Exciting to see a post about this episode 5 hours after we put it out (!).
A few quick thoughts:
“Berkowitz never mentions that the median voter in most Republican primaries is currently “pro-Trump” so he leaves out the single sentence explanation.”
No but I say that. IIRC one of his responses also takes this background explanation as a given.
“Japan and New Zealand have shown that sovereign parliamentary democracies do not manifest even nascent electoral movements.”
In general I’m with you on thinking some systems of government are less conducive to populist movements, but I’m not sure one can show that by choosing two cases without checking for counterexamples.
“Berkowitz argues that Trump drives turnout. But 2016, Trump’s first term, had moderate turnout. 2020 was Trump’s second election, so why is he driving turnout in turn two.”
I mean there’s multiple factors but I’m with Berkowitz here.
In 2020 polls more people had very strong views about Trump (strong approve or strong disapprove) than is typical of a president, while I don’t think that was true in 2016. So I don’t think there’s anything strange about the idea that he raised turnout in 2020 but not 2016.
The other big factor I would think is easier postal voting.
“No it is not. People do not take on high personal costs for collective gains without a facilitating organization.”
But that just raises the question, why weren’t there better facilitating organizations? Folks expected them to be present but it seems they didn’t organize effectively.
Exciting to see a post about this episode 5 hours after we put it out (!).
A few quick thoughts:
“Berkowitz never mentions that the median voter in most Republican primaries is currently “pro-Trump” so he leaves out the single sentence explanation.”
No but I say that. IIRC one of his responses also takes this background explanation as a given.
“Japan and New Zealand have shown that sovereign parliamentary democracies do not manifest even nascent electoral movements.”
In general I’m with you on thinking some systems of government are less conducive to populist movements, but I’m not sure one can show that by choosing two cases without checking for counterexamples.
“Berkowitz argues that Trump drives turnout. But 2016, Trump’s first term, had moderate turnout. 2020 was Trump’s second election, so why is he driving turnout in turn two.”
I mean there’s multiple factors but I’m with Berkowitz here.
In 2020 polls more people had very strong views about Trump (strong approve or strong disapprove) than is typical of a president, while I don’t think that was true in 2016. So I don’t think there’s anything strange about the idea that he raised turnout in 2020 but not 2016.
The other big factor I would think is easier postal voting.
“No it is not. People do not take on high personal costs for collective gains without a facilitating organization.”
But that just raises the question, why weren’t there better facilitating organizations? Folks expected them to be present but it seems they didn’t organize effectively.