Doug Ahler and David Broockman
The Washington Post
December 16, 2015
Donald Trump is one of the most extreme presidential candidates to gain widespread support in contemporary American politics. Despite championing policies like the end of birthright citizenship, mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, and a registry of Muslims living in the United States, Trump has consistently polled atop the Republican field since July. A popular perspective thus attributes Trump's success to a "right wing fringe" of GOP voters.
But this conventional wisdom misses something important: Trump meets the textbook definition of an ideological moderate.
Trump has the exact "moderate" qualities that many pundits and political reformers yearn for in politicians: Many of Trump's positions spurn party orthodoxy, yet are popular among voters. And like most voters -- but unlike most party politicians -- his positions don't consistently hew to a familiar left-right philosophy.
Doug Ahler is a PhD candidate at the University of California at Berkeley. David Broockman is an assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. This post draws on their paper "Does Polarization Imply Poor Representation?"
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