DEMS/ELECTION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The midterms suggest that President Donald Trump needs to double down on populism, just not the sort that’s been his signature to this point. Trump is both too populist and not populist enough. His populism is largely, although not entirely, a matter of style — combative, lacerating, emotive, unpredictable and grandiose. This sensibility is a central part of Trump’s appeal. It marks him as distinctive, impossible to domesticate to the ways of Washington, and firmly anti-establishment. It also puts the accent on his personality, which is a double-edged sword, at best. For every Trump voter that it lights up, it reminds a suburban woman why she hates his guts. The Democratic wave in the suburbs was mostly a function of a deeply felt personal revulsion toward the president. If Trump’s populism is always based foremost on Rally Trump and Twitter Trump, i.e., on the behavior pushing the suburbs away from him, there is no way for him to try to tamp down the yawning geographic and demographic vulnerability underlined by the midterms.”
–Rich Lowry, “Trump’s Not Populist Enough,” Politico, November 14, 2018