How Trump Broke the Democratic Party
Matt Margolis
President Trump has had a very productive second term, but according to Victor Davis Hanson, Trump’s biggest accomplishment isn’t legislation; it’s that he shattered the Democratic Party’s façade—and left it flailing.
“Donald Trump’s greatest legacy, he broke the Democratic Party and he turned it. ... He exposed it for what it was,” Hanson explained in an interview. “It was a bicoastal elite party with a bunch of billionaires who spend lavishly, and a bunch of subsidized poor, and a professional class that feels frustrated.”
Hanson described the party’s urban base as young, well-paid professionals struggling in sky-high-cost blue cities. “That’s what the Mamdani constituency is. Frustrated, young prof—white professionals,” he said. Meanwhile, he argued, Democrats have abandoned the working class, along with what he called “muscular classes”—Hispanic and black males, and working-class white voters.
Trump, Hanson pointed out, didn’t just survive this shift—he thrived. “If you look at 2016, ’20, and ‘24, Donald Trump’s white vote is pretty constant,” he said. Despite losing the popular vote in 2016 and 2020, Trump won both the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2024 with the same base. Hanson credited this to Trump picking up women, young voters, and 55% of Hispanic males, along with roughly 25% of black males and 10–15% of Asian males.
“So how could that be if he was supposed to be a racist according to the Democrats?” Hanson asked. He explained it’s the Democrats’ condescending approach to voters. “Basically, this is a caricature, but the Democratic attitude toward a black truck driver or a Mexican American electrician was something like this: ‘Now, you don’t know what’s good for you… They’re going to be good for you. I don’t care what you say about your schools being swamps, crime going up. Remember that.’”
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https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/08/17/how-trump-broke-the-democratic-party-n4942788
