Liberals: Undone by their own undoing?

Liberals should fear they have driven moderate Trump supporters underground. The danger in having done so is that it is impossible to count just how many have been pushed into hiding, and therefore, more difficult to counter. Amazingly, the left are equally blind to the central role they have played in this threat. 

Recently, The New York Times ran an article highlighting the left’s “angst series” that something is amiss in November’s cakewalk, and that Biden’s lead is neither as wide nor secure as it appears. 

Their conclusion is “there’s no serious evidence that the polls are systematically missing Republican voters.”   

Certainly, Republicans are more likely to vote for Trump, so polls underrepresenting them would reduce the measure of Trump support. However, the bigger question is whether polls are accurately capturing Trump support — from whatever source — not just Republicans.  

Even if polling sampling accuracy is correct, the question is whether people are giving their true preference. Here, the answer is more debatable, and the left is more culpable. The left’s danger is that they have created a toxic climate in which moderate and minority voters are hiding their Trump support. If so, Democrats could be, again, blundering blindly into 2016’s mistake where they misallocated their political resources. 

After a five-year onslaught of prejudicial coverage and commentary, the public knows the answer they “are supposed to give” to any query concerning Trump. Since Trump began campaigning in 2016, he and his supporters have been ridiculed. Hillary Clinton provided the culmination of vituperation, “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?”

After Trump’s victory, the response of America’s self-styled cultural elite worsened. Administration officials were accosted in public; Vice President Pence and his family lectured from the stage by “Hamilton’s” cast and Trump staff asked to leave restaurants. 

During Trump’s time in office it escalated further. Trump staff, such as Michael Flynn, have not just been persecuted, they have been prosecuted. Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh was publicly vilified over unproven hearsay. The president himself was impeached over a Russian collusion charge, which was based on evidence so questionable that it was more worthy of an impeachment inquiry.  

Now, the left’s attacks have degenerated into a nationwide acting-out of violence — riots, physical attacks, burning, toppling statues and wanton destruction. There regularly are vulgarity-laced celebrity tirades and celebrity “imaginings” of violence against the president. A Trump supporter won a defamation settlement from CNN. 

Why would swing voters be not be reluctant to signal support for the president?   

We are not talking about conservatives who are used to being vilified by the elites and see in that vilification as a badge of honor. Instead, we are talking about moderate and minority voters who, at least formerly, are more accustomed to being in step with the elite. 

The “cancel culture” is real and repugnant; even liberals are taking notice of its destructive effect and calling for its end. As Bob Dylan sang almost sixty years ago, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” You would have to be obtuse to not see today’s political windsock, or to not know that the left understand exactly what they are doing.  

What those on the left do not know is what they may unwittingly be doing. By driving swing voters who support Trump into hiding, Democrats do not know where they are. As Democrats discovered in 2016: Forewarned is forearmed, and unwarned is unarmed.  

You cannot target what you cannot see. Last election, Clinton’s campaign missed states — particularly traditionally blue Midwestern ones. This time, the oversight could be pockets of voters within broader groups Democrats deem secure. It does not take a large swing in the zero-sum game of winner-take-all state presidential contests to make a big impact. 

Just as the left are vulnerable, they are also culpable. They have long since willingly tuned out and turned off conservatives. There is no reason to not think that their sudden dramatic lurch left could cause the same reaction closer to the political spectrum’s center. 

The same alienation dynamic could exist: The further removed you are from a group, the more likely they are to oppose you. If in-play again, the same 2016 result could play out too. Should that happen, the left will have been undone by their own doing.

J.T. Young served under President George W. Bush as the director of communications in the Office of Management and Budget and as deputy assistant secretary in legislative affairs for tax and budget at the Treasury Department. He served as a congressional staffer from 1987 through 2000.