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Decades ago, former US President Teddy Roosevelt called presidential power a "bullying platform," and concluded that the true value of the post was not his constitutional powers, but the ability to speak and convince voters. A century later, political scientists largely opposed Roosevelt. Ezra Klein wrote in The New Yorker in 2012 that presidents do not really have much power to influence public opinion.
But perhaps Roosevelt was right. The latest poll shows that President Donald Trump has largely reshaped US attitudes on three key issues: race, immigration, and trade. However, the public is turning against Trump's views.
A Reuters poll released a few days ago contains a collection of interesting data on race. Trump has long sought to use racial tension to gain political influence, but this summer has become remarkably frank by exploiting and exaggerating racial divisions, with a series of racist attacks on four Democratic congressmen and then their colleague Elia Cummings as a strategy before the 2020 elections. .
But the agency's poll casts doubt on this strategy. Reuters analysis also found that Americans had less feelings of racial anxiety this year and were more sympathetic to African Americans. This also applies to white Americans, including those without a college degree, who largely supported Trump in 2016.
Among the details, the percentage of whites who say “America must protect and preserve its white European heritage” has dropped nine points since last August. The percentages among whites in general and white Republicans in particular, who strongly agree that "whites are currently under attack in this country" fell by about 25 points from the same time two years ago.
Racial prejudice
It is not entirely clear what drives these changes. Duke University political scientist Ashley Gardena says there has been a 10% drop in the number of Americans adopting white identity politics since Trump took office. Many members of that group interpreted the election of Barack Obama, the first black president, "as a threat to their group, and as Obama leaves office, they begin to feel less threatening," says Gardena, who notes, however, that Trump's most obvious racist rhetoric alienates voters who They may feel threatened, but they do not show classic racial prejudice.
But the Trump era has led to the radicalization of Democrats, especially whites, who are sometimes considered more liberal than their fellow minority Democrats. Reuters found that more Democrats say blacks are being treated unfairly at work and by the police than in 2016 - which is remarkable given how police violence coverage toward African Americans has declined in the past few years - while Republican attitudes remain. without change.
Focus on race
At the same time, the shift of opinion about race, for example, appears elsewhere. Immigration, Trump's favorite subject, is inseparable from race, especially given Trump's focus on immigration from Latin America.
Reuters found that white Americans are 19 percent more supportive of some way of granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants than they were four years ago, and less favorable to an increase in deportations. Other surveys find relevant results. A large number of Americans (75%) said in 2018 that immigration is good for the United States. Although the Trump administration has taken steps to curb legal immigration, the Trump presidency has seen an increase in the number of Americans supporting more legal immigration, not only among Democrats, but even among Republicans.
Aggressive speech
Trump, like other presidents, is arguably more influential by virtue of his ability to determine the subject of debate. While the administration's goals of greater immigration restrictions have not been met, poll data indicate a strong public desire for more immigration, thanks to Trump's aggressive rhetoric. Moreover, there was evidence of a backlash against the president's decrees since the early months of his term. Trump succeeded in forcing a national debate on immigration, but instead of bringing people to his side, he convinced them that he was wrong.
One of the big problems Trump faced was that voters got a chance to see him implement ideas that seemed new or at least interesting during the previous campaign, and they don't like what they see in practice. The trade war with China may have seemed worthwhile in the summer of 2016, but now that the United States has fought a real war, the public has other ideas, as recession fears increase. A recent NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll found 64 percent of Americans believe free trade is good, compared with 57 percent in 2017, 55 percent in 2016 and 51 percent in 2015. Meanwhile, the percentage that says free trade is bad has fallen 10 points since 2017.
The growing support for free trade is interesting given the applicants' attitudes towards trade. Barack Obama supported free trade and established a Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major trade agreement that Trump blew up early in his term. The Democratic Party had doubts about trade. In some cases, figures such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren saw this questioning as rooted in long-standing economic views. But the other Democrats who were on the side of the business deals are also unclear. They may have been attracted to Trump's gravitational field by overestimating the general opposition to free trade.
Direct link
The last poll can be somewhat misleading. The Reuters poll provides reason to believe that these shifts are directly related to the upcoming elections. "People who rejected racial stereotypes were more interested in voting in the 2020 general election than those who expressed stronger levels of anti-black or anti-Hispanic prejudice," he found. This was not the case in 2016, when Americans with anti-black views were more politically engaged.
By focusing on increasing ethnic divisions, fostering immigration concerns, and fighting a trade war, Trump is preparing to participate in his re-election to come up with the same rule he adopted in 2016, hoping that those voters who elected Barack Obama but stayed at home rather than cast their ballots. In the interest of Hillary Clinton, they will do it again. But the margin of victory for Trump in 2016 was very low, because he lost the popular vote and narrowly won major states in the Midwest. If anti-racist voters remain more enthusiastic than prejudiced voters, it is hard to see how this scenario is repeated.
David Graham is a political writer
Trump succeeded in forcing a national debate on immigration, but instead of bringing people to his side, he convinced them that he was wrong.
75%
Americans think immigration is good for the United States in 2018.
10%
Americans have retreated from bigotry since Trump took office.