Defying the Odds

by James W. Ceaser

  Enter Donald J. Trump. In the 1980s and 1990s, he became nationally prominent for both his business dealings and his extramarital affairs. He also flirted with politics, even making a brief run at the Reform Party presidential nomination in 2000. But it was reality television that made him America’s fantasy boss. On The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice, he introduced himself to millions as a tough, shrewd businessman that supplicants looked to for guidance and approval. Some no doubt saw him as the kind of take-charge man who could lead the country. Academics and political commentators were not paying much attention, however. If they were watching television at all, they were tuning in to the highbrow fare that the expanding cable menu had made available. They also overlooked his many appearances on niche networks such as the Golf Channel. Below the intelligentsia’s radar, cable television was giving this billionaire the kind of positive name identification that money could not buy.

  The 1992 book did not mention the Internet as part of the media picture: as mentioned earlier, few Americans had Internet access. Within a few years, cyberspace grew fast and became part of national politics.100 In 1996, Bob Dole made a bit of political history by offering the first mention of a campaign website during a presidential debate—although he got the URL wrong.101 With dramatic improvements in technology, the first decade of the twenty-first century saw the rise of social media and the migration of news from print publications to online sources. In a 2016 poll, most respondents expressed a preference for getting their news from a screen, whether it was a television, smartphone, or tablet.102

  There was a website, Facebook group, or Twitter feed for just about every conceivable shade of political opinion. Once a campaign or cause reached a critical mass, it could now bypass the old media gatekeepers completely. With so many alternative perspectives—sometimes alternative realities— Americans continued to lose faith in the legacy media. By 2016, just 32 percent said that they had a great deal or a fair amount of trust that the media would “report the news fully, accurately and fairly”—the lowest point in Gallup polling history.103

  In decades past, key magazines and newspapers shaped the political agenda and set the contours of ideological debate. With the rise of the Internet, they lost much of this power to outsiders. The case of the National Review illustrates the point. Starting in the 1950s, it did much to define American conservatism in the second half of the twentieth century. It policed the movement’s outer boundaries, effectively excommunicating the likes of Ayn Rand, the John Birch Society, and the Liberty Lobby. In 1991, it ran a special issue concluding that Pat Buchanan was guilty of anti-Semitism.104 Although the magazine did not stop Buchanan, it helped put a low ceiling on his support. Twenty-five years later, National Review (first online, then in print) ran a symposium against Trump.105 It had far less effect because conservatives had a vast array of alternative sources of information, including Breitbart.com and Trump’s own tweets. Longtime Republican operative Ron Kaufman told Jeff Greenfield, “If Buchanan had had social media he might have done a lot better. Back then in ’92, people wouldn’t have been hearing about it every 15 minutes. There was no Breitbart, no Politico.”106

  On the other side of the political spectrum, meanwhile, Internet publications such as the Huffington Post and Daily Kos supplanted old print journals such as the New Republic. During the campaign, an “alt-left” became evident, though it was not quite as notorious as the alt-right. After publishing a post-election critique of the Sanders campaign, historian Gil Troy wrote that he “received hundreds of obscenity-laden tweets, emails and Facebook posts condemning me, my looks, my suits, my intelligence, my professional judgment, my integrity, my motives, my religion. Some of these messages threatened violence and even mentioned my office address, trying to intimidate me.”107

  The media landscape of the twenty-first century had turned into a battle-field, with liberals and conservatives occupying different territories. Surveys found little common ground in the news sources that they consulted and trusted. When discussing politics online, they were likely with like-minded people.108 This environment fed the growth of “fake news,” deliberately falsified or distorted online stories that go viral within political communities of the left and right. One survey found that nearly 90 percent of Clinton and Trump supporters believed in conspiracies involving the other candidate, even without any real evidence.109

  The Internet was a medium for campaign money as well as news and (mis)information. If you wanted to give money to a candidate in 1992, you usually had to write a check. The solicitation would come by postal mail (or, if you were a high roller, a phone call), and you would put pen to paper and place the check into postal mail. By 2016, many contributions came by credit card or even text. (Only partly tongue in cheek, campaign fundraisers spoke of “drunk donation.”) Howard Dean in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008 had already demonstrated that a progressive candidate could raise huge sums online. These precedents, along with technological advances that allowed candidates more easily to identify and solicit contributions in cyberspace, provided an electronic opening to an outsider such as Sanders.

  An influential 2008 work of political science argued that party insiders were the major force in picking candidates. They had campaign organizations and access to fundraising networks. Perhaps most of all, they had the power of political persuasion: the ability to give cues to partisan voters.110 The book was a well-researched and thoughtful analysis of political trends up to its time. But times were changing. Between the early 1990s and the run-up to the 2016 election, Americans grew more skeptical of political parties. Republicans in particular had increasingly unfavorable opinions of their own party.111 The GOP’s self-loathing may have reflected broad discontent with social conditions and the party’s apparent inability to do anything about it. It may also have stemmed from the new media’s conservative voices. Reflecting on the power of Fox News, right-wing websites, and radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, Oliver Darcy and Pamela Engel wrote that “the conservative media industrial complex” locked GOP officeholders and party officials away from their own base by telling their audience not to trust politicians. The party establishment dared not criticize those who held the electronic keys to their voters. “The power the conservative press held allowed its members to decide who was accepted by the base and who wasn’t. True conservatives could be painted as unprincipled moderates, and, as in the case of Trump, unprincipled moderates could be painted as exactly what the base wanted.”112

  As for organization and resources, GOP leaders were at a loss to stop a reality TV star with seemingly unlimited wealth and almost universal name recognition. In the other party, one candidate’s monopoly of big-money contributors turned out not to be a barrier to an opponent who could build a big war chest by getting millions of people to send him $27 apiece on the Internet. In 2016, the new communications environment collided with the economic and social dislocation of the white working class and the long tradition of outsiderism in American politics to create a potent stew and a result that few experts saw coming. The political world was ready to turn upside down and inside out, again.

  NOTES

  1. James Ceaser and Andrew Busch, Upside Down and Inside Out: The 1992 Elections and American Politics (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993), 1.

  2. Steven J. Rosenstone, Roy L. Behr, and Edward H. Lazarus, Third Parties in America, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), ch. 9.

  3. RealClearPolitics, “Direction of Country,” November 13, 2016, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/direction_of_country-902.html.

  4. James E. Campbell, “Forecasting the 2016 American National Elections: Introduction,” PS: Political Science and Politics 46 (October 2016): 649–54.

  5. Todd Eberly, “Trump Won, but Nothing Re-aligned,” The Free Stater Blog, November 12, 2016, http://freestaterblog.blogspot.com/2016/11/trump-won-but-nothing-raligned.html.

  6. The Homeric analogy lay behind the title of our
book Epic Journey: The 2008 Elections and American Politics.

  7. Frank Newport, “Clinton Holds Clear Edge on Having Presidential Qualities,” Gallup, November 1, 2016, http://www.gallup.com/poll/196952/clinton-holds-clear-edge-having-presidential-qualities.aspx.

  8. Lydia Saad, “Trump and Clinton Finish with Historically Poor Images,” Gallup, November 8, 2016, http://www.gallup.com/poll/197231/trump-clinton-finish-historically-poor-images.aspx.

  9. John Sides, “Five Key Lessons from Donald Trump’s Surprising Victory,” Washington Post, November 9, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/09/five-key-lessons-from-donald-trumps-surprising-victory.

  10. Yascha Mounk, “How Political Science Gets Politics Wrong,” Chronicle of Higher Education, October 30, 2016, http://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Political-Science-Gets/238175.

  11. David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, Literary, edited and with a Foreword, Notes, and Glossary by Eugene F. Miller, with an appendix of variant readings from the 1889 edition by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, revised edition (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1987), http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hume-essays-moral-political-literary-lf-ed.

  12. This discussion tracks with chapter 1 of Upside Down and Inside Out.

  13. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, May 13, 1793, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-26-02-0021.

  14. Publius (Alexander Hamilton), Federalist 1, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed01.asp.

  15. Alexander Hamilton, notes in the Federal Convention of 1787, June 6, 1787, http://web.archive.org/web/20160630002508/ http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/aspconst05.asp.

  16. William Jennings Bryan, “A Cross of Gold,” address to Democratic national convention, Chicago, July 8, 1896, http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1876-1900/william-jennings-bryan-cross-of-gold-speech-july-8-1896.php.

  17. Huey P. Long, address in Washington, DC, December 11, 1934, http://speakola.com/political/huey-long-share-our-wealth-1934.

  18. Huey P. Long, radio address, February 24, 1934, http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/EveryManKing.pdf.

  19. In a letter to the Detroit Jewish Chronicle, he briefly described his Dutch ancestors. “In the dim distant past they may have been Jews or Catholics or Protestants. What I am more interested in is whether they were good citizens and believers in God. I hope they were both.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Letter on the President’s Ancestors,” March 7, 1935, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid15016.

  20. George Wallace, address at Madison Square Garden, New York, October 24, 1968, http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~ppennock/doc-Wallace.htm.

  21. David S. Broder, “Wallace Campaign Tactics Described,” Spokesman-Review, August 21, 1968, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid1314&dat19680821&idtDtWAAAAIBAJ&sjiddekDAAAAIBAJ&pg5292,1787167&hlen.

  22. Jesse Jackson, address to the Democratic National Convention, San Francisco, July 18, 1984, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jessejackson1984dnc.htm.

  23. Rick Atkinson and Milton Coleman, “Peace with American Jews Eludes Jackson,” Washington Post, February 13, 1984, A1.

  24. Frank J. Prial, “Black Journalists Critical of Muslim,” New York Times, April 6, 1984, http://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/06/us/black-journalists-critical-of-muslim.html.

  25. Elizabeth Drew, Election Journal: Political Events of 1987–1988 (New York: William Morrow, 1989), 155–56.

  26. Tim Murphy, “This Is the Campaign That Explains Bernie Sanders,” Mother Jones, December 17, 2015, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/bernie-sanders-jesse-jackson-campaign.

  27. Pew Research Center, “Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor,” April 18, 2010, http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/606.pdf.

  28. Patrick J. Buchanan, “A Crossroads in Our Country’s History,” New Hampshire State Legislative Office Building, December 10, 1991, http://www.4president.org/speeches/buchanan1992announcement.htm.

  29. Ronald Brownstein, “Buchanan Links L.A. Riot to Immigration Problems,” Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1992, http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-14/local/me-3227_1_illegal-immigrants.

  30. Patrick J. Buchanan, Republican Convention speech, August 17, 1992, http://buchanan.org/blog/1992-republican-national-convention-speech-148.

  31. Jim Mann, “Harsh Views on Japan May Help Fuel Perot Campaign,” Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1992, http://articles.latimes.com/1992-06-11/news/mn-353_1_trade-talks.

  32. Carl T. Bogus, Buckley: William F. Buckley, Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011), ch. 3; “Why the South Must Prevail,” National Review, August 24, 1957, https://adamgomez.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/whythesouthmustprevail-1957.pdf.

  33. Glenn Kessler, “Rand Paul’s Rewriting of His Own Remarks on the Civil Rights Act,” Washington Post, April 11, 2013, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/rand-pauls-rewriting-of-his-own-remarks-on-the-civil-rights-act/2013/04/10/5b8d91c4-a235-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_blog.html.

  34. Justin McCarthy, “Americans’ Support for Gay Marriage Remains High, at 61%,” Gallup, May 19, 2016, http://www.gallup.com/poll/191645/americans-support-gay-marriage-remains-high.aspx; Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 US (2015), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf.

  35. Fisher v. University of Texas, 579 U.S. (2016), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-981_4g15.pdf.

  36. Eugene Scott, “Trump Hits Scalia Over Comments on Black Students,” CNN, December 13, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/13/politics/donald-trump-antonin-scalia-affirmative-action.

  37. Chris Cillizza, “Donald Trump on ‘Meet the Press,’ Annotated,” Washington Post, August 17, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/08/17/donald-trump-on-meet-the-press-annotated/?utm_term.af57eff6a2d6.

  38. Charles R. Kesler, I am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism (New York: Broadside Books, 2012), xiv.

  39. John J. Pitney Jr., “Trump on the Declaration: ‘It’s Not True,’ ” Epic Journey, September 22, 2016, http://www.epicjourney2008.com/2016/09/trump-v-declaration-of-independence.html.

  40. Greg Sargent, “Trump’s Revealing Quote about ‘American Exceptionalism,’ ” Washington Post, June 7, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/06/07/donald-trumps-revealing-quote-about-american-exceptionalism/.

  41. See, for instance, Harry V. Jaffa, American Conservatism and the American Founding (Durham, NC: North Carolina Academic Press, 1984).

  42. Veronica Stracqualursi, “The Note: Trump Takes on GOP Establishment,” ABC News, May 9, 2016, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/note-trump-takes-gop-establishment/story?id38977148.

  43. James Hohmann, “Trump’s Pollster Says He Ran a ‘Post-Ideological’ Campaign,” Washington Post, December 5, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/12/05/daily-202-trump-s-pollster-says-he-ran-a-post-ideological-campaign/5844d166e9b69b7e58e45f2a/?utm_term.4ed145a6545f.

  44. Ronald Kessler, “Donald Trump: Mean-Spirited GOP Won’t Win Elections,” NewsMax, November 26, 2012, http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Donald-Trump-Ronald-Kessler/2012/11/26/id/465363.

  45. Yuval Levin, “The New Republican Coalition,” National Review, November 17, 2016, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442238/republican-party-after-trump-new-coalition-will-be-more-populist-nationalist.

  46. Nicholas Lemann, “The Smart Club Comes to the White House,” New York Times, November 29, 1992, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/29/opinion/the-smart-club-comes-to-the-white-house.html.

  47. Data on educational attainment come from U.S. Census Bureau, “Percent of People 25 Years and Over Who Have Completed High School or College, by Race, Hispanic Origin and Sex: Selected Years 1940 to 2015,” March 2016, https://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/historical/tabA-2.xlsx.

  48. Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 (New York: Crown Forum, 2012), 52–61.

  49. U.S. Bure
au of Economic Analysis, Real Gross Domestic Product Per Capita [A939RX0Q048SBEA], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, November 21, 2016, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA.

  50. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, series LNU04000000, November 21, 2016, http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet.

  51. Securities and Exchange Commission, Dow Jones Industrial Average, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/357298/000035729801500016/dowjones.html.

  52. Pew Research Center, “The State of American Jobs,” October 6, 2016, http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/10/06/the-state-of-american-jobs.

  53. U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, “The Economic Record of the Obama Administration: Investing in Higher Education,” September 2016, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/20160929_record_higher_education_cea.pdf.

  54. U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, “Investing in Higher Education: Benefits, Challenges, and the State of Student Debt,” July 2016, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/20160718_cea_student_debt.pdf.

  55. U.S. Congressional Budget Office, “Trends in Family Wealth, 1989 to 2013,” August 2016, https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51846-Family_Wealth.pdf.

  56. Alec Tyson, “Economic Recovery Favors the More-Affluent Who Own Stocks,” Pew Research Center, May 13, 2013, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/31/stocks-and-the-recovery-majority-of-americans-not-invested-in-the-market.

  57. Internet Live Stats, Total Number of Websites, November 25, 2016, http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites.