An unprecedented election? Interview with Tom Packer
The United States is facing decisive and impactful presidential elections as an increasingly polarized society.
To understand its implications for both the US and the rest of the world, I interviewed Dr Tom Packer, Research Fellow at the Institute of the Americas, University College London, and Associate Fellow at the Rothmere American Institute (Oxford), who specializes in American history and conservatism.
Do you think these presidential elections are unprecedented in some ways, given the polarization in public opinion in the US and beyond?
I’d say every election is distinctive, but there is some continuity. The coalitions look largely like the last time, the people supporting the candidates are more or less the same, both parties are very united. What’s different is there seems to have been certain significant shifts and issues have changed. Last time it was heavily about Trump, Clinton and immigration. This time it’s very focused on Trump, the economy and coronavirus, which obviously didn’t exist last time. After New Zealand, this is the first election in the middle of the pandemic.
And how about the impact of BLM and racial tensions in all of this?
I don’t think President Trump dealt very well with BLM, or COVID-19 for that matter, in a sense he tried to have it both ways, so they tried to attack Biden for being too close to BLM. If you look at the polls, president Trump scores very badly in race relations, which is potentially dangerous for him. On the other hand, one of the strongest performances are on crime, so I think that lots of it depends on what lens people look it through. It’s interesting the way Mr. Biden shifted his perspective, making it look less ambiguous he’s against defunding the police. I think BLM is a very important movement that matters a great deal, but how much it can shift an election I think it’s open to question. What’s interesting when you look at the voters, Mr. Trump is doing better among Hispanic voters, he might actually be doing better among African Americans compared to the last election interestingly, but he’s doing a lot worse among white voters. He’s having real problems even compared to last time with white voters who went to university, and he also seems to be losing among elderly white voters which is a little less clear, perhaps because of the pandemic. Over the last years the biggest changes have been among people in their twenties, who have become more strongly Democratic. He’s lost support among white college and non-college educated voters.
As people get older, Mr. Biden is doing much better than Hillary, while some of Mr. Trump’s best performances are among people in their forties and fifties-not unlike last time among the aged. There might be some evidence that he does better among people in their seventies, but you get to a point it’s hard to measure this. The polls seems to suggest that this rise in support among whites for Biden, is so much stronger than any gains Mr. Trump is making among Hispanics and African Americans. I think the evidence has also partly to do with worries about Mr. Trump’s character, so he’s even more unpopular than last time, but one of the big advantages he had is that Mrs. Clinton was nearly as unpopular as him, and while Mr. Biden isn’t wildly popular, he’s still mildly popular. So he’s got a positive approval rating by a few points, but president Trump is disapproved by a 20 point margin. So I think it’s another factor-Mr. Biden is not personally unpopular the way Mrs. Clinton was.
So do you actually think Biden is going to win, but not by a landslide?
Possibly, now what I think people are not considering enough is Biden winning by a landslide. A huge impact on whether he can do enough domestically is whether he has a significant majority in the Senate, and he might even get as much as 54-55 senators, in which case he could really change the country. I still think Mr. Trump has a chance, what people focus on has to shift- the NY Post investigating about Mr. Biden’s son’s allegation of corruption could certainly help. I don’t deny Mr. Trump still has a chance, but Biden appears to be heavily favoured at the moment.
Going back top BLM- what do you think will be the relationship with the Democratic Party if Biden wins?
BLM’s leadership is very radical and its rhetoric as well-defund the police for example. Some respectable figures (even some Republicans) as well have identified themselves with them, remember Nancy Pelosi taking the knee, but if we look at what the Democrats have been pushing in Congress, it has been a lot weaker. In Congress it’s been things like taking away immunity from police (they can’t be sued personally at the moment) creating more antiracism in training, which can be very ideological and directive, but it’s striking how cautious Biden is being. If he adopted the most radical elements of Black Lives Matter he’d be in big trouble, he’s a very savvy politician and he’s been careful about doing it. What would happen if he wins would be very interesting, given all the expectations. One thing that might end up looming quite large is Mr. Biden has promised he will appoint for a first member of the Supreme court and African American woman. There’s never been a black woman on the US Supreme Court. It isn’t obvious there are any candidates, and two would be a lot more right of centre than Mr. Biden would like. Johnnie Rawlinson is a very moderate Democrat from Nevada, and Carol Rogers Brown is an extremely conservative Republican from California. I don’t think Mr. Biden wants to nominate either of them. But then he might have problems with some of the more liberal African American judges getting them confirmed!
About polarization- what would be the role of moderate, potentially swing voters and the polarization within the Republicans? I’m thinking about Sohrab Ahmari against David French-ism- is the old fusionist consensus still tenable?
About polarization in both parties, we need to realise that swing voters still exist-it’s a myth they don’t, they are of course less than they used to be, but there are, and they are the people who decide elections. One of the thing we need to be careful about is thinking these voters are moderate compared to the political class They don’t fit the mold of the Republican or the Democratic party, but they often cut across with extreme ‘rightwing’ and ‘leftwing’ positions. The voters who put Mr. Trump tend to be voters who are very much pro middle class welfare state, very wary of free trade but also very much against immigration, very against political correctness and very wary about changes in society. They are not what the Economist or Repubblica define “moderate”, but they are swing voters, a bit similar to Italy, when leftist electors ended up voting for the Northern League. I think they have to be called moderate, but they’re not what the establishment thinks as moderate.
Within the party, Republican elites have a low personal opinion of Mr. Trump, I think even those who support him ideologically have a lot of problems with him as human being. The fact is though, strong, solid conservative Republicans are very behind Mr. Trump, considerably more so than last time. People like Jonah Goldberg or David French, who are still conservative, are still basically “I can’t vote for Mr Trump” are quite rare even among the elite. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I also wouldn’t exaggerate how much the Republican party changed ideologically. There’s been a lot of changing rhetoric on trade, but most Republicans in congress haven’t been very happy about Mr. Trump’s trade wars. There’s been a lot of change of rhetoric on immigration but maybe a bit less so on policy, and the biggest difference is a big increase in public spending, which had also happened under G. W. Bush to a large degree. Trump himself is a very unusual person, but I would not exaggerate how unusual his administration has been. What’s been most unusual is the level of chaos, people resigning etc. The policies are slightly different, but not wildly unexpected from a Republican administration. In a way, think about a more chaotic American version of Mr. Berlusconi, lots of talk and rhetoric, all very interesting, but what happened is not so different from what had happened before.
What’s the position of Christians, in general, in these elections?
I would say - a bit like in Italy- in a way there’s long been a divide in American politics, where the most religious Christians and groups like the Mormons have tended to be more Republican, particularly among white people. Don’t forget African Americans tend to be more religious than white people, and also more Democratic. The status quo has probably moved to the Left, same sex marriage a very big issues ten years ago is barely an issue anymore, and is much more focused on things like religious groups being forced to shut down unless they provide adoptions for same sex couples, but there is a basic continuity, with probably the Republicans being more or less where they were, slightly more to the Left on gay rights. President Trump has been pushing for legalising homosexuality in countries where it was illegal, but the Democrats have moved more sharply. For example, Mr. Biden has a very complex history on abortion, in the Seventies he said we should overturn Roe vs Wade and let it be regulated by the States, and he has slowly been moving to the left, and he now supports termination in all circumstances and that being paid by the government. He voted to ban partial birth abortion in the late 1990s, but they’re now talking about passing a law which would protect the right to choose essentially in all circumstances. My suspicion is, if they do come round to passing a federal law that tries to do that and the Republicans asked if that included partial birth abortion, Mr. Biden would compromise on that. But what I would say partly for some secular voters who are less are less frightened of a religious right the way they were and also there is a certain kind of religious voter, perhaps college-educated women who just find Mr. Trump unlikeable perhaps for his stance on immigration and definitely as a person, so my feeling is that more religious voters are tending a bit towards the Democrats. Religious college educated people are still very heavily Republican, but less than they had been before. I just think a lot of that has to do with Mr. Trump’s character.
He only won by the skin of his teeth last time. Also, with Amy Coney Barrett confirmed at the Supreme Court, it will mean that six members of the Supreme Courts have been elected by Republican presidents, five of them devout Catholics, one of them an Episcopalian, and so I think there may be less fear of the Republican losing this time. Last time a lot of Christians feared there was a previously conservative vacancy in the Supreme Court – a very left leaning Supreme Court would have had implications for religious freedom and abortion, and the right of churches to run their own affairs.
So, looking at a possible scenario-Trump wins a second term, what would be the implications of that in light of a very aggressive progressive culture?
I think the President will make some badly directed attempts to push it back, and the judiciary, especially the new Republicans will be more aggressive about saying for example in State Universities you can’t just throw people out, under dubious accusations of racism. The Democrats will probably do well in Congress in the midterm and because the Democrats will hold the majority in the house there won’t be much success at passing legislation, but he might be able to deregulate the economy a bit, and some interesting moves in the Middle East and with China.
If Mr. Biden wins, of course it all depends on how big his majority is, if he has a substantial majority in the Senate, he might undertake very radical reforms. Actually I think Trump’s campaign was bad at focusing on this, he wants to increase spending, provide constitutional rights to abortion et cetera, even with a Democratic Senate he’s not going to pass all of that. However, I think he might achieve as much as Mr. Obama at expanding the power of the State, possibly even more so. On foreign policy, Mr. Biden is quite hard to predict, I suspect he will push back against China but not as much and I suppose he will move back to a slightly more Obama position in general, more pro EU, less pro-Israel, less pro the United Kingdom. I wouldn’t imagine a radical change but at the same time, I think if he wins it’s bad news for the UK, good news for the EU, but it doesn’t mean he will implement any radical policies either.
One shouldn’t exaggerate how different Mr. Trump is being, he’s been different on foreign affairs, to some degree on trade and then on symbolic stuff like recognising the Israeli embassy, which is of course important but not quite the same at starting or stopping a war. Both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have historically been cautious at being involved in new wars, so I am doubtful either will bring about some change in the Middle East that will cause a lot of shooting.