” faction, he has Vice President Vance, Attorney General Gaetz, Deputy Chief of Staff Miller, and Border Czar Homan. For the “Conservative” group, there’s Secretary of State Rubio and UN Ambassador Stefanik.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard are hard to map onto the five parties above, but they’re also represented, for the Bernie-Trump segment of Trump’s voter base. The various business interests that support the GOP also got their due: Big Tech got Interior Secretary Burgum (and Vance); Big Oil got Energy Secretary Weight (and Burgum).

Compare this to Joe Biden’s Cabinet, which was widely hailed when it was announced as the most diverse in American history. This was true by race (55% of his nominees were non-white), by gender (45% were women), and by several other factors (he appointed the first openly gay Cabinet member, for example, as well as the first Native American).

It was not, however, true by ideology. Basically all of Biden’s Cabinet picks would fall most easily into the “Labor” bucket — the biggest faction in his coalition, to be sure, but by no means the only one. You could make an argument that Interior Secretary Haaland fell into the “Green” faction, but other than that, Biden’s picks largely fit the same technocratic mold (or, in the cases of Attorney General Garland and Defense Secretary Austin, didn’t have much of a discernible ideology whatsoever).

The progressives who made up a small but meaningful part of Biden’s coalition received little representation, nor did the “Acela” types: Biden’s Cabinet didn’t include any CEOs as a nod to his business backers, or any centrist Republicans in recognition of his anti-Trump GOP support. While Biden’s staff included many progressive voices — including a heavy dose of Elizabeth Warren alumni — in the most visible administration roles, he mainly only elevated figures from the “mini-party” he himself hailed from.

This is important data to keep in mind as the two party tents, inevitably, shapeshift in the months ahead.

Before the election, I described the race as a clash between two competing camps:

A broad anti-establishment coalition, wrapping from RFK Jr. to Steve Bannon
A broad anti-Trump coalition, wrapping from Liz Cheney to Bernie Sanders

Political parties always remake themselves before elections, and these coalitions represented where both parties spotted the biggest available gains: the Republican Party saw an opportunity to add Bernie-Trump voters to their tent; the Democrats believed they could make up for those losses with gains from Cheneyesque suburban women. In retrospect, of course, we know which voter base was larger.

However, political shotgun marriages don’t always make it to their honeymoons: despite the talk of realignments emanating from this month’s results, alliances that form for Election Day often wither by the time an administration gets underway.

In the case of the two coalitions described above, tensions are already apparent now that — in different ways — both of their uniting principles are falling away.

On the Republican side, what does it mean to be an anti-establishment coalition now that their party is, well, the establishment? As the opposition party, it’s easy to criticize those in power — and to pick up people of all stripes who are disaffected by the status quo, as Trump did in his re-election. But now that the GOP are the incumbents, can they keep their new recruits — many of them young men, particularly young men of color — on board?

There are more questions to be asked. What does it mean for the GOP if three of the president’s closest advisers are former Democrats (Gabbard, Kennedy, Elon Musk) — and so is the president himself? How would you even go about describing the foreign policy of a party that has both Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard in key national security roles? Broad tents are the key to winning elections — but they’re awfully hard to govern with. The uncomfortable (and potentially irreconcilable) differences that get brushed under the rug during a campaign are about to emerge with a vengeance.

Then there’s the members of the anti-establishment coalition who were never very anti-establishment to begin with. Mitch McConnell will be a fascinating figure to watch, both on the foreign policy front (he said earlier this year that he will dedicate his final Senate term, out of leadership, to “fighting back against the isolationist movement in my own party”) and as an institutionalist, defending some of the establishment guardrails Trump is trying to break down (he signaled his opposition to Trump’s recess appointments plan this weekend).

Pay attention also to the coalition partners who feel jilted. Mike Pence released a statement last week opposing Kennedy’s nomination, which he called an “abrupt departure from the pro-life record” of Trump’s first administration. Trump’s Cabinet, as it’s currently constituted, doesn’t include many passionate pro-lifers, another potential source of tension. Trump’s political gift has long been telling multiple sides of an issue what they want to hear — and them both believing it — while also daring members of his coalition to walk away, knowing that they won’t. (He knows the Pences and McConnells of the world have nowhere else to go.) He has done that on abortion all cycle — but eventually he’ll have to make some decisions, and the pro-life faction will loudly protest if he doesn’t reward them for their support.

That brings us to the Democrats, where the cracks in the coalition — as befitting the losing party — are much more apparent. Just as Republicans will struggle with being the anti-establishment party in the establishment, Democrats will have to find out what it means to be the anti-Trump party when they will never face Trump on the ballot again.

Instead of being defined in opposition to something, many Democratic leaders are calling for the party to stand affirmatively for something — but the question is what that thing should be. Bidenism? Bernieism? Some fusion of them? Something new entirely? Nobody is entirely clear.

One thing that is clear is that the anti-Trump coalition simply wasn’t large enough to win an election. On that score, I’m particularly intrigued by the Democrats looking for new coalition partners, trying to broaden the tent (although, inevitably, in ways that will anger fellow tent-dwellers).

In addition to the multi-party schema shown above, Echelon Insights also conducts polls divvying up the American electorate into four quadrants — Conservative, Liberal, Populist, and Libertarian — based on how they answer 20 questions on social and economic policy.

Back in June, the poll showed Trump beating Biden (then the Democratic nominee) among Conservatives and Biden beating Trump among the Liberals (no surprises there). But, intriguingly, Democrats claimed an advantage among the Libertarians (culturally liberal and economically conservative) and were strikingly competitive among the Populists (culturally conservative and economically liberal).

With the Liberals and Conservatives nearly all accounted for, the future of politics will be a fight over the quarter of the country that falls into the Populist or Libertarian factions. Republicans will need to keep them to make their 2024 winning coalition permanent; Democrats will need them to return to the White House.

Many Democrats agree that the path to victory lies in moving out of the bottom-left quadrant in which they currently resides — after their electoral drubbing, they obviously need to reach new voters — but it’s been striking to watch the responses to the first two Democratic politicians who have made high-profile attempts to do just that.

One such example is Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), who attempted to reach into the culturally conservative demographic — populated, it should be noted, by many minority voters — with his call for the party to reconsider its support for allowing transgender athletes to play on women’s sports teams (a stance only 27% of the country agrees with, according to Echelon). He was promptly shouted down, facing protests from activists, resignations from his staff, and an attempt by Tufts University to block its students from interning in his office.

Another example is Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO), who has long targeted the Libertarian quadrant. Polis shocked many Democrats when he expressed his support for Kennedy’s HHS nomination. “He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA,” Polis wrote on X. “I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health.”

Polis faced similarly harsh backlash — but he insisted that there was a method to what many Democrats saw as madness. “I was sad to see RFK leaving our coalition because his voters in Colorado are a big part of my coalition,” Polis told the New York Times.

There is certainly a tension, for Republicans, in the fact that so much of their governing coalition is made up of former Democrats, from its appointees like Kennedy and Gabbard, to its donors like Musk, to its media boosters like Joe Rogan. But those shifts should make for an even bigger tension for Democrats — the ones losing those voters, not gaining them — and yet few seem to be grappling with the issue. How do Democrats go about winning back those Populist and Libertarian voters, both segments that polls show they remain competitive with?

Polis and Moulton clearly believe that it starts with taking some culturally conservative positions, to win back the former, and speaking the language of “personal choice,” to reach the latter. Except, of course, that risks creating movement among culturally liberal voters — just as every Trump movement towards a Tulsi Gabbard voter risks defection from a Mitch McConnell.

With the election giving way to a transition, shifts are underway within both parties. New tents will have to be built in the next four years — pay attention to the cracks already forming to see where the coalitions may be going next.

More news to know

Newly minted Transportation Secretary nominee Sean Duffy. (Photo by Adam Fagen)

President-elect Trump is personally calling Republican senators, urging them to confirm Matt Gaetz as attorney general — even as he privately acknowledges that Gaetz has “less than even odds” of being approved.

Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee said she wants the panel’s report on Gaetz to be released. The committee could vote on the matter at a meeting on Wednesday, although details of the report are already emerging: two women testified that Gaetz paid them for sex, according to their attorney — and that they witnessed him having sex with a 17-year-old.

Trump announced his pick for Transportation Secretary: Sean Duffy, a reality TV star turned Wisconsin congressman turned Fox host.

As GOP leaders mull ways to pay for the high cost of extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts, new work requirements and spending caps for Medicaid, food stamps, and other safety net programs are under considerations.

The race is on to lead the Democratic Party in the wilderness. Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor (and 2016 presidential candidate), and Minnesota Democratic Party chair Ken Martin have both launched bids to chair the Democratic National Committee.

Quite a paragraph, via the New York Times: “No evidence has emerged that [Director of National intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard] has ever collaborated in any way with Russia’s intelligence agencies. Instead, according to analysts and former officials, Ms. Gabbard seems to simply share the Kremlin’s geopolitical views, especially when it comes to the exercise of American military power.”

Ukrainian media outlets are reporting that the country used U.S.-supplied long-range missiles to strike Russia for the first time. Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a decree lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons in response.

Pennsylvania’s highest court told Democratic election officials to stop violating its pre-election order not to count mail ballots that weren’t properly dated.

A state judge struck down Wyoming’s abortion ban and its first-in-the-nation ban on abortion pills.

The Justice Department is trying to get Alphabet to sell Google Chrome.

The day ahead

President Joe Biden is in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, for the Group of 20 (G20) summit. Biden will attend the second day of the conference and hold a working lunch with Brazilian President Lula da Silva before returning to Washington, D.C.
Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Kalaoa, Hawaii, for vacation.
President-elect Donald Trump will attend a SpaceX launch in Texas, according to the Associated Press. SpaceX is owned by Trump ally Elon Musk, who has been a near-constant presence by the president-elect’s side since the election.
The Senate will vote to confirm Mustafa Taher Kasubhai’s nomination to be a U.S. district judge in Oregon and to advance Sarah French Russell’s nomination to be a U.S. district judge in Connecticut. The chamber stayed in session until around midnight last night as Republicans forced five hours of procedural votes, seeking to slow down Democrats’ attempts to confirm the last of Biden’s judicial nominees.
The House will vote on the Committing Leases for Energy Access Now (CLEAN) Act, which would increase lease sales for geothermal energy projects on federal lands.
House Democrats will hold their leadership elections. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and his top deputies are running for re-election unopposed; the highest-profile contested race is for Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC) chair, the eighth-ranking leadership spot. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) is challenging Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), who is seeking another term in the position.
The Supreme Court has no oral arguments.