Like many Americans, I’ve been watching with fascinated horror the Trump administration’s first big steps towards mass deportation, and wrote about the political underpinnings of the issue at New York:
To those who are worried about the threat to the rule of law represented by the first president to enter the White House as a convicted criminal, the brinkmanship being exhibited by Team Trump over court orders involving an erroneously deported immigrant seems ominous.
The Trump administration has been taunting the judiciary via dilatory tactics and obfuscation in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. This protected-status immigrant from El Salvador, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has three children, was shipped off to a brutal Salvadorian rent-a-prison without due process, based on a faulty identification.
U.S. district court judge Paula Xinis has ordered the administration to find and return Abrego Garcia so that he can receive due process prior to deportation, and a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court concurred that the order must be obeyed, albeit with some consideration of the complications of the case. But even though Judiciary Department lawyers have admitted in court that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was the result of an error, the White House has stalled in complying with Xinis’s order. And in a bizarre Oval Office meeting with Salvadoran president (and self-described dictator) Nayib Bukele, Trump and his attorney general suggested it was now Bukele’s problem. The Salvadoran leader said he would not “smuggle” a “terrorist” back into the United States. Right there in front of the cameras, White House policy director and infamous nativist Stephen Miller misstated the Supreme Court decision and kept referring to Abrego Garcia as a terrorist, the disputed attribution at the very center of the legal case. It all seemed like an extended mockery of the rule of law.
The administration is clearly playing rope-a-dope on the entire situation. And while it may ultimately comply with the courts, extract Abrego Garcia from prison, and give him a real hearing, the political question is why Team Trump is dragging this out in the glare of global bad publicity. Is this really the ground on which the 47th president will trigger a much-feared constitutional crisis by openly defying the judicial branch of government, including the Supreme Court that has been so very good to him? That’s what a lot of Trump critics believe is happening before our incredulous eyes.
I personally believe the administration will eventually submit to the courts, albeit as minimally as possible. But it’s possible Team Trump thinks the president’s foreign-policy powers, which they claim are at stake in such cases, are strong enough that it’s the Supreme Court that will submit to Trump’s authority to do as he wishes with immigrants.
Politically speaking, this is a fight the administration is eager to take on even if it temporarily loses, because it’s all happening on Trump’s favored turf at the intersection of the immigration and crime issues. At a time when the president is losing popularity steadily thanks to his economic policies, and particularly his tariff policies, it’s probably a relief to get back to the argument that America is succumbing to an “invasion” by criminal immigrants eager to rape, pillage, and eat pets. It seemed to have worked in 2024. Why not in 2025?
Recent polls regularly confirm that of all the controversial things Trump has done in the first 11-plus weeks of his second term, his handling of immigration policy is the most popular. This is true in polls that rate his overall job performance negatively (an April 8 Economist–YouGov survey giving him a net minus-seven approval rating overall but a plus-six approval rating on immigration) and positively (an April 10 Harvard–Harris survey giving him a net plus-two approval rating overall but a plus-seven approval rating on immigration). It’s entirely possible, and even likely, that when the full implications of the Trump-Miller immigration agenda become manifest, particularly when legal immigrants and even citizens are affected, this general-public approbation will fade or even head due south. Indeed, pollster G. Elliott Morris has published an analysis arguing that support for Trump’s positions declines steadily as questions about them become more specific:
“[W]hen various pollsters asked if they would support deporting immigrants who have been here more than 10 years (as in the case of Abrego Garcia), U.S. adults said “no” by a 37 percentage point margin; Americans disapprove of deporting immigrants who have broken no laws other than laws governing entry; they oppose deporting U.S. citizens convicted of crimes to foreign jails, such as [El Salvador’s] CECOT, and they oppose housing migrants at Guantanamo Bay while they are processed. All of these are policies the Trump administration has now floated or is actively carrying out.”
So the administration may be guilty of rhetorical overreach on immigration at a time when the mass-deportation program is actually going pretty slowly. But what about all the constitutional fears raised by cases like that of Abrego Garcia? Won’t Americans recoil at those signs of a presidency determined to become imperial? Maybe not.
Team Trump has clearly internalized one of the big lessons of the 2024 presidential election: that threats to “the rule of law” or “the Constitution” or “democracy” don’t mean a lot to persuadable voters who are most concerned about living costs and their own sense of well-being. If what Trump tried to do on January 6, 2021 doesn’t rise to the level of a voting issue for well over half the electorate, then is there any reason to believe that Abrego Garcia’s “due process” rights will matter? What is “due process,” anyway? Like the “presumption of innocence” from which Abrego Garcia should also benefit, it’s a legal concept that an awful lot of regular folks either don’t understand or find problematic, particularly when applied to someone the president of the United States has labeled an alien criminal terrorist.
So Team Trump is happy to defy the rule of law, at least at a level short of overt defiance, in any controversy involving immigrants. It pleases the nativist MAGA base immensely to see the administration run circles around “activist judges” in ridding the country of the people Democrats allegedly brought in to “replace” the country’s historic white majority. And it’s unclear at this point that Democrats and other Trump critics can make smash-and-grab ICE operations that land peaceful American residents in overseas hellholes as frightening as they should be. But as with the increasingly unpopular Trump tariff program, the immigration agenda may lose support the longer, the louder, and the more chaotic it becomes.
Schaller’s article is certainly provocative and his numbers are indeed “interesting.” In fact, one might say that this article shows the same attention to fact as his previous work. This is, after all, the same writer who stated on page 168 of his book “Whistling Past Dixe” that Mike Easley of North Carolina would face a tough re-election in 2008. Certainly true when one considers that re-election is impossible when Easley is term-limited from running again.
One of the interesting things about this article is that (different from his previous work) Schaller has expanded his target from the South (generally) and southern white males (particularly) to white males (generally). Of course, he does seem to make the assumption that most of “the down-home, blue-collar, white male voter” are Southern (or rural: he talks about Hillary Clinton dropping her G’s when speaking to southern or rural audiences).
Schaller does seem to still have his obsession with NASCAR — perhaps its a Schallersque code word for “southern.” I live in Charlotte, North Carolina (arguably the heart of NASCAR). I have never gone to a NASCAR race and have absolutely no interest in ever going to one.I do know this: the NASCAR marketing people equal or surpass any political demographic analysts around. That’s why I find it interesting that NASCAR moving from southern tracks to Schaller’s precious west and north.
In the Salon article, Schaller discusses Bob Graham’s sponsorship of a NASCAR team and its lack of effectiveness. He doesn’t mention Mark Warner’s NASCAR sponsorship in his governor’s race (although he does talk about it in other writings). He tries to have it both ways: NASCAR is the symbol of why Graham failed, but didn’t have anything to do with Warner’s success.
He doesn’t look at the difference in the nature of the races. Nobody knew who Mark Warner was. The use of NASCAR introduced him to Virginia’s voters as somebody who respected their history and didn’t mock who they are. Bob Graham was a known entity: NASCAR didn’t bring him anything.
But back to Schaller’s numbers (and I am going to accept his figures). Schaller says that 25% of Kerry’s vote in 2004 came from white males. Evidently because this percentage is significantly smaller than the percentage of white males who make up the total voters — paying attention to the total group is obviously a waste of time to Schaller.
But let us be honest here, Schaller is citing a crappy presidential campaign that failed to mobilize and convince a signifcant segment of voters. For that alone, Schaller believes the Democratic party should just ignore that segment in the future? Is it just me or is this muzzy minded in the extreme?
Schaller may have a point when it comes to presidential elections. The nature of the electoral college makes presidential electoral math significantly different from other races. Schaller — like most college professors — seems to think that presidential elections are all that matter.
He also seems to think (like a preponderance of Democrats) that policies are what motivates voters. And like most liberals he thinks that those policies should be driven top down. This leads to his assumption that going after the white male vote (southern or not) will result in the party endorsing policies that will alienate other groups(blacks, women, union members, etc) or at least impede efforts to grow party support among these groups.
The problem with Schaller’s views is that they are dead wrong. Schaller’s philosophy is the view of political elites (=policy wonks). While it is true that there are voters who vote based on a candiate’s stand on health care or civil rights or the death penalty, most voters make (1) their decision on whether to vote and (2) who to vote for based on their perception of the value a political candidate (or — more often — a political party) brings to them. These perceptions often are significantly different from those of the party elites.
Working on county or district levels, we find when we go out and actually canvass (not just lit drop) how different these perceptions are. We have worked with county party organizations — some in so-called bright red areas — to bring true constituent/party service to those voters who have not been voting. This has encouraged turnout and overwhelming support for Democrats. In other cases, we have successfuly switched voters that have been voting Republican because of wedge issues. How? By getting personal and showing them that Democrats understand the problems in their lives and will work to solve them.
The result has been signficant turn arounds in these areas and the turn arounds have included getting the votes of white, southern male (often rural) Democrats — and doing it without sacrificing the votes of other groups. This has helped the Democratic party take over county commissions, city council, mayor’s offices and legislatures.
These are the numbers that we find interesting. And we think that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would agree with us. There are 29 southern white male members of the House of Representatives and three southern white male members of the Senate. Pelosi wouldn’t have been elected nor Reid Majority Leader without these men.
A lesson for those interested in a “Democratic Strategy” can be found in the 2006 election of one of those House members. Heath Shuler won not through support of conservatives or liberals, men or women, Caucasians or African-Americans. Heath Shuler won because Democrats in the North Carolina 11th District finally had enough of Charles Taylor and worked together — papering over significant disagreements on policy issues — to get out the vote for Shuer and maintain discipline to win.
We would think that consideration of a successful Democratic strategy might start there than with the provocation of “So Long, White Boy.”
Carl D. Clark
Jennifer Gullette
Southern Political Information Network
http://www.southernpolitics.net
Is it really necessary to note that the day after a presidential election the winner must spend the next four years actually attempting to run the country and that, for that task, winning a narrow victory on a sociologically polarized basis (the educated, minorities, single women etc. on the one hand, and a white-based “heartland” coalition on the other) is a recipe for political polarization and cultural conflict of Clinton impeachment-era dimentions (anyone remember the Militia movement of the 1990’s?).
It’s one thing to get stuck in a situation like that against one’s will, and quite another to positively seek and invite it. Mercenary “gun for hire” political consultants may not give a crap what happens the day after an election – to them, winning is indeed everything. But for anyone who visualizes their goal as achieving an enduring and stable democratic majority, throwing all the joe six-pack’s and their wives off the boat is downright nuts. Even if we didn’t need a decent chunk of their votes to win the election, which is highly dubious, we need a substantial number of them on our side to effectively govern.
Michael Moore made the same observation 10 years ago and it’s just as silly now as it was then.
The only reason to write off the white men who do vote Democrat is if you can gain more votes someplace else by doing so. As the article pointed out, 90+% African Americans already vote Democrat so we’re not likely to gain ground there. When it comes to other demographics, I’d be interested in hearing what issue (besided illegal immigration) people feel there is a real trade off and real ground to be gained by sacrificing the votes of white men and the votes of other groups.
More importantly, as 2000 taught us, the Presidential election is about the Electoral College and most of the non-white electorate lives in the proverbial “blue states” while the “red” and “purple” states are more heavilly white. Granted, population trends tell us that the Latino/Latina vote is growing quickly in the Southwest, but is gaining a better chance at winning Arizona and New Mexico really worth guaranteeing yourself loses in so much of the rest of the country?
I’m not arguing that Democrats should focus all their attention on the white male vote, I just think we should cautious around talk of ignoring any constituency.