Patrons of Paddy’s Pub in Philadelphia watching the first presidential debate on September 26, 2016/Alex Ostrovski via Wikimedia

While much of the world, American voters included, experiences Donald Trump’s leap from casino ownership and reality show hosting to electoral politics as a series of shocks the temporal lobe, Concordia University political scientist Graham Dodds explores the counterintuitive proposition that much of this election cycle is plus-ça-change.

Graham Dodds

August 24, 2023

Despite headlines proclaiming that the cascade of indictments against former President Donald Trump has thrown American politics into unprecedented chaos and uncertainty, there is much about the contemporary American political scene that is quite familiar. Indeed, for some observers, there is a sense that we’ve been here before, as if American politics today is like an old syndicated TV show: you think you’ve seen it before and maybe don’t want to see it again.

After all, while we’ve now been conditioned to accept the previously unimaginable, there’s a good chance that the major presidential candidates will be the same as four years ago, a Biden vs. Trump rematch. On the Republican side, this is the third time in a row that Trump is a candidate. Even with two impeachments in the history books and now facing multiple criminal charges, Trump remains the heavy favourite to win the Republican nomination. He is polling well ahead of his closest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, while over a dozen other GOP candidates are trying to make inroads. Trump’s path to the nomination in 2016 was similar, and history could well repeat itself.

On the Democratic side, apart from a rogue scion of the old Kennedy clan (RFK Jr.), there’s the incumbent, President Joe Biden, who has been a fixture of American politics since he was first elected to Congress back in 1972. As VP from 2009 to 2017 and then president himself since 2021, Biden is an exceedingly familiar if somewhat uninspiring figure. Plus ça change…

Aside from the candidates themselves, the parties’ policy positions and political appeals will likely also be familiar. Biden and the Democrats will portray themselves as the party of a sensible majority running against dangerous extremism, as if democracy itself were on the ballot. That narrative will be supported by various reminders of the deadly January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol. These will include the particulars that emerge from legal proceedings against Trump for allegedly seeking to overturn the 2020 election. Additionally, some of the trials for the rioters have yet to start, and prosecutors and defense lawyers may appeal the sentences of some of the hundreds of people who have already been convicted for their actions that day. And candidates will likely be asked whether they would pardon convicted rioters, and maybe Trump himself, if they are elected president.

On the Republican side, Trump will continue his grievance-based appeals, loudly complaining that neither he nor his supporters have been treated fairly, the system is rigged by elites, and only he can fix it, as if Trump offers the MAGA millions their last best chance for validation and victory. When Trump formally entered politics eight years ago, many observers thought that he would soon tone down the bombast and adopt a more reasonable, civil, statesman-like demeanor, but few still hold out hope for such a transformation.  In fact, one of the few things in American politics that seems certain is that Trump will be Trump, for better or worse.  What remains to be determined is how many of his Republican challengers will find the courage to criticize him, how many will remain silent, and how many will attempt some sort of middle position.

But despite so much being so familiar in the campaign, there will also be some important differences this time.

First, law and politics will be even more closely linked than usual. The connections between law and politics are often tight in the U.S., as can be seen by how regular citizens fume about the views of particular judges and how often political events involve court cases and vice-versa. But with the former president facing multiple criminal trials, legal events will feature very prominently in the coming year. And Trump’s legal challenges might well become logistical challenges, as he will likely have a hard time balancing multiple court appearances in multiple venues with the demands of a national campaign and his preference for lots of big in-person political rallies. Trump loves being the center of attention, but he can’t be in more than one place at one time.

When politicians seek to score political points by criticizing Disney as being un-American, we are living in strange times indeed.

Second, the election calendar itself will be different. The Iowa caucuses will loom large for the Republicans, especially for candidates like DeSantis, who hope to demonstrate early on that Trump is not invincible and that they are viable alternatives.  But the Democratic National Committee has demoted Iowa from its traditional first in the nation status and instead has moved up the South Carolina primary. That means Democratic candidates will focus less on the needs of Iowa’s farmers and more on the concerns of South Carolina’s African American voters.

Third, this election cycle is likely to include a revival of the decades-old culture wars. Starting in the 1980s, Republicans made effective use of cultural appeals to portray liberal Democrats as out of touch and extreme. Under Obama, Democrats used cultural themes to paint Republicans as relics of a traditionalist past that had been left behind by the progressive march of history. Now, Republicans are once again on the offensive in the culture wars, claiming that acceptance of LGBTQ people is harmful to children, educators are using critical race theory to make white students feel bad, and diversity efforts are hurting whites and stigmatizing racial minorities.

Whereas previous iterations of America’s culture wars featured Papa John’s pizza, Chick-fil-A restaurants, Sesame Street, the Teletubbies, and of course Hollywood, now it’s the My Pillow guy, Bud Light beer, country music star Jason Aldean, and Disney. When politicians seek to score political points by criticizing Disney as being un-American, we are living in strange times indeed.

Fourth, even insofar as the candidates and political themes are the same or at least similar, the American electorate is different. Compared to four years ago, voters in the 2024 election will be significantly less white, as America has continued to become more racially diverse. And insofar as Republican candidates rely heavily on white voters, they are facing a less favourable political landscape. For years, this dynamic has led Democrats to complacently think of demographic destiny, dreaming that growing numbers of Democratic-leaning minority voters will eventually deliver victory even in Republican strongholds like Texas.

In short, even though the coming American election might be a lot like the previous one, there will be some new developments, just as there always are. Lasting well over a year and funded with billions of dollars, the American presidential election is a spectacle like no other. It is inescapable and almost certain to produce more than a little angst, outrage, and entertainment, for Canadians as well as Americans. Like this summer’s new Indiana Jones and Mission Impossible blockbuster movies, it might well be very familiar, but it won’t entirely be the same old thing.

Graham Dodds is a professor of political science at Concordia University, specializing in US politics.