President Donald Trump, argues New York Times opinion writer E.J. Dionne Jr., "had a lot to do with this new appreciation for empathy and the thrashing of Republicans at the polls," and the Democratic winners of Tuesday night's election revealed Trump's increasing weaknesses.
Dionne writes that "Perhaps it took the second coming of Donald Trump for empathy and hope to make a comeback in American politics," as the three biggest winners—Govs.-elect Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in New York City—ran not only on "Trump’s failure to keep his promises to push prices down," but on something a bit deeper.
"In their different ways, all three dispelled the myths that there is something magical about Mr. Trump’s political skills, that his narrow victory in 2024 heralded any sort of long-term realignment and that swing voters are easily bamboozled," he says.
Trump supporters, Dionne writes, "believe he has their backs in a way that metropolitan, college-educated liberals do not," but when it comes to bringing back jobs in the coal and manufacturing industries, he hasn't been able to back his claims.
"His promise was largely empty since technological change means many of those old jobs are never coming back," he writes.
Dionne notes that in an interview, Spanberger "observed that the politicians’ vow to retrain people missed the fact that 'points of pride for people matter' when it comes to a lifetime of work."
Spanberger, Sherrill and Mamdani, he writes, "all understood this empathy gap and seized the opportunity that Mr. Trump’s arrogant indulgence of his whims and hungers has provided to close it."
Even Trump's most loyal supporters, he writes, have a hard time believing the president cares about them in his "pursuit of a regal new ballroom at the White House," and, he writes, "photos of the wrecking job it required will long stand as the visual backdrop for the words 'out of touch.'"
Trump's slashing of Medicaid and food stamps in his "One Big Beautiful Bill," Dionne Jr. writes, "smacks of contempt for so many of those who put him into office and rely on both programs."
"Tuesday’s victors took note and battled Trumpism by addressing the discontent Mr. Trump exploited but failed to remedy," he writes.
When it comes to the NYC mayor-elect, "Mamdani’s most important electoral innovation was not socialism but empathy married to hope," Dionne notes.
Sherrill, he says, "defied the trend of Democrats performing badly with less educated voters, while Spanberger, who "campaigned intensely in rural areas that Democrats often write off," told Dionne Jr. that the lesson of her win "is that Democrats need to reconnect with voters who have come to distrust them."
“The first thing that people are looking for, I think, in political engagement is some level of respect," Spanberger said.
Dionne says that is Trump's kryptonite.
"Trumpism began in anger, alienation, frustration and division. The antidote is empathy, solidarity, mutual respect and hope. Tuesday’s elections delivered a starter dose."
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