With Trump’s rage going too far, Americans could be ready for something better
When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, he was a fresh face offering “hope and change,” his signature campaign message. He vowed to help the middle class, then struggling in one of the nation’s worst modern recessions, promised an end to the Iraq War, and pledged to install ethical government.
Obama pioneered the use of social media, data-driven voter targeting, and grassroots, small-dollar fundraising. Using platforms such as MyBarackObama.com, his team mobilized 2.2 million volunteers for ground-level organizing and personal outreach. The “campaign team used social media and technology as an integral part of their campaign strategy, not only to raise money, but also more importantly, to develop a groundswell of empowered volunteers who felt that they could make a difference,” academics at Stanford reported.
The technology allowed the junior Illinois senator to deliver an upbeat message, one surprisingly like Ronald Reagan’s “shining upon city on a hill,” his 1980 campaign theme.
“Yes, we can” – a phrase Obama borrowed from the Spanish version used by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta of the United Farm Workers – became his rallying cry. It worked at a time when Americans craved hope and optimism, successful enough to give Obama two terms.
But when Donald J. Trump came to power – in his two successful presidential campaigns – much of the electorate wanted something far different. They were angry and feeling unheard. White voters, in particular, seemed to feel like they were losing their grip on the country, a message Trump delivered with no embarrassment. The undereducated, especially, felt sidelined economically.
Trump reflected, channeled and ultimately rode to power on their rage at a system that seemed to leave many of them out.
But now that we’re seeing the effects of rage as a governing principle, are many Americans feeling differently? With murderous attacks on alleged drug dealers, followed by military raids on foreign countries and war in the Middle East, as well as masked and armed federal agents rounding up tens of thousands within our borders (and killing some), are growing numbers of Americans appalled by their choice?
And, starting with the midterms and then in the presidential contest of 2028, will they seek a different message?
Will they want that delivered, moreover, in less conventional ways than the old techniques of position papers, local media tours and debates? Perhaps a daily “permanent show” distributed on “traditional TV, connected TV, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, podcasts, Snapchat, radio, video games, community events, door-to-door canvassing, phone calls and texting,” as former Obama political adviser David Plouffe contends in a New York Times commentary.
And will they respond once again to upbeat messaging or something else?
Plouffe, backed by some academic research, holds that anger will carry the day once again – this time disgust at Trump’s legacy. “The messaging must focus squarely on making vulnerable G.O.P. candidates, not the president, the face of the things voters are angry about: higher prices, local businesses closing, farm community devastation,” he argues.
At least one presidential hopeful, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, has embraced both some of the technology and some of Trump’s messaging style. He has gotten a lot of ink with constant posts on social media that troll the president. Newsom has used what Politico called “an inescapable, smashmouth, all-caps-laden and meme-filled X account” to counter Trumpism.
“There’s Newsom on Mount Rushmore,” the news outlet reported last year. “There’s Newsom getting prayed over by Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock and an angelic, winged Hulk Hogan. There’s Newsom posting in all caps, saying his mid-cycle redistricting proposal has led ‘MANY’ people to call him ‘GAVIN CHRISTOPHER ‘COLUMBUS’ NEWSOM (BECAUSE OF THE MAPS!). THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.’”
But I wonder. Do we really want a Trump-style alternative to the president, especially someone who strikes many as just a bit too slick?
Maybe we’re better off with a cooler head, a less everywhere candidate such as Josh Shapiro, perhaps. “He doesn’t host a podcast or spend much time on cable news,” The Atlantic reported. “Even as he engages in regular skirmishes with the White House over policy matters, the governor goes out of his way to not antagonize the MAGA base. Shapiro, who is expected to run for president in 2028, believes that his party’s prospects of regaining power depend less on combatting Donald Trump than on courting the president’s supporters.”
Or would Pete Buttigieg, Rahm Emanuel, J.B. Pritzker, Chris Murphy, Mark Kelly, Andy Beshear or someone else be best? The pundits are split, of course, and both the messenger and the message will be crucial.
Do Trump and MAGA make us more angry or just more exhausted by ugliness, self-dealing and rampant institutional disrespect in the top reaches of government? It seems likely that many of us — perhaps most – are offended by such unhinged and unpresidential messages as “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
In time, polls will help us get a handle on public reaction. But, for now, we have the disparate responses of politicians.
For instance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former staunch ally turned Trump critic, said everyone in the Trump administration who claims to be a Christian needed to “beg forgiveness from God” and intervene in the president’s “madness,” as The Guardian reported. In a lengthy post on X, the former Republican congresswoman wrote: “I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit. I’m not defending Iran but let’s be honest about all of this.”
Bernie Sanders, an independent senator, said on X: “One month after starting the war in Iran, this is the statement of the President of the United States on Easter Sunday. These are the ravings of a dangerous and mentally unbalanced individual. Congress has got to act NOW. End this war.”
And Democratic Senator Chris Murphy also called it completely unhinged. He wrote on X: “If I were in Trump’s Cabinet, I would spend Easter calling constitutional lawyers about the 25th Amendment. This is completely, utterly unhinged. He’s already killed thousands. He’s going to kill thousands more.”
Even some Republicans have been appalled by Trump’s rhetoric, especially his so-far delayed threat to destroy Iranian civilization. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also criticized Trump’s latest threat, arguing on X that “This type of rhetoric is an affront to the ideals our nation has sought to uphold and promote around the world for nearly 250 years.”
Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-Calif.), who recently switched from a Republican to an independent, wrote on X that the U.S. “does not destroy civilizations… Nor do we threaten to do so as some sort of negotiating tactic. We should all desire a future of freedom, security, and prosperity for the people of Iran.”
It’s an open question whether Trumpism will in time burn out, its rage spent. Economic disenfranchisement, especially among the undereducated, seems likely to grow as income inequality widens. And racial strains may be an ever-present reality in our politics (see Kamala Harris’s fall).
But, given the lurches between extremes that now define our system, the time may be ripe in the coming couple years for candidates who embrace and eloquently deliver more positive messages. As Plouffe suggests, they’ll have to tap into all the many channels available now. Forget detailed policy papers and gauzy ads celebrating commitments to family and country. Surely, modern voters will need plenty of sizzle, along with the steak.
Still, decency, morality, a sense of presidential propriety and a promise akin to Reagan’s “shining city upon a hill” or Obama’s “hope and change” — two eminently successful pitches — may offer a much-needed alternative to the anger-driven, self-dealing and self-deluding politics of the moment.