The 2020 Autopsy Part IV

or why Trump was a doomed One-Termer

Krazy Karla, an old girlfriend, once told me “There’s a power in being hated”.

Being hated, particularly in politics, is a useful power base. Your enemies act emotionally, irrationally, and often chaotically in response.

The thought was interesting enough that I developed a theory about presidential reelections. If hated enough, a sitting president couldn’t be beaten.

And from Andrew Jackson through Barack Obama, it worked pretty well. The biggest stumbling block was explaining Eisenhower, a well liked man whose enemies were not found Left of Center but to his Right. Eisenhower was very much a man aligned close to America’s political center.

Trump, either through incompetence or blind ignorance, failed to comprehend this. A bizarre turn for a nihilist, but a predictable conundrum for a classic narcissist and person with (likely) illusory superiority disorder, i.e. Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Outside of hatred, likability and adoration (the “being loved” dynamic) play a critical role in political strategy. Political consultants tell candidates to be likable and that being loved is a political plus. The political argument for electability is almost always Candidate X is a technocrat or a populist. Technocrats seek likability whereas populists seek adoration.

Unfortunately, technocrats do poorly in presidential elections.

Over the last 16 elections, a technocrat has beaten a populist on only two occasions: 1972 and 2020. Given the GOP shenanigans prior to the Watergate break-in and the Democrats disarray after Nixon took office, the 1972 election of a technocrat over a populist is not much of an achievement. Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump, however, is a unique feat.

At some point, realists on the Right will concede that Trump’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic came with a huge political cost and will likely claim wrongly that but for COVID-19, Trump would have won reelection.

Unfortunately, that presupposes that Trump was doing well politically in January 2020. The metadata from approval/disapproval polls tell a different story - the political Left and Center opposed Trump enough to limit him to a single term.

If there is rule that defines one-term presidents, it’s their dearth of competitive reelection experience, particularly since beginning of the 20th Century.

Taft, Hoover, and Trump had never held political office before being elected President.

In 1964, Jimmy Carter was reelected to the GA State Senate without opposition. He had won a blistering nail biter of a Democratic primary in 1962 (in the 60s in Georgia, the Democratic primary was the election) and then ran unopposed. After that he ran for Governor twice, winning in 1970, and then opting not to run for reelection in 1974.

George H.W. Bush was reelected to Congress in 1968 without opposition. He had garnered 57% of the vote for the 7th District of Texas two years earlier. The folks in his Houston congressional district liked him enough to dissuade anyone from running against him.

If you want to throw in Gerald Ford, he never got less than 60% of the vote representing the 5th District of Michigan.

Populists are loved by many but expect to be hated by some. Likability is a secondary factor.

Technocrats take more mathematical precision - being liked by 50% plus1 is enough.

In 1972, Nixon found away win without being very likable.

In 2020, Biden proved to be far more likable than Trump and the Democrats.

More on Monday.