The day Trump woke America's sleeping giant

It’s time for Democrats to revitalize democracy.

It’s Election Day so I am legally obligated to present to you the following disclaimer: everything I am about to say could be moot by the end of the day. I don’t think it will be, but I am a mere mortal and democratic politics can be crazy.

That said, if I were a Democrat with national aspirations, I would pay attention to what Hispanic and Black voters are doing today in the American South, and I would pretty much frontload my presidential ambitions with whatever they say they want. I would also encourage everyone else, especially my liberal white supporters, to follow my lead.

Hispanic voters and Black voters are turning out in huge numbers today, because prices are extortionate, but more importantly, because Donald Trump and the Republicans have bankrupted themselves. One bloc has been radicalized by a lawless president who unleashed a secret police force (ICE), while the other bloc has been radicalized by a lawless Supreme Court that gutted the Voting Rights Act. Control of the Senate will largely be determined by these voters.

Inflation is too high and wages are too low, but as I said yesterday, this election is about more than the economy. Over two years, Trump and the GOP have mounted an assault on freedom – on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the rule of law. Voters most sensitive to that violence are reacting by voting for their survival, and they will likely continue behaving that way well into the next election cycle. Accountability is going to be as important as affordability. Ditto for voting rights and court reform.

But that’s just one part of the story.

If I were such a Democrat, I would also be mindful of the opportunities presented by this moment in history. For three presidential elections in a row, Trump drove out people who do not normally participate in democracy. He amassed coalitions by changing the GOP’s base to include these “low-propensity voters.” They were pulled in by maga, but now, in the wake of war, inflation and corruption, they are falling away. The likelihood, and fear among party elites, is they will return to their natural pre-Trump state.

A Trump staffer told The New Yorker: “We took over and we just kind of f------ botched it. The Democrats didn’t create some b------. We had a generational opportunity and we basically squandered it. Look at the coalition we had in 2024. Those people might not ever vote again in their lives.”

So Trump has done two things that create opportunities for an ambitious Democrat. He has put people who don’t normally vote back to sleep while awakening a sleeping giant in the South. (The Black and brown voters there are disproportionately young.) Trump could do to America what former Governor Pete Wilson did to California, where anti-Hispanic policies backfired in the 1990s. The high court has triggered a second backlash with Black voters.

“A lot of people are going to wake up Wednesday and realize we're in a new era of American politics,” political scientist Joshua Zingher told me in the interview below.

“Joe Biden didn't or couldn't attempt major institutional reforms and we ended up in a worse place because of it,” Zingher told me. “The cycle will continue unless the Democrats actively break it, which starts with dealing with the Supreme Court but includes adding states and other institutional reforms. There is no path forward where things get better without renewing and revitalizing our democracy, and they owe it to their voters to try.”

Is Trump doing what Pete Wilson did? In California, that process took years. Is Trump turbocharging it?

I think over the short term the answer is "yes." Over the long term, the answer is no. The backlash from Latino and Asian voters against ICE brutality, racism and self-inflicted economic wounds shaped 2026 and will continue to matter in 2028, but over the long term these are large and growing groups that will exhibit more political diversity over time, as the 2016-2024 period suggests. I think the bigger impact with Trump will be where the parties find their votes from. The South and the Sunbelt is where the action is going to replace the Rustbelt as the path to the presidency.

That brings me to my second question about Black voters. They have been like a sleeping giant in places like Texas, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee. The assault on the Voting Rights Act may have woken the giant up?

Here's the thing with the Supreme Court making the VRA unenforceable: nobody really knows what the long run consequences will be. Southern politics had been in a period of stasis, with guaranteed Black representation in exchange for Republican statewide control. The Supreme Court broke the truce, and it isn't clear what comes next.

This all comes at a time when the South's population is undergoing massive change through in-migration, particularly northern African Americans moving to places like Atlanta and Houston. Georgia is a great example of the political consequences of these changes. The VRA created uncompetitive districts with long-time incumbents, many of whom were very old. Those districts will be a thing of the past in most places. To me, the million-dollar question is how the state party systems change in response to both changing populations and electoral rules. It isn't obvious to me how it's going to go.

These changes are obvious to anyone paying attention to marginalized groups and their incentives, but this movement among Hispanics and Black voters is not a national story. Given its magnitude, why isn't it?

I think a lot of it stems from these voices being underrepresented in elite media spaces. The Haley Stevens thing yesterday is a great example of that. Political reporters love palace intrigue stories and will go head over heels when they get some intra-elite conflict. The big structural changes that affect politics are harder to understand and affect demographics that aren't them personally, which matters a lot.

In a more general sense, people learn America is a democracy in school, so we're almost blind to these major violations of democratic principles and practice that happen right in front of our faces. American history and politics are structured by our ongoing fight over minority rights generally and African American rights in particular, and our current period is no exception. The Supreme Court killing the VRA via 1,000 cuts was the most consequential thing it has done in the 21st century, by far, in my estimation, yet it gets less attention, and I think this is why.

How weird is Texas going to get? And will that weirdness last until at least 2028?

A lot of people are going to wake up Wednesday morning and realize we're in a new era of American politics. I think James Talarico is going to win, and the other state wide races are coin flips. Who knows if the wave gets big enough to move a significant number of state House seats. Ken Paxton losing is easy enough to write off because he has a track record of cartoon villain corruption, but Governor Greg Abbott losing to an underfunded Latina candidate would be a psychological shock across the spectrum.

Beyond Texas, I think you're going to get races that nobody bothered to poll have unexpected outcomes. A friend of mine likes to say "our imaginations are insufficient" and I think our imaginations about what to expect have been too limited here.

Seems to me if Hispanics are using their vote to punish Republicans and if Black voters are doing the same, the Democrats have a basis on which to pursue accountability (impeachments, etc) and reforms (adding states, etc).

Democracy, or the lack thereof, is backdrop to the entire second Trump presidency and Election Day will make the subtext explicit. Ethnic and racial minority groups are the canaries in the coal mine. They occupy the most socially vulnerable positions in society, so they are forced to bear the brunt of the consequences of democratic erosion first.

However, if we do nothing, the consequences will come for us all regardless of where we fall in the social hierarchy. If the Democrats win big tomorrow, which polling and the early vote totals suggest, they have an imperative to do all of the above and will regret it if they don't.

Biden didn't or couldn't attempt major institutional reforms and we ended up in a worse place because of it. The cycle will continue unless the Democrats actively break it, which starts with dealing with the Supreme Court but includes adding states and other institutional reforms. There is no path forward where things get better without renewing and revitalizing our democracy, and they owe it to their voters to try.