Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud

Jonathan Last is the Editor of The Bulwark, a NeverTrump magazine whose sales pitch is that it represents pre-Trump conservatism. 

Many of us have been skeptical that NeverTrumpers as a group are actually still conservatives at all if they ever were. Some clearly were, some remain a version of conservative, and many are now unapologetic Democrats who toe the party line no matter what. 

I think we can safely say that Last fits into that category. 

The Bulwark: Democrats should deport illegals because they’re no longer reliable illegal votes.@JVLast pic.twitter.com/D4OfiOmxyP

— Bluesky Libs (@BlueskyLibs) December 9, 2024

This, I think, reminds us that, for many, politics has less to do with ideology or policy preferences than cultural affinity groups, and over the past decade and a half, the parties have exchanged coalitions, with the Democrats becoming the party of the overly educated and the Republicans the party of the working class. 

The Democrat coalition has always been more transactionally based than the Republicans, and Last’s argument is that Democrats should abandon the fight for open borders because the voters the party gets from its support of them are no longer in their pocket. 

I have two observations about this: the first is important for understanding how Democrats conduct and see elections, and the second and perhaps more significant for understanding the current Democratic Party’s long-term problems and the nature of their coalition. 

The first and most obvious fact is that Last basically admits that the push for open borders was entirely about elections. His argument is that, since Hispanics and even illegal immigrants are no longer a voting bloc, the party should abandon them. This admission should be damning, but Last doesn’t even seem to understand that admitting that Democrats have counted on illegal votes to win elections is a bad thing. 

I don’t think this admission is that significant, though, because, at some level, we all knew that. It is the most obvious explanation for why Democrats have been so dedicated to open borders–they see it as electorally advantageous, so they are willing to sacrifice Americans’ well-being for electoral success. 

Last is just saying the obvious: since illegals and their supporters are no longer reliable votes, the transaction Democrats tried to make (votes for a policy that damages America) is no longer viable. 

Trump’s success with Hispanics shows that Democrats need to find another coalition partner, so drop the Hispanics and find some other group. 

The more enlightening assumption is that the Democrats’ core constituency is the overeducated elite whose class identity matters more than anything else. 

In other words, the ideology they claim is a total fraud. It is a costume they put on in order to gain power and nothing more. And hence, in Last’s case, the rejection of the current version of the Republican Party has always been about power. The hatred of Donald Trump has nothing to do with his populist policies and everything to do with his populist appeal. 

He appeals to the wrong people–and that’s it. When Republicans were the upper classes’ preferred party, people like Last stuck with them. When they appeal to the working class, people like Last left the Party. 

In the old days the political divide was defined by economic class. Today’s parties are split by social class. Any appeal by the new Democrats to the economically “disadvantaged” is purely strategic and has nothing to do with morality or social cohesion. 

We shouldn’t be surprised. Obama began this trend–he of the high rhetoric and the perfectly creased pants. When David Frum assured us that Obama would be a great president because he dressed superbly, that was the moment that the NeverTrump movement began. 

Trump is just a symbol. NeverTrump really means NeverGauche.