John Judis and Ruy Teixeira, two political scientists who have been highly critical of the Democratic Party's shift leftward on cultural issues in recent years, nonetheless think that Republicans may be getting ahead of themselves with a talk of a "political realignment."
While acknowledging President-elect Donald Trump's impressive win in the 2024 race, Judis and Teixeira write in the New York Times that the coalition of voters whom Trump assembled this year may not be as durable in the years ahead.
In fact, they argue that it seems "to have great potential for a crackup."
In particular, they note that Trump has made so many promises to so many constituencies of disaffected voters that trying to carry them out could wind up hurting the American economy.
ALSO READ: 'Literally a Fox News host': Critics mock Trump's 'utterly unserious' Pentagon chief pick
"He might try to carry out his promise of deporting millions of illegal immigrants, a project that could not just wreak havoc among families and in communities but also cause economic chaos," they write. "Or take tariffs... Unlike most Republican initiatives, tariffs, if successful, work by imposing short-term costs in prices in order to achieve long-term gains in jobs from otherwise endangered industries. It’s the short-term costs — another round of inflation, this time imposed by Mr. Trump — that might endanger the Republican coalition."
Added to this, they write, is the fact that Trump himself often behaves in disruptive and politically self-destructive ways that ensure he never gets the kind of widespread popularity needed to create an enduring realignment.
"The final obstacle to a strong realignment is Mr. Trump himself, who is consumed with the quest for power and self-aggrandizement, and appears eager to seek revenge against his detractors," they write. "Many of his difficulties during his first term stemmed from his own misbehavior, and he continues to revel in division and divisiveness."
Judis and Teixeira point to what happened in the United Kingdom in 2019 when the Conservative Party believed that it had finally cracked Labour's electoral coalition, only to be thrown out handily just five years later.
All of this leads them to conclude that "Trump’s dream of a historic Republican realignment may not survive his second term."