Collapsing In On Itself

 Trump managed to animate a portion of the electorate that rarely participated in the past. The "missing White voters" that doomed Romney and McCain showed up for Trump. Those numbers, however, are not enough to consistently win elections. Trump famously never won the popular vote and never can win the popular vote.

Since 2020, Trump's narcissism has forced him into a consistent defense of the Big Lie that he won re-election. This has become the only real benchmark for continued good standing in the GQP. If you believe Biden is the legitimate president, you have to keep that to yourself.

This has two downsides that I think savvy GOP operatives understand.

The first is that this turns off independent voters. January 6th has bad. Really bad. And it's a natural consequence of Trump's rhetoric about stolen elections. We don't know how election deniers will do on the ballot in November, but hopefully they go down in a wave of defeats. This is the Democratic strategy of saying "Democracy is on the ballot."

The second is that if elections are "rigged," why should you even participate in them? We can call this the Laura Loomer effect. Loomer is an unhinged bigot, and therefore a bog-standard Trumpist. She lost a primary challenge to a sitting Republican House member, because that's what almost always happens. She has since said that it was rigged, because.... What's more, she's saying that her supporters shouldn't even come out and vote in November.

There's a certain logic in this, if you feel like your vote is an expression of consumer loyalty and not an expression of your desire for certain political outcomes. Democrats have been subject to this over the years, as Democrats have felt like they have to LOVE their candidates. As we are seeing with Biden's approval numbers, Democrats are fine with not loving Biden, but still voting for Democrats. If he's the nominee in 2024, they will vote for him.

But if - and I don't necessarily see it happening - DeSantis beats Trump for the nomination, a lot of those members of Cult 45 will stay home. Trump is their Tangerine Jesus, and DeSantis's mimicking of him is just an imitation.

Democrats and left-leaning independents still have to vote and vote in large numbers, but there is certainly a path forward where the Trumpist coalition collapses under the weight of its own lunacy.

UPDATE: This analysis of how Dobbs has scrambled the midterms is good. In it, they compare the accuracy of polls and how they've been off the past few cycles. Of note, they consistently under-sampled GOP support in 2016 and 2020 - years when Trump was on the ballot. Trumpists vote when Trump is on the ballot. 

My hope for the Urban-Suburban Blue Coalition is that we reverse the decades long pattern of GOP voters voting in greater numbers than Democrats in midterm elections. If Trumpists only really vote for Trump, that's a fatal flaw in the heart of the GOP coalition.