Populist Political Campaigns Succeed by Being Negative
Really, all they have to do is demonize the "others," to win. There are always enough disgruntled voters out there for that strategy to succeed. Trump understood that, and focused on demonizing Democrats, generally. What he said didn't have to be true, as long as it was negative. He also threw in some other targets, like immigrants, people of color, Obama, ObamaCare and a few other things, along the way. But, his campaign was all negative, except for empty, false promises about jobs and money for the "middle class."
He won, if only in the Electoral College, by successfully getting a lot of people angry at a lot of other people. Democrats were reduced to campaigning just against Trump, really. They tried to run a positive campaign, but positive campaigns are weaker than negative populist campaigns. Taking the high road doesn't work if your opponent is leading massive numbers of people down the low road. Angry people turn out and vote. They vote against the demons raised by the populists. They don't really vote on issues as much as against the "others."
So, now we have a weak, uninformed President who really has no idea of what needs to be done. He is supported by a Republican Congress that has run on negativity and opposition for eight years of the Obama administration. They have no plan. Trump has no plan. All they have is opposition to the "others." That makes them very dangerous, because they are in control of the entire federal government now, along with far too many state governments.
The solution? Populism, but from our side, this time. We have someone to demonize now. We have lots of someones to demonize. We're going to have to get more people pissed off at that group of "others" than the Republicans get pissed off at us. It's a damned shame that it has to be that way, but I see no alternative, really.
It's going to take populism to defeat populism. That's the sad fact facing us right now.
That's my opinion. I wish it weren't. But it is.