The Myth of a Rightward Realignment

Let’s discard some stubborn misconceptions about Trump’s support and what happened in the 2024 election that are obscuring our understanding of a profound de-alignment

By Thomas Zimmer, November 26, 2025

It is Thanksgiving week – so let me start by expressing my deep gratitude to everyone who reads and supports Democracy Americana. Two months ago, I took a big leap into a new life as a full-time independent writer. It is still very much an open question whether this newsletter, which is my main source of income, can generate enough support to make this a viable career. But whatever comes next, I am grateful for the opportunity to think and write about the issues I care deeply about – and you honor me with your time, your trust, and your engagement.

To those of you in the United States: Happy Thanksgiving! I’m afraid I can’t offer anything that is particularly Thanksgiving-related. But I do think today’s essay might be helpful around the Thanksgiving dinner table, as I am taking aim at the most persistent myths around Trump’s support in American society and about what happened in the 2024 election. Perhaps you’ll feel better equipped to push back against and discard these pervasive misconceptions when you’ll inevitably encounter some of them in conversations with friends and family over the weekend.

The first part of the piece is free for everyone. If you want to read more than the preview, please consider becoming a member of Democracy Americana and support my work (and if you read German: An earlier German-language version of this piece was published in Zeit Online (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) last week).

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Donald Trump is historically unpopular. Only about 40 percent (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) of Americans approve of the job he’s doing as president, and that number is trending down; about 55 percent disapprove. In modern U.S. history, only one other president (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) had equally dismal numbers just months after being elected: That was Donald Trump himself, during his first term. The Republican Party suffered a devastating defeat in the November elections, losing ground almost everywhere, across all demographics (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre). Especially working-class voters, young people, and Latinos, whose larger-than-expected support had fueled Trump’s 2024 victory, strongly moved away from the president’s party. Those are facts.

But wait a minute, what about all the talk about a rightward realignment, about the American people sending a clear signal they preferred Trump’s agenda, about Trump having a broad “mandate” (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) to impose his vision on the country?

If you’ll recall, the 2024 election was actually very close. Trump won with a narrow 1.5-point margin in the popular vote. And yet, the idea that America had experienced a political “earthquake” (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) that demanded far-reaching interpretations became gospel almost immediately. Within days, the country’s leading newspapers and most influential commentators attempted to outdo each other with ever more sweeping narratives, mostly built on vastly inadequate, unreliable data – and a whole lot of personal preference. Trump’s victory, we were confidently told, was the result of lasting societal shifts (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) and signaled a profound reordering of American politics, an “American realignment” (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) – perhaps even the end of political liberalism (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) and the beginning of a permanent Trumpist era in U.S. history.

Such narratives have proved stubbornly persistent. A year after the presidential election, they continue to shape the political discourse – in the United States and abroad – even though they have been thoroughly disproven empirically. We now possess comprehensive data that suggests a very different interpretation of what actually happened in November 2024. It is high time we revise our understanding of the political, social, and cultural dynamics that are defining the country. This question is far too important – we cannot afford to rely on myths and misconceptions: What is actually happening in this society that vaulted the man who had led a multi-month campaign to nullify the result of the previous election and incited a violent insurrection, the man who had campaigned on rage, intimidation, and vengeful violence, back to the most powerful political office in the world? 

Let’s tackle three building blocks of the misleading “realignment” narrative: 1) The idea that U.S. society moved right in accordance with the broader outlines of Trumpism’s vision; 2) that Trump is the tribune of the working class, the champion of “regular folks”; 3) that he is building a stable multiracial coalition.

Misleading Myth No. 1: “American society moved significantly to the right”

Influential commentators are dogmatically clinging to the idea that the Democrats are a party of detached elites (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), aloof and arrogant; that they have “lost their base” (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) because they are captured by radical leftwing activists and their vastly unpopular demands; that they ignore the interests of the working class and regular folks. America, we were told after Trump’s victory, had just witnessed a “populist revolt” (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) against an elitist leftist project, a rejection of the aggressively encroaching “wokeism” (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) the Democratic Party was supposedly propagating. Even a few weeks ago, right before the November 2025 elections, Ross Douthat proclaimed from his perch as America’s number one “respectable” conservative pundit in the New York Times that the Trump election had been “an ideological referendum, and progressivism lost.” (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) The next day, Ezra Klein used his New York Times platform as one of America’s best-know liberal voices to call on Democrats to finally accept that “much of the country disagrees with them.” (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) 

The claim that Trump’s victory was a clear-cut expression – an immediate manifestation! – of the will of the people always stood in obvious tension with the narrow election result. Based on the empirical evidence we now have, the assertion that the electorate shifted right in accordance with Trump’s agenda is simply untenable. Let’s look at the picture that emerges from the latest American Values Survey (AVS) (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), for instance. Since 2010, the AVS is conducted annually by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in partnership with the Brookings Institution. It’s a high-quality survey that stands out because it is not so much concerned with the day-to-day political business, but aims at exploring the underlying attitudes, values, and shifts in national identity. The latest AVS makes very clear why Trump is so unpopular: His economic policy is judged as a disaster (something basically every serious poll confirms (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)) – and his authoritarian ambitions are widely perceived as acutely dangerous. Even two thirds of self-proclaimed independents, those roughly 40 percent of the electorate who are not registered with either party, view Trump as a “dangerous dictator.” (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)

A stable majority (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) of Americans – consistently between 55 and 65 percent, according to the AVS – are not only critical of Trump, but also reject core tenets of the rightwing agenda, preferring the vision of a pluralistic liberal democracy instead: They support a right to abortion (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) in most cases and envision a country that is defined by religious pluralism rather than Christian domination; they reject Trump’s assault on the modern state and the free university; they believe immigration ultimately strengthens America and demand a path to citizenship even for people who entered the country illegally. On all of these issues, it is not just Democrats who stand against the Trumpist vision: About 60 percent to two thirds (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) of independents do as well. Regardless of how many times the commentariat insists the Democratic Party is losing touch with “real America”: On substance, it is very clearly Republicans who are increasingly out of touch with the mainstream.

Misleading Myth No. 2: „Trump is the tribune of regular folks and the champion of the working class”