The Trumpification of American policy
image: Peter Crowther/Alamy
No matter who wins in November, Donald Trump has redefined both parties’ agendas
THE CHOICE facing America in less than a month will not be made by voters weighing rival sets of policies. Kamala Harris’s plans lack detail; Donald Trump’s are sometimes untethered from reality—and in any case divisions over culture motivate voters more than tax policy. Yet the choice matters hugely in policy terms, for America and the rest of the world. This aspect of the election has been under-covered relative to fantasies about what Haitian migrants in Ohio have for lunch. Our current issue, which contains eight concise policy briefs on the areas where we think the election will make the most difference, is intended as an antidote to that.
Our list is selective: we have left out subjects where the contrast between the two candidates is stark, but which have no direct bearing on public policy. These include the candidates’ characters, what the election would mean for institutions and even for American democracy. Nor have we included abortion, where the candidates’ different views are unlikely to translate into markedly different policies thanks to a Congress that neither party is likely to dominate. Strip those things out, important as they are, focus on policies that are in the president’s gift instead, and the result is surprising. Whoever gets to 270 electoral-college votes on November 5th, Mr Trump’s ideas will win. He, not Ms Harris, has set the terms of this contest. American policy has become thoroughly Trumpified.
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THE CHOICE facing America in less than a month will not be made by voters weighing rival sets of policies. Kamala Harris’s plans lack detail; Donald Trump’s are sometimes untethered from reality—and in any case divisions over culture motivate voters more than tax policy. Yet the choice matters hugely in policy terms, for America and the rest of the world. This aspect of the election has been under-covered relative to fantasies about what Haitian migrants in Ohio have for lunch. Our current issue, which contains eight concise policy briefs on the areas where we think the election will make the most difference, is intended as an antidote to that.
Our list is selective: we have left out subjects where the contrast between the two candidates is stark, but which have no direct bearing on public policy. These include the candidates’ characters, what the election would mean for institutions and even for American democracy. Nor have we included abortion, where the candidates’ different views are unlikely to translate into markedly different policies thanks to a Congress that neither party is likely to dominate. Strip those things out, important as they are, focus on policies that are in the president’s gift instead, and the result is surprising. Whoever gets to 270 electoral-college votes on November 5th, Mr Trump’s ideas will win. He, not Ms Harris, has set the terms of this contest. American policy has become thoroughly Trumpified.
Take Ms Harris’s domestic platform. Her immigration policy is to endorse the most conservative bipartisan reform proposal this century. Its provisions include shutting down asylum applications when the flow of irregular migrants is high. Her trade policy involves keeping, in modified form, most of the tariffs Mr Trump imposed in his first term. On tax, Ms Harris would keep most of the cuts Mr Trump signed in 2017 (raising rates only for those who earn over $400,000). On energy, she has become a convert to fracking and has been part of an administration that has seen America pump more oil and gas than ever before. Because America is so partisan, and Mr Trump is such a polarising figure, Ms Harris has been able to borrow parts of Mr Trump’s first-term agenda without most people noticing.
Read our eight policy briefs on the consequences of the 2024 election:
This policy-poaching makes political sense. Mr Trump moved onto Democrats’ turf first, love-bombing trade unions and scrapping Republican plans to trim public spending on pensions and health care. Because the election will be fought in six or seven swing states, all of which were a couple of percentage points more Republican than the national average in 2020, Ms Harris’s quiet adoption of Trumpier positions could help her win. Yet the result is that a candidate who lost the last election, whose party was trounced in the 2018 midterms—a candidate who has never won the popular vote and probably never will—has remade American policy in his image.
The same is true in foreign policy. The two candidates have different approaches: one is built on values and alliances; the other on asking what the world can do for America. If Mr Trump wins, nervous speculation over America’s commitment to NATO will come back; with Ms Harris it is not in doubt. Yet there is surprising overlap. Mr Trump adopted a more confrontational approach to China than any recent president, even if his policies were in practice less scary than they sounded. The administration Ms Harris has been part of has been less verbally antagonistic but tougher in practice, banning technology exports to China and placing huge tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles. On the Middle East, Ms Harris has not let Mr Trump outflank her on the right, despite pressure from within her own party to cut arms supplies to Israel. Nor does she seem in a hurry to revive the deal with Iran that Mr Trump tore up; this week she called the Islamist regime America’s greatest adversary. Here too, Mr Trump has set the terms.
Support for Ukraine is where the gap seems widest. Ms Harris has been part of an administration that has led the Western effort to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s unprovoked invasion. She would continue to supply Ukraine with arms and cash, as long as Congress let her do so. Mr Trump’s policy is extraordinarily vague: he says only that the war would not have broken out on his watch and that he would end it swiftly. He does not say how, and his refusal to say which side he would like to win adds to fears that he would urge Ukraine to settle on Russia’s terms. Such a catastrophic betrayal is not certain, however. Even Mr Trump may worry that letting Russian tanks roll over more of Ukraine would make him look weak.