Yuval Levin: What is Trump's "Mandate"?

Nov 21, 2024

Yuval Levin, the Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, dives into the complexities of Trump's presidency and its implications for American governance. He discusses the notion of a Trump mandate and argues against the idea of a decisive victory, emphasizing negative polarization. The conversation also touches on the internal struggles of political parties, the legitimacy crisis in American elections, and historical ideological divides between figures like Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine.

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Intro

00:00 • 4min

Dilemmas of American Political Parties

04:04 • 17min

The Crisis of Legitimacy in American Politics

20:38 • 21min

Liberation and Natural Rights: Contrasting Revolutionary Ideals

41:12 • 2min

Evolving Government Roles and Party Dynamics

42:51 • 14min

Exploring the YIMBY Coalition and the Economic Vision of Political Parties

56:46 • 3min

Is Trumpism America's new governing ideology? Just asking questions.

Trump won decisively by modern standards, meaning for the first time in several cycles nobody is seriously disputing the results, but did he really win bigly? Does he have a governing mandate?

Today's guest says, not really. Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the editor of National Affairs. He co-authored a paper published just before the election called "Politics Without Winners" about the inability of either Democrats or the GOP to build a lasting governing coalition in the 21st century.

He recently published some of his thoughts on the election in The Dispatch under the headline, What Trump's Win Doesn't Mean, writing "The 2024 election was very much of a piece with our 21st-century politics: It was a relatively narrow win owed almost entirely to negative polarization." We dig into that negative polarization, whether Trump was given a "mandate" by voters, and how Edmund Burke vs. Thomas Paine is still a relevant divide in contemporary politics.

Sources Referenced:

2024 Presidential General Election Results
Politics Without Winners: Can Either Party Build a Majority Coalition?
Yuval Levin in The Dispatch: What Trump's Win Doesn't Mean
2024 House General Election Results
2024 Senate General Election Results
AP VoteCast: How America voted in 2024
- Is Trump honest and trustworthy?
- Harris and Trump's moral character as seen by voters.
- College vs. no college
Cleveland-Stevenson Tariff Reform Portrait Handkerchief, 1892
Levin's book: The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left

Chapters:

00:00 Coming up
00:20 Is Trumpism America's governing ideology?
00:33 Subscribe to the channel!!!
00:54 Introducing Yuval Levin
02:22 What is the significance of Trump winning a fairly slim majority?
04:04 Given the sweep of all swing states, and the wins in the House and Senate, are you SURE this isn't a mandate?
07:25 Do the parties retain any internal coherence?
09:01 Which faction in the GOP is ascendant?
13:14 Why did people who called Trump untrustworthy still vote for him? What does that mean?
16:38 Comparing Trump and Grover Cleveland
24:40 Are we now are we coming out of this electoral results legitimacy crisis?
26:09 The history of populism in the Democratic party
29:53 The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left
42:51 Is the left going to be insanely statist forever?
48:04 Why does America consistently produce two major parties?
52:16 Is Yuval bullish on Elon and Vivek's D.O.G.E.?
55:39 Would it take for the Democrats to build a lasting coalition?
58:40 The Final Question: What does our political system lack?

Producer: John Osterhoudt

The post Yuval Levin: What is Trump's "Mandate"? appeared first on Reason.com.