Donald Trump's populism is deep, rational and durable but it is also attached to a shallow and unreliable political party.
Not all the Democrat candidates cast their campaigns in the populist terms that we hear from Pocahontas but, no matter which Democrat candidate emerges, the election will be a referendum, whether explicit or not, on two competing populisms:
The Trump/Banning flavor of populism is attached to the Constitution, to capitalism, to limited government, to national defense, to nationalism, to rational immigration policies and to an ideal of patriotism. The Democrats' version is attached to socialism, open borders, appeasement and the idea that America is unworthy. Trump's political party, although not Trump himself, is attached to K St. and Wall Street no less than the attachment you have identified there to Elizabeth Warren.
The article seems to make the essential gulf between the Elizabeth Warren version and Trump's version to be social issues. No one can doubt that the lurch toward extremism of the Democrat party in which it has stupidly identified itself as the party of transgenderism, infanticide, and deicide will clearly demarcate these ideologies but, typically, elections are decided on pocketbook issues.
If the economy continues to boom as it is perhaps the voters will turn to social issues and on these, clearly, the right has all the better arguments. All the better arguments that is if they can be cogently presented to white suburban women, especially white, educated, single, suburban women. All of the attributes which white men admire in Donald Trump do not necessarily appeal to this group of suburban women who are likely to decide this election. This cycle, Trump will have difficulty elevating his approval numbers to the degree that Obama or George W. Bush managed to do despite his booming economy. He has a genius for decapitating his antagonists with a single phrase and perhaps that will carry the day in 2024 and enable president Trump to bring his opponents down to compensate for his relative inability to elevate his own likability quotient among this important group.
But it would be much better if the populist campaign of Donald Trump can simply identify in the public mind, especially in the suburban mind, the Democrats as the phony, hypocritical elitists they are with all the attributes you point out in your excellent reply.
As an aside, we have been anticipating for some time a realignment of the parties in which the better version of populism will attach to the Republicans, combined with some social issues, and a wholesome conservative reform of chronic crony capitalism to reinvigorate the country in time to contend with China. The Democrats lurch toward socialism tells us what their side of the populist divide will look like and tells us much about the durability of the nation if entrusted to their hands.
