The Trump indictment and the limits of the calcification of politics
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The default reaction to the indictment of Trump will be to assume that its political impact will be minimal, because that has been the smart money on American politics in a while — there is strong empirical evidence that vote preferences are more calcified than ever. However, as Julia Azari observes, the 2022 midterms showed some limits to the politics of calcification and saw the return of the critical split-ticket voter in a few key races:
The politics of revelation casts Trump as not a catalyst of change but a mirror to how we have changed. At the heart of this narrative is the idea that partisan ties overwhelm everything. And this perspective has some basis in political science. Trump’s approval ratings in office were incredibly stable, regardless of positive or negative events. It’s quite striking when you contrast this with the approval patterns for Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan — you can identify events and economic changes in the dips and climbs. For Trump — and Obama, too, for that matter — almost nothing seems to move the needle. The “doom loop” narrative of party politics advanced by New America’s Lee Drutman identifies this as one of the disadvantages of two-party politics. Writing about the 2020 election, John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch and Lynn Vavreck find a calcification of politics, where voters’ attitudes and choices reflect long-standing factors like racial views and partisanship, and don’t change very much in response to major events. Partisanship and Trump approval dampened the impact of the economy on vote choices, and, despite very different circumstances, voters were remarkably consistent in their 2016 and 2020 votes.
These findings lend credence to the idea that our politics has become a politics of revelation: That the latest Trump scandal will do little to change how people think, and will instead only further show the real nature of our politics and values. That is, it will show that “lol nothing matters” and that Americans prefer to defend their teams rather than preserve their democracy.
The 2022 midterm elections challenged this narrative a bit, and that suggests we’re capable of moving beyond the politics of revelation. Split-ticket voting came back, suggesting that voters could cross party lines when they didn’t like the candidates. Some of the most extreme candidates — those who had expressed views on elections, democracy and abortion that ran counter to public opinion — won fewer votes than their more mainstream counterparts. The result was not just that election denial seemed like a losing brand. It also seemed like American politics could be made flexible and responsive again.
In this light, the first indictment of a former president provides an opportunity for the country not to just reveal itself, to stay stuck in a politics of revelation, but possibly to evolve beyond that in response to a new situation.
This is not to say that the indictment of Trump is certain to have a material impact, just that we should be careful about assuming how unprecedented events will play out, particularly after an election in which Republicans did pay a price for running extremist and unpopular candidates.
Another factor creating some de-sticking in American politics is Dobbs, and we will see what is (in part) another test if its impact tonight in Wisconsin.