Pathway to power for US Democrats has UK signposts

SINCE Donald Trump’s US presidential election win, some leading Democrats have turned on one another in recrimination. However, now is the time for the party to look to the future, not the past, and outward, not inward.

Devastating as the defeat feels to many Democrats, there is a pathway back to power. This is shown by the party’s own rejuvenation after previous major presidential election setbacks, including those in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush.

Democrats can also look internationally, including to the United Kingdom, for inspiration. The US “political cycle” is sometimes seen to be ahead of that in other countries. For instance, before winning office in 1997, Tony Blair’s Labour Party learned from the US Democrats following Bill Clinton’s 1996 and 1992 presidential wins.

However, last week’s US presidential election result indicates that the tables may have turned. That is, US Democrats can now get insights from Keir Starmer’s UK Labour Party after its landslide win in July 2024.

UK Labour suffered a major setback in the 2019 election – a defeat with significant parallels to the Nov 5 US election – before winning big in July, less than half a decade later. This underlines that the Democrats could still come back at the 2028 election to win the White House when Trump will, constitutionally, be barred from seeking yet another term.

It remains wholly unclear whether the charismatic cult of support that surrounds Trump can be transferred to any anointed successor. Instead, like former UK premier Boris Johnson, much of his appeal may be tied to a single individual with unusual gifts and flaws.

What powered Trump’s insurgent coalition to a clear victory last week is an “electoral map” that saw a collapse of the so-called Democratic “blue wall”, including his victories in Michigan and Wisconsin.

The Republicans also made inroads into a number of the populous north-eastern states, including New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Meanwhile, the Republican “sun belt” of southern states held strong for the party.

These political fundamentals, which will see Trump become only the second person to win non-consecutive presidential terms of office, have significant similarities with the UK Conservative Party’s big victory in the 2019 election that pivoted on the Brexit issue.

Then, UK Conservatives smashed through the so-called “red wall” in the English north and Midlands under then-prime minister Johnson, while retaining a strong hold on southern England.

Many people, including longstanding US Republicans and UK Conservatives, regard both Trump and Johnson as being “unfit for office”, yet they both proved to be election winners as insurgent, outsider politicians.

Warts and all, they were able to tap effectively into the anti-establishment political mood, which has been a major feature of the Western political landscape since at least the international financial crisis of 2008 to 2009.

The coalitions that both Johnson and Trump formed to win in 2019 and 2024, respectively, were unusual compared to other UK Conservative and US Republican politicians in recent decades. The coalitions saw a marrying or combination of a cultural conservatism, including pledges to significantly reduce immigration, with promises to support key regions with economic challenges.

For Johnson, this saw him framing what he called his “levelling up” agenda with a stated goal of spreading economic and social opportunity more equally across the UK. The focus, in part, was winning “red wall” voters in the English Midlands and north, where Labour has traditionally had strong support.

However, Johnson failed, monumentally, to deliver on this agenda. After multiple scandals, he was forced out of office in an internal Conservative Party ballot in 2022, despite some forecasts in 2019 that he could serve for a decade in Downing Street.

Appeal to economically challenged groups

Trump’s successes in the “blue wall” last week are, in some ways, comparable to Johnson’s in 2019. The president-elect has shown, once again, that US income and status differences are potentially significant sources of political change for insurgent candidates.

Trump proved skilled at appealing to many of those groups which have lost income and job security, including unskilled and semi-skilled persons working in manufacturing industries that previously operated with high levels of unionisation.

Such groups have significant potential entitlement to federal and state government support. And history shows they are open to mobilisation, as politicians dating back to the 19th century have demonstrated, including populist ex-president Andrew Jackson, to whom Trump is sometimes compared.

Trump’s 2024 winning coalition includes appeal to economically challenged communities, many of which are disproportionately located in swing states that have an increasing propensity to support Republicans.

A recent US Economic Innovation Group report mapped the growing reliance of many of these communities on a range of government spending, including Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps, earned income tax credit, veteran benefits, and other income support.

Unusually for a Republican politician, Trump has pledged not to reduce many of these benefits. Instead, one of his key political platforms in 2024 has been promises to help shield these communities from government cuts, including to Social Security and Medicare.

However, while this Trump coalition proved politically powerful last week, it may yet prove as unsustainable as the UK one assembled by Johnson in 2019, especially if the Democrats can respond as effectively to their defeat as Labour did from 2020. The US electorate, like its UK counterpart, remains in a febrile mood ready to punish Republicans in coming years if circumstances warrant it.

This opens up one of the big questions in Trump’s next presidency. That is, might he move away from the divisiveness that characterised so much of his 2024 campaign rhetoric?

This seems highly unlikely, but if Trump is to maximise his prospects for success from 2025 to 2029, he needs to demonstrate he is capable of developing a more appealing governing agenda. This includes using less polarising rhetoric, and demonstrating greater reconciliation.

After the bitter 2024 election campaign, the country may be more divided than in living memory. So Trump should seek to heal frayed relations, and establish strong governing themes for his presidency which command popular understanding and support.

The presidency still offers potential for national renewal and unity in troubled times. A key test whether Trump will succeed, or fail like Johnson, is if he can forge a multiyear agenda that can bring the country closer together, rather than drive it further apart.

Going by some highly controversial picks so far for key posts in his upcoming administration – notably for defence secretary, attorney-general, and director of national intelligence – the prospects are a little dire.

The writer is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics