Sargent: It sure is. I want to return to those Gallup identification numbers, because they really raise some important issues. Again, it showed that Democrats have regained their advantage in party identification. Forty-six percent now identify as Democrats, while 43 percent identify as Republicans. That’s flipped from the end of last year when Republicans led 47 to 43 percent at the start of Trump’s term. Trump’s term has flipped these numbers. It’s funny. I remember that when Republicans had that lead, there was this tremendous amount of attention paid to it. It was another nail in the Democratic Party’s coffin. Now you’re not hearing much talk about this.
I got to say, I just don’t think that the press is comfortable telling the full truth about Trump’s unpopularity. There’s this weirdly baked-in default position of treating Trump as somehow Teflon. I think a Democratic pollster was quoted saying that Trump is Teflon the other day. I mean, what the fuck was that guy thinking? And it reminds me a lot of the way George W. Bush was treated in 2005 and 2006. People who have been following this stuff for a a really woefully long time, like you and I have, may remember that at that time, George W. Bush was described constantly as a popular war president. And it didn’t matter what the numbers actually showed, right? They just kept dipping and dipping, and this was just a media thing that could not be shaken. I feel like we’re in a bit of a similar position right now, do you?
Shephard: Yeah. It feels to me like an overcorrection from the first term, to some extent. Trump has always been treated in this way, but there’s a condescending quality to me—that essentially they treat his support as, I should say, ineffable, almost as something that can’t be computed, right? That there’s just this connection—innate connection—that he has with his voters, and that it’s mysterious and magical. It’s the way that Trump talks about it. And this is why I think it’s ridiculous when you would always have the “diner pieces” or whatever—and it’s always some guy with shiny shoes and fancy shirt, and he goes and talks to the real people. And Trump’s connection to these people is not absolute, right? It’s still a relatively small percentage of voters; again, most of them white. And I think the other aspect of this—people don’t talk about as much as well either—is how racialized it is, right? The press does not treat a Democratic coalition, which is much more diverse and much more working class, for that matter, with the same degree of deference. It’s because, and I think that this goes back to your point with George W. Bush, as well, of the perception that it’s white working-class voters, specifically, that it’s treated this way.
