But not all of the incoming president’s backers buy it
Donald Trump is enjoying a honeymoon. As he wryly observed in December, “[In] the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.” The president-elect was referring to the ever-growing list of technology CEOs who had made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home. But he could just as easily have had in mind the #Resistance media luminaries now seeking to mend fences, the swing-state Democratic senators backing immigration-enforcement measures they once deemed anathema, or the anxious foreign emissaries hoping that he can be talked out of walloping their economies with tariffs.
Why do so many of the great and good now want to be Mr Trump’s friend? One explanation is that his victory in 2024 was broader and more convincing than the one in 2016. This time, he won the popular vote by drawing in more working Americans of all racial groups, Hispanics in particular. Moreover, urban areas that were once Democratic strongholds gave him significant support.
This broadened coalition, though, represents a change not just to Trump voters, but to Trumpism. To win in 2024, Mr Trump adapted his ideological formula just enough to capture a vitally important segment of the American elite.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Economist (paywall)
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Reihan Salam is the president of the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.
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