As a general matter, people who write about or strategize about politics greatly overestimate our collective ability to shape how an election will play out, the extent to which clever ideas can pivot the course of an election in any new direction. We’re more small sailboats on a big ocean than some kind of latter-day Neptune actually changing the waves or the wind. But, all that said, Trump may have handed a unique card for Democrats to play against Republican candidates, especially those bordering Canada, which include key states like Michigan, Alaska, and Maine, as well as states with strong trade dependencies like Iowa and Ohio. This part requires little explanation. Heading into an ugly midterm cycle with one damaging and needless war underway, it boggles the mind that he thinks it’s a good idea to start a trade war with America’s second-largest trading partner. Trade wars raise prices; and the cost of living is the largest single issue in the election.
But there’s an additional dimension to the politics.
One of the Trump opposition’s consistent challenges through both his presidential terms has been making the case that Trump’s selfishness, corruption, incompetence and malevolence affects voters’ individual lives. One blindspot for the opposition during Trump’s first term, at least through February 2020, was that for many people, as crazy and terrible as Trump acted, if you just went about your life and didn’t pay attention to the news, none of it really mattered. Trump inherited a strong economy and then juiced it with free spending and tax cuts. Many people could just ignore it and go about their business. And of course that’s what a big cross-section of the population is always doing, especially those loosely committed voters who are most up for grabs in any election.
The dynamics are different here. Not unlike the case with the Iran War, most people not only oppose this trade war, they’re baffled by it — like why is this even happening? It’s all Trump’s erratic impulsive and grandiosity and aggression bundled together. And unlike the Reflecting Pool or the ballroom or corrupt prosecutions of people you may not know, this is actually going to affect you, and not in a good way. Trump’s pathetic threat to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America plays nicely into this. It drives home that this isn’t some arcane trade dispute that maybe you don’t understand. It’s clearly another of his ego-trip, dick-swinging gyres, only this time really clearly at your expense.
A lot of Canadians think we, as Americans, have turned against them or are attacking them. And they are totally justified in assuming that and being super angry about it since our country could stop this at any moment. And we’re not. But Trump has actually had pretty little success convincing Americans that Canada is some aggressive power harming or taking advantage of America.
As you can see in this poll, Trump has had a fair amount of success changing Republicans’ views of Canada. But even among self-identified Republicans, most of whom are off-limits even in a wave election, a fairly big majority still has a favorable opinion of Canada. Unsurprisingly, Democrats’ views are unchanged and couldn’t be much higher. Independents’ views are still upwards of North Korea levels of support. But even that 80% number is a little deceptive. Substantial slices of “independent voters” are actually firmly aligned with one party or another. In voting terms, they’re Republicans or Democrats. They are independents as a matter of political identity rather than voting behavior. Put this all together and what it amounts to is that outside consistent Republican voters, nobody buys any of this.
The political line of attack is pretty clear. Unlike so many other examples of chaotic and degenerate bullshit or egregious damage that shows up over time in indirect ways, this one is crystal clear: it’s all on Trump and something almost everyone feels in the here and now. You’re already struggling to make ends meet. Trump doesn’t care and isn’t doing anything about it. And all Trump will do is go create more chaos, do some stupid thing no one was asking for for his own kicks, making your situation worse.
As I said at the top, most voters will come to these conclusions on their own. And an incumbent party usually takes the hit for whatever goes wrong, whoever’s fault it was. But it’s important for the opposition party to help it along. And more specifically, Democrats need to frame these attacks not just around Trump but around Republican candidates who need to answer for it and for him since they support him 100% on anything and everything.