We’ve been here before — and odds are we’ll make it through once more

November 2, 2020

By Charles Lane,

These are troubled times for democracy in America. Fortunately, as a source of wisdom and perspective, we have “Democracy in America.”

Every presidential election is a “moment of national crisis,” Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in an obscure but — today — eerily relevant passage of that great 1835 book. “As the election draws near, intrigues grow more active, agitation is more lively and wider spread. The citizens divide up into several camps, each of which takes its name from its candidate. The whole nation gets into a feverish state; the election is the daily theme of comment in the newspapers and private conversations, the object of every action and the subject of all thought, the sole interest for the moment.”

Not bad for an aristocrat who arrived in the United States from France in 1831, the third year of President Andrew Jackson’s first term, but had to assemble many facts secondhand, because he left in February 1832, just before Jackson’s successful reelection campaign.

Tocqueville’s words remind us, possibly reassuringly: We have been here before.

He also noted that, in the United States, the power of the majority is “not only predominant, but irresistible.”

And if available evidence tells us anything about the majority’s opinion of another term for President Trump it is: They do not want it.

Hundreds of times since Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2017, pollsters have asked people whether they approved of his performance as president.

During those nearly 46 months, 50 percent or more have answered “yes” only 25 times, and 21 of those outlier polls were conducted by Rasmussen Reports, known for its pro-GOP “house effect.” Even Rasmussen’s highest pro-Trump number was 57 percent, once, just days after Inauguration Day 2017. (Rasmussen’s latest has Trump at 52 percent favorable.)

RealClearPolitics has reported a running “poll of polls” during this period, and never has the president’s composite approval rating exceeded 50 percent. It peaked at just over 47 percent in the last week of March, the only time average public disapproval of his conduct in office also dipped below 50 percent — for six days.

Almost from his first day as president, however, a higher percentage of the public has disapproved of the job Trump is doing than approved of it. Right now, the RealClearPolitics score is 52.8 disapprove to 45.6 approve.

On the specific question of whether Trump deserves reelection, polls over the past two years have reported that majorities say no, most recently in an Oct. 15 Gallup survey that found 56 percent consider him unworthy of four more years.

This is not the same as saying a majority approves of former vice president Joe Biden, as compared with Trump — though many public opinion data suggest they do. Nor is it to predict a Trump defeat. His current average approval rating of 45.6 resembles the share of votes he received in 2016 — 45.9 — and if he gets that percentage again, distributed efficiently in terms of states and their electoral votes, he could win.

The Tocquevillian point, rather, is that a Trump victory of that kind would not only fly in the face of majority opinion about him, but also it would do so at a time when data, and the public mood, make the anti-Trump majority conscious of its own existence.

The Democratic campaign this year feels like a cross between conventional electoral activity and a national uprising, energized by the substantial share of Trump’s critics — especially suburban women — who “strongly disapprove” of the job he’s done.

Instability could grow if this movement is thwarted by the counter-majoritarian workings of the electoral college, even if Trump were to achieve victory without chicanery.

To be sure, between the two possible outcomes in 2020 — a Biden victory, or a repeat of the electoral college “inside straight” Trump pulled in 2016 — the former seems more likely, fortunately.

Then it would be up to a victorious Biden majority to deal with the pro-Trump minority, roughly 45 percent of the country, which is not going away and shows no signs of moderating ideologically. Significantly, a consistent majority has approved of Trump in one area — economic policy — a fact that Democrats may disregard at their peril.

Democracy in America may depend on whether Republicans find ways to work together with Democrats, and, if they do, Democrats prove receptive — or whether polarization intensifies.

A partisan and sectional political death spiral took hold in the decades after Tocqueville’s visit; he foresaw it. On a more optimistic note, though, he wrote that, once an American presidential election ends, “the ardor is dissipated, everything calms down, and the river which momentarily overflowed its banks falls back into its bed.”

We must hope that, on this point, as on so many others, the Frenchman will prove not only eloquent but also prophetic.

Read more: Robert Kagan: It’s up to the people to foil Trump’s plot against democracy The Post’s View: Our Democracy in Peril The ultimate survival guide to election night and beyond, in 17 questions and answers Henry Olsen: My predictions for the 2020 presidential and congressional races Helaine Olen: Trump has literally and figuratively left Americans out in the cold

Source:WP