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Political realignment in 2024 has changed American politics

Published

5 months ago

5 minute read

From The Center Square

By 

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump face off at the ballot box on Tuesday with control of the U.S. Senate and House up for grabs.

This election cycle has featured unusual alliances and demographic shifts not seen in recent elections.

Billionaire Elon Musk joined former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to endorse Trump this time around.

Meanwhile, Harris has taken to the campaign trail with former Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, meaning the iconic Kennedy and Cheney brands are opposing one another yet again, but from the opposite sides this time around.

Those changes come alongside unusual demographic inroads for Trump while men shift more Republican and women favor Democrats, an apparently widening gap for the two sexes.

Union workers, Hispanic voters, and Black voters are traditionally Democratic-favoring demographics that Trump has managed to curry favor with this election.

“He’s changed the makeup of the Republican coalition, and some of them are formerly Democratic,” campaign veteran and former Mitt Romney spokesperson Ryan Williams told The Center Square. “And if you are in a tight race in a purple state, you want to appeal to those voters and try to get them to split their ticket.”

Polling shows that Harris has about 80% support among Black voters nationally. Former President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and President Joe Biden all managed to get between 90% and 95% support from Black voters.

Trump has marginally increased his support among Black voters and made even better strides among Hispanic voters.

As The Center Square previously reported, ​​Noble Predictive Insights published new polling Tuesday reporting that Harris leads Trump with Black voters 78% to 20% and with Hispanic voters 50% to 45%.

“He’s reminiscent of Bush 2004 numbers,” said Williams, now at Targeted Victory, referring to when former President George W. Bush got 40-44% of the Hispanic vote, depending on which survey or analysis you cite.

“Trump can reach out and connect to these voters in a way that my old boss, Mitt Romney, couldn’t,” Williams continued. “That’s not to say that Republicans are going to win these groups, but they are going to lessen the margin which is why I think that this race is so close at this point.

“You are essentially heading into a dead heat in so many states because Trump has managed to slice into traditionally Democratic constituencies and narrow the margins,” he added.

The demographic realignment has a big impact in down-ballot U.S. House and Senate races with 33 Senate seats in the balance. All 435 House seats are up for reelection every two years.

In the Senate, Democrats are defending about twice as many seats as Republicans, painting a tough picture for the party. Republicans are also considered slight favorites to take the U.S. House, according to betting markets.

Democrats have been working hard to resurrect their relationship with Black voters, with Harris rolling out new policies and even Obama chiding Black men about not voting for Harris.

Last month, Obama told a gathering of Black men to vote for Harris and suggested they would not support her because she was a woman, a comment that sparked pushback and criticism for Democrats.

“Respectfully, President Obama, what you said is not acceptable,” ESPN’s most famous host, Stephen A Smith, who is Black, said on one of his shows after the remarks. “Is it possible that the reason some Black folks may not be inclined to vote or may be a bit disenchanted or dare I say may go as far as voting for Trump, is it possible that it’s policy as opposed to misogyny?

“Inflation, the cost of living, the cost of gas, the cost of groceries, that don’t matter?” he continued. “Immigration and our borders and this belief that there’s an elevated level of sensitivity toward them as opposed to Black folks struggling if not starving in this country? Yes that plays a role too.”

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Business

Trump says ‘nicer,’ ‘kinder’ tariffs will generate federal revenue

Published on March 31, 2025

By

From The Center Square

By 

President Donald Trump says the slate of tariffs he plans to announce Wednesday will be “nicer,” “kinder” and “more generous” than other countries have treated the U.S.

Trump plans to unveil reciprocal tariffs on all nations that put duties on U.S. imports Wednesday, which the president has been calling “Liberation Day” for American trade.

Trump’s latest comments on tariffs come as he aims to reshape the global economy to reduce U.S. trade deficits and generate billions in federal revenue through higher taxes on imported products.

Trump’s trade policies have upended U.S. and global markets, but the president has yet to get into specifics ahead of Wednesday’s planned announcement.

At the start of March, Trump told a joint session of Congress that he planned to put reciprocal tariffs in place starting April 2.

“Whatever they tariff us, we tariff them. Whatever they tax us, we tax them,” Trump said. “If they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market. We will take in trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before.”

On Sunday night, Trump said on Air Force One that U.S. tariffs would be “nicer,” “kinder” and “more generous” than how other countries have treated the U.S.

Last week, Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported automobiles, duties that he said would be “permanent.” The White House said it expects the auto tariffs on cars and light-duty trucks will generate up to $100 billion in federal revenue. Trump said eventually he hopes to bring in $600 billion to $1 trillion in tariff revenue in the next year or two. Trump also said the tariffs would lead to a manufacturing boom in the U.S., with auto companies building new plants, expanding existing plants and adding jobs.

Trump predicts his protectionist trade policies will create jobs, make the nation rich and help reduce both trade deficits and the federal government’s persistent deficits.

The “Liberation Day” tariffs come after months of talk since Trump took office in January. On the campaign trail, Trump frequently called “tariff” the most beautiful word in the English language.

James Dorn, senior fellow emeritus at the Cato Institute, said Trump’s rhetoric on tariffs doesn’t match the economic reality of Americans.

“Tariffs expand the scope of government, politicize economic life, increase uncertainty, and reduce individual freedom,” he wrote. “Government officials gain arbitrary power while market participants face fewer opportunities for mutually beneficial exchanges and greater uncertainty as the rules of the game change.”

Dorn said consumers would pay the price.

“Tariffs are levied on U.S. importers as goods – both final and intermediate –subject to the tariff enter the country,” he wrote. “Importers and consumers typically end up paying the tariffs, as they cut into profit margins and drive consumer prices up.”

Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Farm Bureau Federation, have urged Trump to back off tariff threats.

Trump has promised that his tariffs would shift the tax burden away from Americans and onto foreign countries, but tariffs are generally paid by the people who import the foreign products. Those importers then have a choice: absorb the loss or pass it on to consumers through higher prices. The president also promised tariffs would make America “rich as hell.”

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Daily Caller

Biden Administration Was Secretly More Involved In Ukraine Than It Let On, Investigation Reveals

Published on March 31, 2025

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Wallace White

The U.S was far more directly involved in aiding Ukrainian forces against Russia than previously understood, a New York Times investigation revealed Monday.

American backing of Ukraine was an instrumental piece in forces of the eastern European nation wounding or killing more than 700,000 Russian soldiers during the course of the war, according to the NYT. Methods the U.S. used to aid Ukraine included giving target information while officially obfuscating their nature, dispatching American advisers close to the frontlines and sweeping oversight over its use of missile systems granted by officials.

One European intelligence official was taken aback as to how deep U.S. involvement was, telling the NYT that American officials had become “part of the kill chain.”

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Ukrainian officials met in Wiesbaden in Spring 2022, the headquarters of the U.S. European Command, to discuss strategy with U.S. forces and the extent to which the U.S. would aid the Ukrainians.

During the meeting, U.S. European Command settled with Ukrainian officials that they would reportedly dispense target locations as “points of interest” to the Ukrainians, not officially calling them “targets” as they believed the language would be too “provocative.”

“If you ever get asked the question, ‘Did you pass a target to the Ukrainians?’ you can legitimately not be lying when you say, ‘No, I did not,’” a U.S. official told the NYT. Most artillery strikes were carried out with the M777 Howitzer system, in part provided by the U.S.

Due to diplomatic risks, the Biden administration wanted to share intel in the most plausibly deniable way possible, with a total restriction on sharing the whereabouts of Russian military figures and targets on Russian soil, one senior U.S. official told the NYT. The information shared would have to adhere to NATO guidelines of intel sharing to not provoke the Russian’s ire against other nations in the alliance.

“Imagine how that would be for us if we knew that the Russians helped some other country assassinate our chairman,” the official told the NYT. “Like, we’d go to war.”

European Command also had sweeping oversight of the Ukrainian use of the HIMARS missile system, the Americans retaining the ability to shut off the activation key cards required to fire the missiles, according to the NYT. HIMARS strikes regularly resulted in hundreds of Russian deaths weekly.

Advisers regularly made visits to the frontlines of the war, referred to as “subject matter experts” in their official capacity, according to the NYT. Their official names only changed back to “advisers” once Ukrainian leadership changed, which was also followed by a threefold increase in advisers.

Despite the deep cooperation, there was often tension between the U.S. and Ukraine, with Kiev often accusing the Americans of being overbearing, while the Americans questioned why sometimes Ukrainians did not heed their advice, according to the NYT.

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