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US presidential election 2020
WorldUnited States & Canada

Culture warrior: Trump will again be counting on backlash against wave of change to earn re-election

  • In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton but offset that by boosting turnout in crucial states among disaffected, mostly white voters
  • He may seek to invoke the country’s fierce culture wars to mobilise those same voters in 2020 but it could be more difficult than four years ago

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People fold an American flag near an empty casket during a Juneteenth celebration in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Photo: Bloomberg
Associated Press
It was June 2015, and Democrats felt the nation’s political and cultural winds blowing their way. The Supreme Court ruled in Barack Obama’s favour on landmark gay marriage and health care cases. The White House was awash in rainbow light, a symbol of a liberal cultural takeover that seemed unstoppable.
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The following year, Donald Trump was elected president, propelled by a revolt of voters who weren’t on board.

As he barrels toward the November election, Trump is again positioning himself as the spokesperson for voters resisting a new wave of cultural change, ready to ride any backlash from the protests calling for racial equality and police reform and this week’s Supreme Court rulings extending protections to gay workers and young immigrants.

“THE SILENT MAJORITY IS STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE,” Trump tweeted on Friday, aligning himself with those who believe their voices are increasingly missing from the national dialogue.

In truth, Trump has never had support from a majority of Americans, nor has he seen a political imperative in trying to. He lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016 but offset that by boosting turnout in crucial Midwestern battleground states among disaffected, largely white, voters. That’s the same narrow path he’s trying to replicate against Democrat Joe Biden.

Yet Trump’s efforts to harness the culture wars to mobilise many of those same voters in 2020 may be more difficult than it was four years ago. Polls show that some of the cultural shifts that took hold during Obama’s presidency have continued during Trump’s tenure, signalling that his election alone couldn’t hold back the evolving views of an increasingly diverse nation.

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As a result, Trump has found himself out of step in recent weeks, even with some of his usual allies.

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