Ron Brownstein: “In a presidency of unprecedented disruption and turmoil, Donald Trump’s support has remained remarkably stable. That stability, paradoxically, points toward years of rising turbulence in American politics and life. Trump’s approval ratings and support in the presidential race against Democratic nominee Joe Biden have oscillated in a strikingly narrow range of around 40%-45% that appears largely immune to both good news — the long economic boom during his presidency’s first years — and bad — impeachment, the worst pandemic in more than a century, revelations that he’s disparaged military service and blunt warnings that he is unfit for the job from former senior officials in his own government. Perhaps the newest disclosures, in the upcoming book from Bob Woodward, that Trump knew the coronavirus was far more dangerous than the common flu even as he told Americans precisely the opposite, will break this pattern, but most political strategists in both parties are skeptical that it will.”

“The durability of both support and opposition to Trump shows how the motivation for voters’ choices is shifting from transitory measures of performance, such as the traditional metrics of peace and prosperity, toward bedrock attitudes about demographic, cultural and economic change. The immovability of the battle lines in 2020 captures how thoroughly the two parties are now unified — and separated — by their contrasting attitudes toward these fundamental changes, with Trump mobilizing overwhelming support from the voters who are hostile to them, no matter what else happens, and the contrasting coalition of Americans who welcome this evolution flocking toward the Democrats. In the near term, this alignment has produced a campaign dynamic in which Trump consistently trails Biden, but not so severely that despite all the controversies that might have capsized an earlier incumbent, he cannot squeeze out another narrow win in the Electoral College. Over the long term, the durability of attitudes toward Trump spotlights the likelihood of a widening rift between two Americas fundamentally diverging in both their exposure to and attitudes about such fundamental dynamics as the nation’s growing racial and religious diversity, rising demands for greater racial equality, changing gender roles and the transition from an industrial to an information age economy.”