Donald Trump

Yuval Levin: What is Trump's "Mandate"?

A.E.I.'s Yuval Levin discusses Trump's mandate (or lack thereof), building coalitions, and how the classic divide between Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine remains relevant.

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Yuval Levin: What is Trump's "Mandate"?

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Is Trumpism America's new governing ideology? Just asking questions.

Trump won decisively by modern standards, meaning for the first time in several cycles nobody is seriously disputing the results, but did he really win bigly? Does he have a governing mandate?

Today's guest says, not really. Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the editor of National Affairs. He co-authored a paper published just before the election called "Politics Without Winners" about the inability of either Democrats or the GOP to build a lasting governing coalition in the 21st century.

He recently published some of his thoughts on the election in The Dispatch under the headline, What Trump's Win Doesn't Mean, writing "The 2024 election was very much of a piece with our 21st-century politics: It was a relatively narrow win owed almost entirely to negative polarization." We dig into that negative polarization, whether Trump was given a "mandate" by voters, and how Edmund Burke vs. Thomas Paine is still a relevant divide in contemporary politics.

Sources Referenced:
Chapters:
  • 00:00 Coming up
  • 00:20 Is Trumpism America's governing ideology?
  • 00:33 Subscribe to the channel!!!
  • 00:54 Introducing Yuval Levin
  • 02:22 What is the significance of Trump winning a fairly slim majority?
  • 04:04 Given the sweep of all swing states, and the wins in the House and Senate, are you SURE this isn't a mandate?
  • 07:25 Do the parties retain any internal coherence?
  • 09:01 Which faction in the GOP is ascendant?
  • 13:14 Why did people who called Trump untrustworthy still vote for him? What does that mean?
  • 16:38 Comparing Trump and Grover Cleveland
  • 24:40 Are we now are we coming out of this electoral results legitimacy crisis?
  • 26:09 The history of populism in the Democratic party
  • 29:53 The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left
  • 42:51 Is the left going to be insanely statist forever?
  • 48:04 Why does America consistently produce two major parties?
  • 52:16 Is Yuval bullish on Elon and Vivek's D.O.G.E.?
  • 55:39 Would it take for the Democrats to build a lasting coalition?
  • 58:40 The Final Question: What does our political system lack?