Musings on Trump's Mideast Riviera in Gaza, or Is It His Mideast Marshall Plan?

By Rudy Barnes, jr., February 8, 2025

You’re probably famiIiar with the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after WWII.  That came to my mind on Tuesday when Trump announced his plan to rebuild war-torn Gaza as a Mideast Riviera. Trump’s announcement shocked the world--not just Hamas, who initiated the war and hasn’t yet acknowledged defeat, but also the Palestinians who would be forced to move.

It’s an understatement to say it’s another Trump global political disruption that may or may not benefit Trump.  Hamas started the war killing over 1,000 Jews, but Israel’s Netanyahu has been accused of genocide for killing over 45,000 Palestinians during the war, with Biden providing Israel with massive bombs that have killed most civilian Palestinians.

“As outlandish and unworkable as Mr. Trump’s proposal on Tuesday may seem, it may force the sides to reconsider long-held positions, stir things up dramatically and lead to new openings.  But the forced relocation of two million Palestinians from Gaza to countries like Egypt and Jordan that are fiercely opposed to taking them — is not going to happen.” 

“Trump is a man who doesn’t want any new military commitments, and now he wants to move two million people who don’t want to go to places that don’t want them.  The important thing with Trump is to pick out the real issues and deflect the stupid ones.”  And Trump’s stupid issues, like this one, far outweigh the real issues.

It’s an issue that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has always dodged. He has refused to engage on the question of who will rule Gaza after the conflict since it would undermine his governing coalition, which depends on far-right parties that want to resettle Gaza with Israelis.

“Trump has described the forced relocation of two million Palestinians from Gaza to countries like Egypt and Jordan that are fiercely opposed to taking them.  It’s not going to happen,” said Lawrence Freedman. With Trump the real issues need to be distinguished from the stupid ones, like this one.”

Hamas started the war on October 7, 2023 that has devastated Gaza, and Israel has killed nearly 50,000 Palestinian civilians and combatants since then.  Despite vowing to destroy Hamas and dismantle its control over Gaza, Israel has not achieved either goal, leading Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition to demand that the war continue after the current cease-fire.

Trump has failed to address one of the biggest problems with his dream, vowing to destroy Hamas and dismantle its control over Gaza.  “Israel has not achieved either goal, leading key far-right members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition to demand that the war continue after Phase 1 of the current cease-fire.”  There’s no end of the Mideast war in sight.

Notes: 

See https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/world/europe/trump-gaza-hamas-palestinians.html.

“Trump officials have already backtracked on some of his proposals, saying that any population transfer would be temporary.  But Hamas has made it clear it is going nowhere, and presumably it would fight American troops as it fought Israeli ones. As Basem Naim, a member of the group’s political bureau, said in a statement denouncing the Trump proposal, what Mr. Netanyahu failed to do with the support of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — “to displace the residents of the Gaza Strip” in “carrying out genocide against our people” — “no new administration will succeed in implementing.”

“Even if nothing comes of Mr. Trump’s proposal, just floating it now is threatening the stability of Jordan and Egypt, two crucial allies in the Middle East with the longest history of diplomatic relations with Israel and, thus, is “strategically incomprehensible,” said Tom Phillips, a former British ambassador to Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Egypt may have more acreage and is in desperate need of American financial aid, but its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, is a fierce opponent of Islamist radicalism, which he has tried to stamp out brutally in the Sinai, and of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is a part. The notion that he would allow “hundreds of thousands of people supporting Hamas into Egypt” is unthinkable, Mr. Milshtein said.

Even at the height of the fighting, Mr. el-Sisi created a walled-off area near the border with Gaza in case Gazans were pressed into Egypt, to prevent them from going any farther. And Egypt, which considers itself the most important Arab country, would not want to be seen as being pushed around by Washington.

Christoph Heusgen, recalled that Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, talked of Gaza as great real estate last year, but then suggested resettling Gazans in Israel, in the Negev. Arab countries will simply refuse a population transfer, he said, “and the only other way is military force, and that’s genocide.” The Saudis are demanding a Palestinian state that Mr. Netanyahu opposes, and Mr. Trump “says he wants out of conflicts,” not to send American troops into another one, Mr. Heusgen said. “It seems dead on arrival,” he said.

Mr. Trump was silent on the future of an independent Palestinian state, which has become a crucial demand of Saudi Arabia after the destruction and death in Gaza. The Saudis were quick to oppose Mr. Trump’s plan in a statement overnight, and made it clear that any normalization with Israel, as Mr. Trump wants to promote, is dependent on concrete steps toward a viable independent Palestinian state, including Gaza. That is exactly the outcome that Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to prevent. “The Trump proposal also overshadowed the real and present problem in Gaza: whether Israel and Hamas will succeed in moving past this first phase of their cease-fire agreement to the much tougher second phase, which would involve Israeli concessions that Mr. Netanyahu has been so far unwilling to make. His coalition partners have vowed to bring down the government if he makes them and effectively ends the war with Hamas still standing.

Whether Mr. Trump, by his proposal, has helped Mr. Netanyahu assuage his partners remains to be seen — as well as whether Mr. Trump keeps the pressure on Mr. Netanyahu to make that deal regardless of the political cost.”

Musings on Religion as a Factor in "Hyperpolitics" that Could Upend Trump

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., February 1, 2025

Hyperpolitics is about voter intensity in politics, and it can be a strong political influence.  Intense religious beliefs can motivate enough votes to make a difference in politics.  Donald Trump benefited from the hyperpolitics of Christian conservatives in the moral majority, which succeeded Billy Graham’s evangelism among Republican conservatives.

But religion is a multifaceted and transitory factor in politics.  Neither Billy Graham or Jerry Falwell or their followers are currently in political vogue, and conventional Christianity continues to decline. Off-brand religions like the New Apostolic Reformation are gaining support,  but none yet have the numbers nor the intensity to make a difference in America.

Trump rode a wave of conservative GOP Christians to victory in 2016 and 2024, but with changing demographics coupled with a diminishing church, they are not likely to provide Trump with future success.  It will take a hybrid religion compatible with the diversity needed for political success in 2026 and 2030, and Democrats haven’t yet shown any evidence that they can do it.

The conventional Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam don’t have the capacity to bring together the diverse beliefs needed to build an effective political coalition, and the New Apostolic Reformation is too distant from any popular religion to be a hybrid that can attract enough followers on which to build an effective religious and political coalition.

Thomas Jefferson once claimed that the teachings of Jesus were “the most sublime moral code ever designed by man.”  The greatest commandment to love God and to love your neighbors as yourselves is a summary of the teachings of  Jesus.  It was taken from the Hebrew Bible, taught by Jesus and is considered a common word of faith by Muslims.

Jesus was a universalist Jew who came to reform Judaism by putting God’s altruistic  love over Mosaic law.  Jesus never suggested that he was divine.  He was a universalist and never indicated that God favored one religion over others.  Any universal hybrid religion should consider Jesus a prophet of God’s word and the Logos, and not confuse Jesus with God per se.

In a democracy, the moral imperative of God’s universal faith is that we love all others, including those of other races, religions and politics as we love ourselves; and never condemn those who do not share our faith, but who seek to provide for the common good, recognizing that we can have differences on what constitutes the common good.

In politics we can and should oppose narcissists, like Trump and his billionaire minions, who do not share a commitment to promote the common good, and who exploit others to promote their own selfish objectives.  We should be charitable altruists, not self centered narcissists like Ayn Rand, who exploit those in need and those who are hurting and suffering.  That’s how we can best oppose morally unprincipled demagogues like Trump and his minions. 

Notes:        

On Goodbye “Resistance.  The Era of Hyperpolitics is Over.” Where has the anti-Trump energy gone?  Musings on how a religion based on altruistic love in hyperpolitics could upend Trump, see https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/magazine/trump-hyperpolitics-resistance.html.

On How Trump Will Fail, by David Brooks.  “You can draw a straight line from a (semi-mythical) image of America to the movement Trump leads today. He leads a band of arrivistes, establishment-haters, money-seekers [and religious charlatans] and unreconstructed nationalists.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/opinion/trump-mckinley-populism.html.

On how Texas Has a Perverse Idea of Religious Freedom, see David French at   https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/19/opinion/texas-catholic-immigration-paxton.html.

On Donald Trump’s Disruption is Back, see https://time.com/7207806/trump-second-inauguration-oath-of-office/?utm. 

https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2025/01/musings-of-maverick-methodist-on.html

On Politics: The New Apostolic Reformation as the Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/new-apostolic-reformation-christian-movement-trump/681092/. I don’t agree with much of the religious doctrine of the New Apostolic Reformation, but I believe that God has sent prophets to guide us through the years, not only the Jewish prophets, including Jesus, but also Buddha and Muhammad. 

 In John’s Gospel Jesus is introduced as the Logos, or the word of God (John 1:1), and as in Mark’s Gospel there is no virgin birth.  Jesus refers to God as his father and does not claim to be a Trinitarian form of God in the flesh (that’s blasphemy for Jews and Muslims).  For other commentaries on Jesus as the Logos and the universal light of God’s word in a dark world, see  https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2024/12/musings-on-teachings-of-jesus-as-gods.html, and also Musings of a Maverick Methodist on a Journey of Faith to Universalism at https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2025/01/musings-of-maverick-methodist-on.html.

See also, Musings on the Advent of Jesus as the Light of the World and the Universal Logos at #475 (12/23/23) Musings on the Advent of Jesus as the Light of the World and the Universal Logos

https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2023/12/musings-on-advent-of-jesus-as-light-of.html.

Trump's Opening Act of Contempt for the Constitution

 By Rudy Barnes Jr., January 25, 2025

On Inauguration Day January 20, 2025, President Trump fulfilled his promise to pardon rioters who attacked and desecrated the capitol on January 6, 2021.  Trump’s pardons of the rioters made a mockery of the Constitution that he took an oath to to support and defend--but that assumes that Trump as a convicted felon even took that oath of office.  

There has been pushback to Trump’s pardons from both sides of the aisle, but Trump has stood by his pardons justifying them as “shock and awe” in his campaign to reshape America in his image.  Trump’s pardons make a mockery of law and justice based on loyalty to Trump, but he has always opposed laws that restrict loyalty to himself.

“Most important, the mass pardon sends a message that violating the law in support of Trump and his movement will be rewarded, especially when considered alongside his previous pardons of his advisers. It loudly proclaims, from the nation’s highest office, that the rioters did nothing wrong, and that violence is a perfectly legitimate form of political expression.

Trump used a mass pardon at the beginning of his term to write a false chapter of American history, to erase a crime committed against the foundations of American democracy.  “To open his term with such an act of contempt toward the legal system is audacious, even for Trump, and should send an alarming signal to Democrats and Republicans alike.

At least 20 people who joined the January 6 attack carried firearms onto the Capitol grounds.  Christopher Alberts carried a 9-millimeter pistol with 12 rounds of ammunition and a separate 12-round holster that included hollow-point bullets. He was sentenced to 84 months in prison after a jury convicted him of nine charges, including assaulting law enforcement officers; but he received a full pardon on Monday.

More than 140 police officers were assaulted on June 6, 2021.  One Capitol Police officer was killed, and other officers were seriously injured.  Four later died by suicide.  “Judge Lamberth was appointed by President Reagan to the D.C. District Court in 1987.  He said he had never seen such “meritless justifications of criminal activity” in the political mainstream.”

Lambeth wrote, “I was shocked to see outright falsehoods in the public consciousness, and to watch public figures try to rewrite history, claiming rioters behaved ‘in an orderly fashion” like ordinary tourists, or martyrizing convicted Jan. 6 defendants as ‘political prisoners’ or ‘hostages.’  That kind of misguided rhetoric could undermine the Constitution.

Trump has provoked the danger dreaded by Judge Lambeth, freeing hundreds of people found guilty of participating in a violent assault on the nation’s Capitol — not because they committed no crimes but because they committed their crimes in his name.”   This may be Trump’s opening salvo to undermine the Constitution.  Stay tuned.  There’s likely more to come.

Notes:

The NY Times Editorial Board condemned Trump’s Opening Act of Contempt.  “On Jan. 6, 2021, Philip Sean Grillo, a former Republican district leader in Queens, jumped through a broken window at the U.S. Capitol with a megaphone. He pushed his way past a line of Capitol Police officers and opened the exterior doors of the Rotunda to allow other rioters to enter the building and trash it. “We stormed the Capitol!” he exulted on video, and was seen smoking marijuana and high-fiving other Donald Trump supporters who were fighting the police. “We shut it down! We did it!”  Nearly three years later, a federal jury convicted Mr. Grillo of multiple offenses. But he did not lose heart: Last month, when he was sentenced to a year in prison, he had a special taunt for the federal district judge who sentenced him, Royce Lamberth. “Trump’s going to pardon me anyways,” he yelled at the judge, just before he was handcuffed and led away. He was right. On Monday evening, several hours after President Trump was inaugurated, he fulfilled a promise he had repeatedly made to pardon nearly all the rioters who attacked and desecrated the Capitol in 2021 to prevent Joe Biden’s victory from being certified. Mr. Grillo and about 1,500 other rioters received full pardons from Mr. Trump, while 14 others received commuted sentences.  A presidential pardon for Mr. Grillo not only makes a mockery of his jury’s verdict and of Judge Lamberth’s sentence. Most important, the mass pardon sends a message to the country and the world that violating the law in support of Mr. Trump and his movement will be rewarded. It loudly proclaims from the nation’s highest office that the rioters did nothing wrong; and that violence is a perfectly legitimate form of political expression and that no price need be paid by those who seek to disrupt a sacred constitutional transfer of power.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/20/opinion/trump-jan-6-pardons.html.

In Donald Trump Is Running Riot, David French condemned Trump’s pardons as well as his other early executive orders.  “Trump granted absolution to men and women who violently attacked the seat of American government and tried to foment a rebellion against the lawful, constitutional government of the United States. French also reminded us that in 2021 J.D. Vance said “I think that what Trump should do, like if I was giving him one piece of advice, fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it.’”  Vance stood by that idea in 2024, and now in 2025 — Trump has fundamentally rebuked the American justice system by ordering the pardon of more than 1,500 people lawfully charged for their role in arguably the most dangerous insurrectionary act since the Civil War.” Trump sent two messages: First, membership in the MAGA movement has its rewards, and one of them is freedom from the law itself. The attack on the Capitol was an act of vicious political violence, and now its shock troops and architects are posing for triumphant pictures and celebrated in MAGA America. To many Americans, Trump made the pardoned insurrectionists heroes, not criminals.  And Vance signaled that Trump could defy the nation’s highest court. Trump has fundamentally rebuked the American justice system with the pardon and release of more than 1,500 people lawfully charged for their role in arguably the most dangerous insurrectionary act since the Civil War. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/opinion/trump-pardons-bolton-jan-6.html.

Musings on Good and Evil in Democracy, Where Evil Often Wins

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., January 18, 2025

Comparing Jimmy Carter with Donald Trump as Presidents comes as close to contrasting good and evil in politics as I can imagine.  America’s materialistic and hedonistic democracy is corrupted with narcissism and human depravity, and in the cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil, the forces of evil often win--as evidenced by Trump's victories.

It’s dangerous to describe anyone as evil in politics, but Trump meets that criteria, and conversely Carter was clearly a good man.  My brief experience in politics began with a loss in Carter’s “peanut blitz” in 1976.  I should have been a better judge of character in politics.  My next run was for City Council in Columbia, S.C. in 1978, where I won.

The race for Columbia City Council was non-partisan.  I wish that all politics were non-partisan.  Trump would not have been so successful if he did not have polarized partisan politics to exploit and build his base.  A third party at the national level is just wishful thinking.  I ran for Congress as a third party candidate in 2016, and got less than 3% of the vote.

I became a pastor in the United Methodist Church (UMC) in 2000, and have witnessed the unholy alliance between the church and partisan politics.  I retired as a UMC pastor in 2012 and began posting commentary at https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/.  Since 2014 I have posted 528 commentaries on the unholy relationship between religion and politics.

The thin line that has separated the faith of white Christians and the politics of Trump’s Republicans has disappeared.  In the November election “Trump gained the support of 8 in 10 white evangelical voters.”  A similar ratio applies to all white Christians who now define their faith and politics with Trump’s radical-right Republican views.

There is a stark contrast between radical-right Republican politics and the teachings of Jesus summarized in the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors of other races and religions as we love ourselves. It was taken from the Hebrew Bible, was taught by Jesus and is a common word of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.

Nationalism is not an explanation for this widening divide.  As a retired Army officer I have a strong sense of nationalism, or commitment to both God and country.  I struggle to follow the altruistic teachings of Jesus, while Trump’s Christians (an obvious misnomer) promote greed, bigotry and hatred; and they wear their distorted values like a badge of honor.

Ayn Rand comes closest to personifying Trump’s distorted narcissistic views that prevail on Wall Street among Trump’s billionaire minions.  America is fast approaching a point of no return to its former traditions of unselfish altruism.  The church, politics and reason have failed both God and democracy.  Where do we go from here?            

Notes:

This is a sequel to last week’s commentary on Musings on Whether Congress and the church can reject extremism in 2025, at https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2025/01/musings-on-whether-congress-and-church.html.

“Trump has not been shy about what comes next. He ran a presidential campaign that was infused with White Christian Nationalist imagery and rhetoric. He vowed in an October campaign speech to set up a task force to root out “anti-Christian bias” and restore preachers’ power in America while giving access to a group he calls “my beautiful Christians.” “If I get in, you’re going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before,” Trump told an annual gathering of National Religious Broadcasters in Tennessee during a campaign stop earlier this year.  Trump won the support of about 8 in 10 White evangelical voters in November’s presidential election. Nearly two-thirds of White evangelical Protestants in the US described themselves as sympathizers or adherents to Christian nationalism in a February 2023 survey. Scholars have called White Christian nationalism an “Imposter Christianity” whose adherents use religious language to cloak sexism and hostility to Black people and non-White immigrants in a quest to create a White Christian America. What might life look like over the next four years for Americans who don’t subscribe to this movement? CNN asked that question of Kristin Kobes Du Mez, one of the nation’s foremost authorities on Christian nationalism. Du Mez is a historian and the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.” Du Mez says Christian nationalism is ultimately incompatible with American democracy. “This is not a pluralist vision for all Americans coming together or a vision for compromise,” says Du Mez, a history professor at Calvin University in Michigan and a fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Philosophy of Religion. “It is a vision for seizing power and using that power to usher in a ‘Christian America.’” Trump’s victory will embolden and empower the White Christian nationalist movement. In all likelihood, it will institutionalize White Christian nationalism and transform our government, with the goal of transforming our society, placing White Christian nationalists in positions of enormous political power.  Christian nationalism thrives on this us-versus-them mentality. This militancy is linked to always needing an enemy. And in Christian nationalism today, the enemies are internal. Historically the enemies of Christian America were secular humanists, feminists and then more recently Democrats and the woke. This language of an enemy within; It caught some attention in the last week of the campaign, when Trump said those words that resonate deeply with Christian nationalists. That fuels the sense that we need warriors to fight to save your family and Christianity. And to save America, you’re going have to fight fellow Americans who are threatening those values.

In Progressive Spirit (January 16, 2025) Dr. Carl Krieg cited Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society to illustrate that demagogues like Hitler can overwhelm moral people in a democracy.  Germany was the most Christian nation in Europe until Hitler used Nazi nationalism to take it over, and it took WWII to rid Germany of Hitler.  Trump could follow Hitler’s example. 

Musings on Whether Congress and the Church Can Reject Extremism in 2025

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., January 11, 2025

America lost its moral compass and its political legitimacy when it gave Trump a second term.  A polarized Congress and a church that has ignored the altruistic teachings of Jesus must now relearn what it means to provide for the common good.  In the past, America looked to the church for such moral guidance; but America’s churches have lost their moral way.

Extremist Trump Republicans and Christian zealots now dominate American politics and the church.  While churches are shrinking in size, their moral standards now mimic politics, with popularity the measure of success in both the church and politics.  Christian morality has been co-opted by extremist partisan politics, making politics and religion strange bedfellows.

The  early church realized that the teachings of Jesus were not popular, and created exclusivist church doctrine as a form of cheap but popular grace.  That allowed Christianity to become the world’s most popular religion; but the church has failed to be a moral steward of democracy and is now declining, allowing the failure of Christian morality in church and politics.

The altruistic teachings of Jesus are summarized in the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors, including those of other races and religions, as we love ourselves.  It’s a moral imperative to provide for the common good that could transform the guiding moral principles in American politics and its churches from the shallowness of popularity to altruism. 

The altruistic teachings of Jesus could allow common sense and reason to replace the extremist radical right politics that have shaped American politics and Christianity.  Liberating the church from Trump’s extremist radical right politics could restore legitimacy to American politics and Christianity, but it would cost the church its popularity and worldly power.

Where can America look to lead a much-needed 21st century moral reformation beyond a church as corrupted by Trump’s Republicans and the partisan political divisions in Congress?  As a retired attorney, a retired pastor and a retired Army officer, I don’t see an institutional alternative to the church to counter the ancient inertia of human depravity in America.

America has experienced Donald Trump as a self-proclaimed savior who has corrupted politics and morality in America’s churches to promote his political power.  Only a rebirth of God’s altruistic Spirit can save us from ourselves.  That’s what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3; but a materialistic and hedonistic America has so far ignored that mission imperative. 

After January 20 America will begin to see whether Congress can be reborn to promote the common good, or continue to be paralyzed with partisan polarization.  As for the church, don’t hold your breath.  America’s churches are not likely to be spiritually transformed unless their congregations demand it, and there aren’t historical precedents for that to happen.

      

Notes:

Tim Alberta has reviewed the current disarray among American Evangelicals and the Southern Baptist Convention with the rise of the Moral Majority, Liberty University and Donald Trump’s Republican Party.  See The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals In An Age of Extremism, Harper (2023).  Alberta has depicted an unholy relationship between Christians and Trump’s Republicans where partisan loyalty to Republican politics has supplanted loyalty to the teachings of Jesus and God’s moral imperative to promote the common good in the greatest commandment.  Moral reform in the church will likely have to come from outside rather than inside a church that has allowed popularity to distort its mission.

As for the role of the church, the title to Robin Meyer’s book says it all: Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Following Jesus, Harper One, 2009.

In an insightful commentary on the 2024 election, Thomas Edsall of the New York Times described Trump’s Return as a Civil Society Failure. “Edsall cited a recent poll that asked respondents whether the Democratic or the Republican Party is “in touch or out of touch” and “strong or weak,” majorities of working-class voters described the Democrats as out of touch (53-34) and weak (50-32) and the Republicans as “in touch” (52-35) and “strong” (63-23). More significant, on two survey questions that previously favored Democrats — is the party “on my side or not” and which party do you trust “to fight for people like me” — the Democrats lost ground to Republicans. Fifty percent of all voters participating in this survey said that the Republican Party would fight for people “like me,” while 36 percent said the Democratic Party would.  If the past predicts the present, voters are quite likely, sooner or later, to turn against Donald Trump, once he is back in the White House, and the Republicans who control both branches of Congress. American politics are locked in a seemingly never-ending struggle in which neither side ever persuasively claims a durable majority. Esdall asked, Are a growing number of voters, including a small but significant share of Black, Hispanic and Asian American voters, losing faith in liberal egalitarianism, the core premise of the left? Are the defections of minority-group voters to the Republican Party a Trump-specific, momentary phenomenon, or will defections continue to grow, as they have from 2016 to 2024, in what would amount to a partial realignment of the minority electorate? Does the elite character of the Democratic Party — its domination by the college-educated, tied to cognitive elites and liberal foundations — preclude restoration of support among increasingly suspicious and hostile non-college voters? Did Trump campaign’s focus on inflation, immigration, crime and transgender rights succeed in pushing the public image of the Democratic Party farther from the mainstream, no longer concerned with the day-to-day issues of the middle class? Edsall noted that American politics have now been in the midst of a slow-moving realignment that first saw a disproportionately white group of relatively informed and knowledgeable voters reverse partisanship as those with college educations became increasingly Democratic while those without degrees became more Republican.  If the past predicts the present, voters are quite likely, sooner or later, to turn against Donald Trump, once he is back in the White House, and the Republicans who control both branches of Congress. American politics are locked in a seemingly never-ending struggle in which neither side ever persuasively claims a durable majority.”