The Other Great Sorting

 The Great Sort is the sociological argument that Americans have largely separated themselves into different geographic camps. This - like so many arguments like it - is so grossly overstated as to be effectively meaningless. I live in Connecticut, an indigo blue state. My town is Trumpy as hell, but that means he will get 66% of the vote. What does that say about the third of residents who will vote for Harris? Do we not exist?

There is, however, another form of Great Sorting, which goes back to the 1980s and '90s. The two parties became more ideologically coherent. When LBJ passed the Voting Rights Act, he did some with real support from Republicans who thought it was an important bill. That sort of action is pretty rare these days. Biden was able to get a few bills through on infrastructure, but the idea that it would require great skill to shepherd an infrastructure bill through Congress would have struck Richard Nixon as insane. (All of this further augments the argument that Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell's Zero Sum approach to partisan politics is what has broken this country.)

What I think we are also seeing is another Great Sorting around principles: those who have them and those that don't. This isn't about voters, but political elites. Look no further than RFK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. A credulous press will present them as Democrats-turned-Trumpists, but really they are just grifters who have some loosely held beliefs - RFK has some environmental beliefs, I guess, and Gabbard seems to love Hindutva. 

Their endorsements of Trump are - or at least ought to be - completely unsurprising. They have no real allegiance to the Democratic Party. Kennedy was born into it, and Gabbard was from Hawaii which is basically a one party state. They are (in Kennedy's case was) photogenic with the superficiality of those whose appeal is largely superficial. 

Trumpistan is a swamp of grifters, led by the Grifter in Chief himself. Trump hawks ugly sneakers, ridiculous merch and the ubiquitous flags. I drove across a Trumpy part of the state today and saw some flags (and RFK signs that were still up). Since when have candidates for office had flags? Why is that a thing? Clearly, it's to "pledge allegiance" to the figure. Plus, you can sell them.

In its purest expression, Trumpism is about the shallow salesman from Queens still trying to slap fake gold on a thing and call it awesome. The movement of people like Gabbard and Kennedy is a natural extension of that.

Now, if the Harris campaign had the ability, getting a video endorsement from George W. Bush might actually mean something.