Behind the Curtain: Volatility vortex
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Every president back to Bill Clinton enjoyed full party control of Congress and fantasized about lasting, durable governing dominance.
Why it matters: Nothing captures the volatility of American politics better than this win-big, lose-quick phenomenon. It's like a new law of political gravity: What the swing voter giveth, the swing voter abruptly taketh away.
- President Trump would need to defy gravity to avoid the same fate that hit him during his first term … and hit Joe Biden … and Barack Obama … and George W. Bush … and Clinton.
The big picture: We've been telling readers for a decade to expect whiplash political volatility for the foreseeable future. This makes business planning more difficult because the regulatory, political and economic policy environments shift so quickly and dramatically.
Both parties are prisoners to three stubborn political dynamics and realities:
- America is roughly a 33-33-33 nation. Roughly a third of voters are die-hard Democrats, and another third are die-hard Republicans. The other third (or slightly more) are perpetually open-minded and persistently dissatisfied with the new party in power. This dynamic has held firm for most of the past 30 years and shows no obvious signs of shifting. Almost every election since Clinton has flipped control of the White House or Congress.
- The number of truly competitive House races is shockingly small — roughly 10% of the 435 House seats, give or take. You can thank redistricting at the state level for meticulously chopping the nation into safe havens for very partisan Republicans or Democrats. That means the most important races are often primaries, where voter turnout is low and dominated by activists. Hence, the dominance of hyperpartisans.
- Big new policies take years to work their way into Americans' actual lives. Trump's tax cut bill, or Biden's infrastructure and green energy laws, or Obamacare were all substantial wins for the party in power. But any benefits usually take longer for voters to feel than the time left in a two-year election cycle.
So, like clockwork, a new party wins power, feels invincible, believes it'll defy gravity, obsesses about those hyperpartisans who vote in primaries — and ticks off both swing voters and the activists on the other side. And then loses again.
What we're watching: The American electorate is so volatile that there are now scenarios in which the GOP could lose its House majority even before next year's midterms.
- Axios told you last week that rising security fears, and even death threats, — along with MAGA infighting — are fueling the once-unthinkable conversation among House Republicans about quitting Congress early.
- "It's no longer an exaggeration to say that House Republicans could lose their majority during this Congress" if Speaker Mike Johnson loses another House Republican to resignation, death or illness, Punchbowl notes. "Whether Republicans agree or not, their majority is slipping away."
In a Gallup poll out Friday, Republican approval of Congress (controlled by, um, Republicans) is an atrocious 23% — halved from a pre-shutdown 54% in September, and down from 63% in March.
Watch that pendulum: This thought-provoking graphic — part of the 100th issue of strategist Bruce Mehlman's always-useful "Six-Chart Sunday" — reminds America's powerful that they and their ideas could be on the outs soon enough.
- "In politics and life," Mehlman writes, "playing the long game means minding your reputation for honesty & reliability, dealing squarely with a wide array of stakeholders, doing unto others as you'd have done to you and critically, remaining bipartisan … because the pendulum always swings back."
- Mehlman reminds us that so far this century, 11 of 13 U.S. elections were "change elections," in which voters tossed out the party controlling the House, Senate or White House — a volatility streak unseen since the late 1800s, during the Gilded Age. "Demand for change is strongest from the out party and its activists — the so-called 'thermostatic' effect," Mehlman told us.
Flashback: In a column back in February, we reminded Republicans of the "payback precedent": "Copy the payback, punishments and precedent-shattering techniques practiced by the other party — if they prove effective. ... Republicans should fully expect future Democratic presidents to use and build on all [President Trump's] norm-busting moves."
- And back in June, Zachary Basu helped us chart the 10 "unprecedented new precedents" for presidential power that House and Senate Republicans have enabled.
The bottom line: Trump might be different. But that's what first-term Trump — and Biden, Obama, Bush and Clinton — all thought, too.
- Go deeper ... Behind the Curtain: Big red alert.
