The GOP tax cut message was pretty effective at the time, as it was described as “tax reform” and a big tax cut for “hardworking Americans and small businesses.” Of course, the Republicans could not help themselves and the actual tax cut that passed Congress in December 2017 became a corporate tax cut and bonanza for the rich.
When I presented my polling results to House and Senate leaders and campaign committees, they were uncomfortable with the idea of Democratic candidates voicing that kind of anger and frustration with Washington and wanted a more positive message.
President Trump and corporate lobbyists mounted a full press and got near unanimous support from GOP House and Senate members to slash the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent and other “reforms” that gave 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent. That this would be seen as advantageous mainly for the rich was confirmed by President Trump’s late promise to push through a tax cut for the middle class before the midterm election, even though Congress was not even in session to pass any laws at that time.
The tax cut package that passed more than doubled the standard tax deduction to $12,000 for a single person and $24,000 for a family and raised the child tax credit—so that some in the middle might see an appreciable reduction in their taxes.26 That benefit might be offset for those in the middle class who lost tax deductions for their mortgage interest and property taxes in high-tax, mostly Democratic-controlled states.
The IRS rushed to implement the new law and President Trump urged employers to encourage employees to change their withholding in order to see immediate gains in their take-home pay in the new year. A handful of companies tried to help the president and announced they would give bonuses to all their employees. And ultimately, 80 percent of taxpyers would get some reduction in their taxes in the first year.27
At the same time, the macro-economy grew at an impressive 2.3 percent and unemployment fell to 4.1 percent by the end of 2017.28 Obviously, the new tax cut played no role in producing that economic performance. But that did not stop Republicans from asserting that GOP tax cuts and reduced regulation on business had raised consumer confidence. The result was an “amazing” economy, “the best economy in the history of our country,” and a “great and very vibrant economy,” according to the president’s statements.29
Progressives across the board were nervous. They weren’t the least bit confident in conservatives who said people would acknowledge real gains in their pay. They weren’t sure President Trump’s job approval rating would start to rise. They weren’t sure the anti-Trump anger and fervor would start to cool.
Some who served in the Obama administration jumped in to claim that President Obama, not President Trump, should get credit for the good economic times.30
The heads of at least two economic think tanks were worried and asked me for reassurance that the economic dynamics would not shift on us.
In meetings with the Democratic leadership and party committees on the House side, I was asked repeatedly, “Don’t we have to acknowledge the economic progress?”
Some union leaders thought the economic attack would have to give way to other attacks on President Trump.
And right up to Election Day and even today, pundits wondered: how could President Trump oversee such a strong economy and get higher ratings on managing the economy, while his overall approval rating remains historically low? Other factors must be at play, such as his disrespect of women, the fallout from repealing Obamacare, his self-obsession and narcissism, and his extremism that has polarized the country.
The implication was that President Trump and the GOP should be helped by the economy or other issues would displace it as a voting point.
Well, what country are you living in? I responded.
Do you really think working people can be bribed with an afterthought of a tax cut for the middle class? Do you think voters who have scorned elected leaders time and again who proclaimed progress after the financial crisis would now embrace these meager gains in income and taxes?
Do you really have respect for working people if you think they would be fooled by this scam?
Do you think people who have been demanding the rich pay their fair share of taxes wouldn’t notice that this huge tax bonanza was for corporations and the billionaires?
Do you think this country that is angry about CEOs and their greed wouldn’t notice that this tax cut and the stock buybacks would enrich those very same people?
If you do not remember when President Obama lost successive midterm elections in 2010 and 2014 running on “build on the progress,” then recall President George H. W. Bush, who declared, “The economy is humming” after many quarters of growth and lost to a Bill Clinton campaign that said, “It’s the economy, stupid!”31
They probably didn’t recall that Prime Minister John Major lost in Britain when the Tories put up billboards proclaiming, “Britain is booming” well into the economy recovery—and lost to the Labour Party.
So I genuinely was not surprised when I rushed to listen to voters in focus groups with African Americans from Detroit, working-class voters from Macomb County, and more affluent ones living in suburban Livingston County in Michigan. Those sessions were made possible by a collaboration with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, that gave us the ability to track the effect of the tax cut and perceptions of the economy through to Election Day.
Listening to real people always clears my head and would for many others, after they listened to the commonsense reactions. The Trump voters didn’t bring up the tax cut as an accomplishment or even raise the subject until the moderator introduced it, though the strong economy justified their Trump vote for some. African Americans believed it was a scam to put their programs at risk, and the suburban women focused on how Trump was setting group against group. But all of them interpreted the tax cut through their experience with an economy in which jobs didn’t pay enough to live on and corporations got their way with politicians.32 Discussing it just heightened their economic distress. It highlighted the out-of-control health care costs that wiped out any benefit from it and showed that it was merely the result of a corrupt deal between politicians and businesses to enrich Donald Trump and his billionaire friends.
Most important, they knew it was unpaid for, drove up the deficit, and meant that “we will pay the piper.” They volunteered that the GOP would now come after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and the government wouldn’t be able to invest in education. They wrote the scripts for the ad makers—and they were angry.
How can you not trust the voters again?
Randi Weingarten and I sent a memo on our findings after the national survey that urged pundits and campaign strategists to reject all the assumptions about the tax cut and economy: they are “not producing for working and middle-class people whose wages are not keeping up with rising costs, particularly the cost of health care.” They need to make clear that “this tax cut is ‘rigged for the rich’ at the expense of everyone else and threatens investments and retirement protection.”33
Republicans were depending on a macro-economic breakthrough, but in April 2018 only 40 percent of the voters said, “The economy is strong and families like mine are beginning to feel more financially secure” and the percentage only got lower in the follow-up polls I conducted for Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund in May and into the fall.34
Four months after the passage of the tax cut and after employers adjusted withholdings, 39 percent said it was benefiting them personally—and that number never went up during the course of the midterm campaign.
At the end of the survey in April, voters who opposed the tax cut called it a “bad deal,” “scam,” “for the rich,” and “garbage” in their open-ended responses. When we provided a list of descriptors, the strongest by far was “rigged for the rich,” followed by “time bomb for the middle class.”35
That fit the messaging consensus among Democrats.
I tol
d progressive allies to stop worrying about the passage of the tax cut and the GOP delivering on their signature promise. The tax cut was as much a voting issue for the opponents as the proponents, and had elevated everything about the economy and politics that voters wanted to change. It made the GOP appear out of touch on wages and highlighted what they had done to health care costs. The more it was discussed, the more voters turned away from Republicans.
And that is exactly what happened when Democrats made the corrupt tax cut deal central to their message.
That message met voters at their real starting point in the era of Trump. The extreme polarization and breakdown of norms in American public life and politics were being exploited to benefit the rich at the expense of hardworking Americans. “Tax scam for the rich” is the branding that captured and defined the GOP’s signature accomplishment.
The polling showed rising worries about wages and health care costs and declining support for the tax cut over the course of the campaign. Voters’ well-developed consciousness about the economy and politics made them even angrier about a tax cut deal that they increasingly came to see as corrupt and they increasingly came to see President Trump and the GOP as enriching themselves and “self-dealing.”
In September, our polling for the Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund showed a surge in the perception among the Rising American Electorate that the Republican Party was “looking out for themselves.” They were seen now just as a party for “themselves,” “tax cuts,” and “the richest.” There was also a big jump to two thirds in the perception that Donald Trump was “self-dealing and looking out for himself.” Fully 60 percent said he was “out of touch with working people.”36
In the fall of 2018, voters were increasingly angry about corrupt deals for wealthy corporate donors and self-dealing politicians. Something new and fundamental was happening, but would Democrats embrace the message that would get them to the blue wave? I wrote a message that explicitly hit the Republicans for saying the economy was the “greatest.”
Too many leaders divide the country and cut corrupt deals for themselves and their wealthy corporate campaign donors at the expense of working people and the middle class. The Republicans say your wages are great and it’s the best economy in history. But their tax scam for the rich recklessly drives up the deficit to justify their cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and less investment in education and health care. I won’t take contributions from corporations or Super PACs and the very richest must pay more in taxes so we can invest in education and make health care more affordable.
At the beginning of the 2018 election cycle, the Democrat House and Senate leaders branded their joint approach with the underwhelming “Better Deal” offer. It was a placeholder, though both House and Senate Democrats added policies that suggested they understood the kind of changes the country was looking for. That included lowering the cost of prescription drugs, addressing corporate monopolies and governance, and fighting for paid family and sick leave, among other priorities.37
Eventually, the Senate would get behind strong antitrust legislation and expanded voting rights.38
Eventually, the House focused on three areas of changed policies: big campaign money, health care costs, and infrastructure.39
Senate Democrats who were running in more blue-collar and rural states where Donald Trump had run strongest immediately embraced the more populist framing. Democrats had initially labeled President Trump and the GOP tax cut as a “tax scam.” When I recommended evolving the branding to a “tax scam for the rich,” they immediately implemented the change. And their Senate candidates outperformed Trump in their states, particularly in the Rust Belt.
It took many meetings to convince the House Democrats to move from “tax scam” to “tax scam for the rich.” It may seem like a small change, but “tax scam” says only that it is deceptive. “Tax scam for the rich” says that it is a deceptive deal to enrich corporations and their wealthy donors. It says that it is probably a corrupt deal by politicians to leave a government rigged for the rich.
The House Democrats too embraced the branding and more. I watched their ad at the campaign’s close and said, “Finally.”40
GLOBALIZATION AND TRADE
Globalization has dramatically impacted the lives of working Americans, evident in the increased trade managed by the postwar trade agreements and in immigration, managed by evolving U.S. immigration laws.
While other developments also worked to produce this disruption, political leaders made choices on trade and immigration that magnified the disruption, without doing much to help those most affected by globalization. The leaders were focused on helping specific companies and American industries, not the affected communities that would provide the electoral base for Trump’s GOP, like they did for so many ultra-right nationalist parties in Europe and globally. There is no excusing the racism and anti-Semitism that burst through, especially on the left, as Jonathan Freedland and E. J. Dionne wrote in their reviews of The Nationalist Revival. But working people, as I have argued, were right to expect their own leaders to advocate for them in the face of such changes and put their citizens before non-citizens. 41
These changes in trade and immigration were welcomed by America’s multinational businesses and in the big metropolitan areas, on the East and West coasts and in Texas, among the professional classes and college graduates and by America’s growing Hispanic and foreign-born population. That all mostly overlaps with the evolving electoral base of the Democratic Party. Its national leaders negotiated separate side agreements on labor and the environment, but they were not enforced. They never seriously addressed the domestic reverberations and costs of globalization.
NAFTA was enacted under President Bill Clinton (with my support, as I was then the president’s pollster, and over the very strong objections of my wife, Representative Rosa DeLauro). She was right. Obama made passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership a consuming priority at the end of his presidency. Voters perceived—I am sure accurately—that Hillary Clinton wanted to continue in that direction.
So, on trade, Democrats were late to the party and allowed Donald Trump to win over voters who believed they were “forgotten Americans.”
And most House Democrats had voted against China’s entry to the WTO, and more than 70 percent of Democrats in the Senate (33 of 46) and 85 percent of Democrats in the House (160 of 188) had voted against giving Obama fast-track authority to negotiate the TPP. Democratic elected leaders voted against the Trans-Pacific Partnership because they came to perceive these trade agreements as corrupt deals negotiated in private with the full participation of corporate advisers and lobbyists to allow them to expand investment abroad and facilitate the outsourcing of jobs.42
The House Democratic leaders, Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Whip David Bonior from the industrial Midwest focused on the jobs that would be lost to Mexico because of the dramatically lower wages there. So, half of House Democrats had voted against NAFTA.
But in truth, all the Democrats’ national leaders had pushed for further trade deals, and none had worried very much about ongoing job losses and downward pressure on wages. These leaders and their electoral base favor the multilateral agreements that engage America in the world.
And working people had watched China join the World Trade Organization and their state-led, semi-capitalist economy rig the game and achieve parity with the United States in the global economy.43
Donald Trump was the first GOP presidential candidate since Pat Buchanan to wage war on the whole trade regime. Trump charged that “our trade negotiators got snookered by these smart negotiators from other countries,” Joseph Stiglitz writes, when in fact, they got exactly what they wanted: trade agreements that favored the advanced countries and that “advanced corporate interests at the expense of workers in both developed and developing countries.”44
In his delayed State of the Union in 2019, President Trump opened with his characteristic bluntness: “Another hist
oric trade blunder was the catastrophe known as NAFTA.” He rightfully pointed out that all the presidential candidates had promised to “negotiate for a better deal. But no one ever tried, until now. Our new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the USMCA, will replace NAFTA and deliver for American workers like they haven’t had delivered to in a long time.” So, he called on Congress to pass it “so we can bring back our manufacturing jobs in even greater numbers, expanding American agriculture, protecting intellectual property, and ensuring that more cars are proudly stamped with the four beautiful words: Made in the USA.”
As with every such Trump statement, the reality of the agreement and the state of American manufacturing looked far different.
When the president made these statements, I was monitoring for the Voter Participation Center and the WVWVAF over two hundred African Americans, Hispanics, white millennials, white unmarried women, white women college graduates, and white working-class women who were pushing their cursors up or down in reaction to every word. It was clear very early on that the white working-class women’s red line was pushed up to a high point on “protecting American jobs,” and continued up to hit its highest point over eighty with “Made in the USA.” The pink line for white unmarried women, on the edge financially and mostly working class themselves, closely shadowed the red leading the way at the top.
That was the first indicator that the president had the potential to broaden his working-class appeal, if he chose to.
What the reactions also powerfully illustrated was how much President Trump’s attack on NAFTA pushed away African Americans, Hispanics, all millennials, and women college graduates. They view NAFTA favorably because Democratic presidents have embraced it and it showed an ability to work with other countries, our neighbors, and an openness to the world. It heralded mutuality important to the New America over the go-it-alone nationalism of President Trump.
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