With Donald Trump’s recent decline in polling, many seem to be questioning their support of the former president. After the assassination attempt, Trump’s popularity in several swing states skyrocketed. However, there have been many unnecessary mistakes made since the attempt that have cost the campaign their lead.
His campaign has lost sight of the immigration policies that led to its victory in 2016. Immigration is a salient issue to both college-educated and working class voters, whose support Trump needs to retain and motivate to win. There are many work visas that allow companies to bring in foreign workers. This leads to an increased competition for jobs, particularly in the STEM and medical fields. College graduates will not only compete with their peers but with every educated worker throughout the world in an already-tight job market.
Trump’s main focus in 2016 was building the wall. As noted by the Department of Homeland Security in 2020, this would bring about a strong and permanent solution to illegal immigration by achieving operational control of the border. The wall symbolized a commitment to the American people to garner real results on the illegal immigration issue. Trump needs to reassert this viewpoint again in his 2024 campaign in order to gain back that same support.
In his 2016 campaign, Trump shifted the paradigm of how trade should be approached in America, from free trade to protectionism. With this upcoming election, though, Trump has not emphasized this issue with the same sentiment.
Before his historic first campaign, both political parties supported free trade policies. George H. W. Bush negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement, which allowed elimination of trade barriers between the United States, Mexico and Canada. This allowed companies to give up American jobs to Mexico with little to no cost. One of Trump’s first campaign promises was to take the U.S. out of this agreement, which he accomplished in 2018.
Barack Obama also signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2016, a trade agreement between 12 countries including the United States to lower barriers of trade between all members, making it easier for factories to go overseas and send products back to America. Trump opposed this trade deal as well and pulled America out when he got into office. This represented a transition from an ideological allegiance of free trade to putting American workers first. The previous free trade practices led to the gutting of our industrial base through sending factories overseas and taking away jobs and livelihoods from many Americans. This is especially seen in the Midwest, a region of the country with three swing states essential for an electoral victory.
The final defining aspect of the Trump revolution was his anti-war stance. During the 2016 Republican primary, he criticized George W. Bush for failing to protect America against the 9/11 attack. He also claimed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It was unheard of at the time from Republicans to oppose intervention in the Middle East.
When appointed to office, Trump moved America’s policy stance on Syria away from regime change, decreased tensions with North Korea, and attempted to bring our troops out of the Middle East multiple times. Throughout recent history, both parties have been responsible for waging new wars; however, Trump has notably started no new wars.
70% of Democrats and independents and two-thirds of Republicans favor policies that do not send American troops to the Middle East. This is a winning issue that Trump should emphasize in his campaign.
Trump championed these revolutionary ideas on immigration, trade and war, but he was unable to complete them in his first term. This happened due to both elected and appointed Republicans actively working against his agenda.
In 2018, the New York Times published an anonymous opinion piece by Miles Taylor, who was at that time the chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security, titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” In it, Taylor claims that “many of the senior officials in [Trump’s] own administration” have vowed to “frustrate parts of his agenda.” This is one of the most explicit examples of how people within Trump’s executive departments were working against his agenda.
Republicans gained the House, Senate and White House in 2016 from the public support of Trump’s policies. Despite this, Congressional Republicans didn’t agree with Trump’s plan to fix immigration. Republican Paul Ryan, former Speaker of the House, and the Republican majority could have given Trump the $8 to $15 billion needed for the border wall, which was less than 0.4% of that year’s budget. However, because they were addicted to their own rhetoric, they claimed they needed to be fiscally responsible and first repeal Obamacare to afford the wall.
When this quid pro quo failed, they refused to give the money. The Republicans lost the House, and it wasn’t until 2020 that Trump was able to cut through federal red tape and reappropriate money for the wall through solid personnel hires.
Republicans, Democrats and appointed officials came together throughout Trump’s first term to stop his anti-war policies. Trump had ordered the military multiple times to pull out of the Middle East, but senior officials slow-walked the commander in chief’s orders, even outright lying to him about troop totals.
In 2020, Trump attempted to decrease troop presence in Afghanistan and Europe, but in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, Congress sought to limit Trump’s push. Trump demanded the removal of this provision and inclusion of other policy positions in the bill, but Congress refused and passed without Trump’s demands, leading him to veto the bill. Both the Democrat House and the Republican Senate overwhelmingly voted to override Trump’s veto, giving him his only overridden veto.
Sadly, the personnel issue remains the same in this current campaign. Trump should be running on immigration, trade and war. However, it is clear through the actions of the campaign that his campaign advisors want Trump to focus solely on more traditional Republican issues instead of more revolutionary ideas contained in policy proposal collections like Project 2025.
Project 2025 seeks to staff the second Trump campaign with loyalists who would implement Trump’s 2016 promises pertaining to immigration, trade and war. These staffers wouldn’t frustrate parts of the Trump agenda like officials like Taylor. Despite this, his campaign managers said he would greatly welcome the demise of Project 2025.
Focusing on more traditional issues has lost many elections in the past decade because it does not motivate voters, no matter how bad the economy is.
Trump needs to trust his instincts and reassert his 2016 positions to regain his momentum. If he focuses on immigration, trade and war, he will motivate voters in the swing states he needs to win. Midwestern swing states have felt the brunt of deindustrialization and globalism. With a refocused campaign, Trump’s immigration, trade and war policies will appeal to them, as they did in 2016. A strong restatement of these issues will also force Democrats to explicitly oppose these popular issues.
Despite all the gloom, Trump has recently rehired officials from the 2016 campaign, such as Corey Lewandowski. Lewandowski will hopefully shake up this campaign and refocus on winning issues. Trump is why Republicans won in 2016. It was his issues of immigration, trade and war that flipped those key swing states. Lewandowski’s disposition towards Trump — as evident through the title of his book — is what the campaign needs to do if they want to win. As Lewandowski’s title says, they need to simply “Let Trump Be Trump.”
