I heard Tom Friedman of the New York Times speak live on Thursday, when he claimed the GOP was consumed by the politics of cult. In his view, the party’s mantra is Trump Uber Alles. Wrong! If there’s a Republican mantra, then it’s Trump Uber High Taxes, Open Borders, China (and) Excessive Regulations. By the way, Friedman, who has endorsed Mayor Bloomberg for president, thinks Sanders supporters are a cult as well.
Yes, some Trump supporters fit Friedman’s description (Sean Hannity comes to mind), but red-hatted Republicans are not the brown-shirted Nazis of yesteryear – not now and not ever. Friedman omitted in his preachy lecture that Trump travailed through a crowded Republican field and complex electoral map, and that Trump’s persona is his greatest polling negative. Like everyone else at the Times, Friedman can’t believe 63 million lucid Republicans exist.
Friedman should know Trump’s 2016 win was but a reaction to the status quo. In 2015, the Trump campaign focused on situational politics, when he alone spoke bluntly about bad trade deals and open borders. While Jeb Bush and John Kasich lectured him, Trump was heard by the “forgotten” Americans that feared for their American Dream. By 2016, those fears were legitimized by Clinton’s focus on identity politics.
Woody Allen presciently dissed Friedman and Clinton in the 1977 film Annie Hall: “you’re like New York, Jewish, left wing, liberal, intellectual…” Both have played to stereotype: Hillary lumped 50% of Republicans in a “basket of deplorables” and Tom lumped them into a “cult of personality.” Bob Dylan presciently dissed their arrogance in 1965: “don’t criticize what you can’t understand.” It’s poetic justice that liberal icons dissed so-called liberals like Friedman and Clinton.
It was fitting that Friedman’s lecture was in Florida, where recent polls rebut his “cult” narrative. Republican Governor DeSantis enjoys 65% approval, while President Trump has only 47%, and the Governor’s 21% disapproval is lower than the President’s 51% (source: UNF). Amongst Florida Republicans, DeSantis’s 85% approval is a bit higher than Trump’s 84% (source: SLU).
My point is simple: after a narrow 2018 victory, a Republican has governed in a bipartisan manner; pleasing independent voters (65% approval and 22% disapproval) and Democrats (46% approval and 35% disapproval) without losing Republicans. He has endorsed medical marijuana and increased environmental funding (and fines). He pushed for $1 billion more in teacher pay, while fighting an increase to Florida’s minimum wage.
I suspect the RNC knows President Trump will need Governor DeSantis’s support to win Florida in November. So, where’s the cult? In fact, Republicans embrace situational politics and reject identity politics, which is the true cult. It is cult-like to claim anything but common sense lies behind a Republican’s support for immigration reform, and hardly cult-like to oppose single-payer healthcare.
I doubt millions of Christians and Jews abandoned their faiths to join a Trump cult (hint: thou shalt not have false gods before me). The true cult is one with members that smear Jews as all about the Benjamins or portray ICE agents as racist storm troopers. Many Republicans support Trump’s policies in spite of his personality. Not only is this possible, Mr. Friedman, it is more likely than some nutty cult conspiracy.