Summary
Conservative economist Oren Cass warns that Donald Trump could jeopardize his presidency by focusing on donor and activist agendas rather than the priorities of swing voters who secured his victory.
Writing in The New York Times, Cass argues that new presidents often mistake donor interests, such as tax cuts and deregulation, for the will of the electorate, leading to ineffective governance and loss of public trust.
Cass urges Trump to prioritize issues that resonate with the broader American public to avoid a fate that has derailed past presidencies.
If the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that what you do is not important as much as the narrative that you are able to spin.
As long as TV news networks, podcasters, news outlets, and Musk’s Twitter exist, people who are too ignorant to understand they are being lied to, or too lazy to parse credible information, will stay in the dark and vote red in the next election as well.
Democracy doesn’t work when the electorate is too illiterate to cast their vote justly. They’ll just vote for the next clown who promises them the moon.
I don’t have a solution.
Exactly.
I’ve had Republican friends send me articles, I read them, start the debate, only to realize they literally only read the headline.
I’ve found myself reading terribly written articles just so that I’m sure I don’t misunderstand anything being portrayed in the article. Sometimes spending an extra 20-30 additional minutes for fact checking.
Trying to have a subsequent conversation with them is like pissing in the wind.
We need never be afraid of the vote of informed Americans. It is only the ignorant voter we have to fear, ignorant politically, no matter how fine his house or how expensive his schooling. Such people have never experienced democracy; they have merely enjoyed its benefits. It is hard to explain what democracy is; it is necessary to participate in it to understand it.
—Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government
Unfortunately, there seems to be an awful lot of ignorance out there today.
Well, if goods become even more expensive, and wages fail to improve or get worse, then people tend to notice that more than the spin.
Sure you have very loud passionate politically active people who are game for “their team” to win no matter what and will listen to anything to rationalize their position and reject anything that disagrees, but a lot of folks are just looking at their personal circumstance and deciding if they think it’s bad or not and voting either to continue or change, without a whole lot of consideration of what either side says will work or why things are the way they are, they just know “keep it going” or “change it out”.
It is not a formula for a successful presidency
That all depends on how you define successful, doesn’t it. I rather think Trump has a different definition than most of us.
It seems he is out for revenge on anyone who slighted him in the last 8 years.
Don’t forget the money. Any action that will personally enrich him will be taken. From Trumps point of view the electorate are now irrelevant.
Economists also said that Trump would tank the economy. Americans sleep.
Maybe if dear leader has his interests threatened people will listen.
Economists also said that Trump would tank the economy. Americans sleep.
Not even just “sleeping”, Wallstreet is celebrating his win!
Conservative economist Oren Cass warns that Donald Trump could jeopardize his presidency by focusing on donor and activist agendas rather than the priorities of swing voters who secured his victory.
Jeopardize how? He’s already been elected, and it’s not like a Republican congress is going to impeach the head of their own party for… checks notes… focusing on donor priorities, lol
The whole reason the Republican party exists in it’s current form is to rubber stamp the agenda of the ownership class. Maybe he’ll get his ass kicked in the midterms in two years, but so fucking what? He’s got more than enough time to trash everything before then, especially since the RS are going in with an actual plan this time.
No, the only ‘jeopardy’ for Trump in his second term is that the hamberders might finally catch up with him and his black, unfeeling heart explodes.
Well, a scenario is that he cuts taxes and applies massive tariffs, resulting in a huge regressive expense paid the most by the poorest. That he lets companies be more sociopathic toward their workers and says “screw you” to anyone that needs welfare.
The end result if 2 years sees even more expensive bills and less safe employment and less recourse when the employment screws them over would be an electorate that demands him out and takes it out on the house and senate races. Perhaps to the point where they could remove him from office, and maybe even Vance too, and have a Democratic president finish out his term.
So his point is simply that while he pursues republican economic policy, which I suspect the author agrees with broadly, to take it easy and make sure he doesn’t piss everyone off in the process.
How are we already letting this fucking narrative take root?
TRUMP DID NOT WIN SOME EVER-IMPORTANT SWING VOTER. He kept his base while democratic support shriveled. This is the exact recipe to get the same fucking thing happening in four years where democrats refuse to offer anything but some “centrist” bootlicking bullshit.
Don’t let them spread this fucking bullshit
