Polarized Politics

And Election Subversion

The United States is in a period of unusually strong partisan polarization.

CNN reports that President Trump is enjoying record high job approval ratings in his own party -- higher than the ratings enjoyed by Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama in their parties at the same point in their presidencies. According to Gallup (which has a long history of political polling going back to the 1930s), some presidents in the 20^th century also enjoyed comparably high approval ratings from their own party (Dwight D. Eisenhower from Republicans, John F. Kennedy from Democrats). But Ike and JFK also enjoyed considerable support from the opposition party. That is certainly not true for Trump, who is detested by Democrats (approval ratings in the low single digits).

Recent presidents have seen growing polarization between their own party and the opposing party, a trend that may be reaching a peak with Trump. In the second half of the 20^th century from Harry Truman through Bill Clinton, the difference in job approval between the two parties averaged 38 percentage points. In the 21^st century (George W. Bush through Donald Trump’s two Administrations so far), the average partisan gap has widened to 75 percentage points. The most recent gap? In Gallup’s polling at the end of 2025, President Trump was getting a nearly unanimous 89 percent approval rating from Republicans and a negligible 3 percent approval from Democrats – an enormous 86 percent gap.

Why is this happening? It’s being driven by the rise of identity politics. Partisanship is not just an expression of your opinions. It’s also an expression of your values, which are rooted in your identity. The typical Republican voter today is a working class, non-college educated white male with traditional religious values. The typical Democrat today is what conservatives mockingly call an ``AWFUL’’ – an ``affluent white female urban liberal’’ with a college degree and secular values.

As a result, politics has become more and more ideological – deeply rooted in values, not just casual opinions. Donald Trump has turned the Republican Party into a conservative movement. Moderate Republicans still exist, but they are not honored or valued in Trump’s movement.

In this year’s campaigns, we are also seeing an ideological revolt on the Democratic side, as left-wing Democrats with progressive values are winning Democratic primaries in different parts of the country.

Some are calling themselves ``democratic socialists,’’ the ultimate expression of contempt for President Trump and his policies.

The New York Times Opinion Section recently asked its influential contributors to predict what is likely to happen in the midterm election. UCLA political scientist Lynn Vavreck noted how ``calcified’’ our politics has become as a result of ideological sorting: ``More Americans see important differences between the two parties than ever before. So if Republicans are dismayed [presumably by President Trump’s policies, like the Iran war] they probably won’t vote for a Democrat – but maybe they stay home instead. There just aren’t that many swing voters, but the few who remain are deciding elections.’’

Most of this fall’s competitive Senate elections are in states that voted for Trump in 2024: Texas, Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Michigan (but not Maine, which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris). In the Trump states, Democratic candidates need to establish a political identity not completely in line with the national Democratic brand in order to keep Trump voters from voting against them. The pundits consulted by the New York Times believed that may happen in a few ``swing states’’ but it is unlikely to happen in at least four states, which is the number Democrats need to win a Senate majority.

In an era of ideological polarization, swing voting is likely to be limited. Objective indicators seem to predict a ``blue wave’’ this fall – Trump’s deep disfavor with voters outside his party, an unpopular foreign war, public anger over affordability, resentment over billionaires running the federal government. Nevertheless, few observers are predicting a huge Democratic swing.

President Trump is taking extraordinary steps to avert a blue wave. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School calls it a White House ``power grab’’ and warns that ``U.S. election infrastructure leaves no room for the President to insert himself. Yet that is exactly what he purports to do now: directing, dismantling and weaponizing agencies so that the Trump Administration can evade its responsibility to ensure the security of elections and the freedom to vote.’’

Ty Cobb, who was a White House attorney in the first Trump Administration, was recently interviewed on the PBC NewsHour. He warned that President Trump may be preparing to declare a national emergency around the time of the midterm election. ``There will be ICE agents at the polls. I think that’s a virtual certainty . . . anything to intimidate minority voters, particularly immigrant voters.’’ Cobb warned, ``I think we need people to come out and vote against that. That’s the best guardrail we have, and that’s the only remaining guardrail in our democracy.’’

The Washington Post reports, based on their polling, that ``Democratic supporters are far more motivated to vote’’ this year and have the advantage of more ``energy on the left.’’ What’s driving it is hostility to Trump. The Washington Post-IPSOS poll found that, while 45 percent of Republican voters ``approve of President Trump strongly,’’ 83 percent of Democrats ``disapprove of Trump strongly.’’

In a separate story, the Post reported that base Republican voters are listless and unmotivated to vote this year. Many of those Republican voters are Trump supporters who show little interest in voting when Trump’s name is not on the ballot. The headline said it all: ``GOP’s base in `scary’ place.’’

In a period of extreme party polarization, the danger is always that one party will go too far and pose a threat to democracy. That is exactly what Democrats accused President Trump of doing in his prime time address to the country on July 16, President Trump tried to make the case to the country that the U.S. election system is vulnerable to fraud and manipulation by sinister forces. And that he was cheated out of re-election in 2020 by those forces, foreign and domestic. Clearly, Trump cannot abide the idea that he is a loser. The problem, as his opponents were quick to point out, was that he was unable to provide any proof for his wild accusations.

President Trump’s obsession with relitigating the 2020 election came across as irrational and alarming. He simply refuses to accept the fact that he lost. ``It does feel a little like Captain Ahab in Moby Dick’’ a Republican former chairman of the Federal Election Commission told the New York Times.

But Trump’s obsession has serious implications. He has staffed his Administration with ``election deniers’’ who are willing to engage his obsession. His appointees refuse to acknowledge that Trump ``lost’’ re-election in 2020 – only that another candidate (Joe Biden) was ``certified’’ as the winner, which allows the implication that Biden’s ``certification’’ was illegitimate.

The only sensible response would appear to be ``whatever – just accept the election result and move on.’’ That is probably what many Republicans would like to do. The problem is that President Trump refuses to ``move on.’’

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) draws a disturbing conclusion from Trump’s obsession: ``It’s a classic characteristic of a personalist authoritarian structure that admission to the inner circle requires self-effacing recitation of a known lie.’’ (Probably very few members of Congress can address a case of abnormal psychology with such academic authority.)

Trump refuses to give the issue a rest. In what may have been a joking moment during his speech to the White House Correspondents Dinner on July 25, Trump told reporters, ``I’m pleased to announce my intention to . . . run for a fourth term as President of the United States.’’ He then put on a ``Trump 2028’’ red cap.

It might not surprise many people if Trump tries to run again. A ``fourth’’ term? Only if you accept his argument that he really won re-election in 2020 and was cheated out of taking office by his enemies.

The United States Constitution is pretty definitive on this issue: ``No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice’’ (22^nd Amendment, ratified in 1951). But if Republicans remain as enthralled by Donald Trump as they are now – and if Democrats veer way off to the left – the GOP might nominate and elect a Trump acolyte (say Donald Jr.) who would allow Trump Sr. to run the country without actually holding the office. Don’t put anything beyond this President.