Trump's Midterm Strategy Returns to 1970 and the Richard Nixon Era: 'No need to try to win hearts and minds; the path to power runs through stirring hatred and anger' / Why Did Trump and Republicans Adopt the 'Agnew Strategy'?

Republicans Stick to Trump's Electoral Playbook from His First Presidential Campaign: When you cannot persuade people to like you or your record, focus on shaping voters' views of your opponent. Through fear and character attacks, make people hate the other side more than they dislike you.

Last month, people watching US television may have seen a rerun of a 2024 election campaign ad featuring US President Donald Trump, Foreign Policy wrote. Billed as a public service announcement and controversial because it was funded by the U.S. government, Trump walks down the aisle while his voice is heard declaring, "This is the final battle" against communists, Marxists, fascists, and the "fake news media."

According to the selection report, this article continues: He promises to "overthrow the corrupt political class that hates our country" and "liberate America once and for all from the hands of these criminals."

This ad is a classic example of Trump's political style.

At the mid-term Republican convention in Dallas, US Vice President JD Vance launched a scathing attack on the Democrats in his keynote speech, calling them the "party of hate" and extremism.

"Democrats will nominate candidates this fall who will tell your children what they are allowed to say, how they are allowed to live, and most importantly, who they should hate," he said on Sept. 10. Democrats are the party of hate. They are a party that hates America and the people who built this country. "They are the party that can sympathize with the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks."

Both this ad and this speech are rooted in the main strategy that Republicans have taken in the final weeks leading up to the midterm elections. Trump is facing historic lows in approval ratings, including on the economy, and Republicans are also struggling in states that are usually safe for the party, such as Kansas. In such a situation, they cannot focus on providing a positive outlook for the future.

Instead, they're sticking to Trump's precept from his first presidential campaign: When you can't convince people to like you or your performance, focus on shaping how voters view your opponent. Make people hate the other side more than you do by instilling fear and stigmatization.

You don't need to struggle to win hearts and minds. Instead, the path to power is through inciting hatred and anger. Implementing this strategy requires candidates to exploit and exacerbate party divisions rather than trying to win over moderate voters.

This strategy is basically the basis of the republicanism of the "MAGA" movement, but it did not start with Trump. From 1969 until the mid-term elections of 1970, Spiro Agnew, the then US Vice President, promoted a policy he called "positive polarization".

On the eve of the November elections of that year, the Republicans strongly highlighted the lines of separation and disagreement. They portrayed the Democrats as radical, anti-war, elitist, and immoral, while the Republican Party represented law-abiding and patriotic Americans.

Then-President Richard Nixon had enough political experience to know that the 1970 midterm elections would not be easy. His victory in the 1968 presidential election over Hubert Humphrey, the vice president at the time, and George Wallace, an independent candidate and former governor of Alabama, was very fragile, and therefore he could not claim to have a solid support for the implementation of his programs.

Although Nixon's approval rating was still above 50%, this number had decreased following the revelation of the US military entry into Cambodia and the killing of four protesting students at Kent State University.

In addition, with the exception of the 1934 elections, the president's party had always faced unfavorable results in mid-term elections; While the Democrats have been in control of both houses of Congress since 1955.

However, Nixon was eager to expand his power in Congress. He knew that fundamental changes in the country's public policies would require weakening the liberal-democratic majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Agnew became the central figure of the strategy that the White House and the Republican Party wanted to pursue. This choice seemed logical.

Former Maryland governor Agnew, once known as a moderate Republican, changed his tune in 1968. In reaction to the black urban riots in Baltimore, he defended the establishment of order and law enforcement with a fiery tone; A stance aimed at winning the support of white workers from various ethnic groups who traditionally voted Democratic.

His new political style caught Nixon's attention and made him appear on the Republican Party's national nomination list.

Nixon biographer John Farrell wrote, “The election of Spiro Agnew showed Nixon at his worst. This choice was a cynical and racist move."

Political columnist Robert Novak also noted that what most appealed to Nixon was Agnew's "worst public face; When, after the riots caused by the death of Martin Luther King, he publicly berated Baltimore's black leaders in a demagogic and condescending tone."

After entering the government, Agnew increased the intensity of his attacks. In several speeches in 1969, he laid out a framework by which Republicans could destroy the Democrats' image.

He called liberal intellectuals and the anti-war movement "a pampered bunch of insolent snobs."

In a nationally televised address, Agnew turned his attention to the media covering the government's performance; Especially the TV networks that he accused of having a liberal bias and providing distorted coverage.

He said: "The result of this conflict is that a limited and distorted image of America is often formed through television news. A single and impressive piece of this mosaic becomes the whole picture in the minds of millions of people."

In his most famous verbal attack, Agnew later called his critics, particularly members of the news media, "talkative lords of negativity"; A phrase that became one of his most well-known expressions.

According to Time magazine, the necessary instructions for these attacks were given to Agnew by the president himself. "The president has felt that the time has come when he can no longer try to keep everyone under one roof," said a top Nixon aide.

When Agnew's opponents accused him of recklessly polarizing American society, the vice president did not back down. Indeed, he accepted the charge and eventually defended what he himself called "positive polarization."

He argued that the "silent majority"—a term Nixon famously used to describe his supporters—must know who they're up against.

In fact, Agnew was reviving a form of politics based on fear-mongering of communism and presenting radical leftism as a threat to American institutions.

The vice president used to travel all over the country to promote the Republican candidates based on these themes. In speeches written by aides like Pat Buchanan, Agnew vehemently attacked "cowards and doodling people" and "radical liberals" as a threat to the foundations of American society.

Agnew explained that "divisiveness can be constructive" and that partisanship "must be pursued seriously, vigorously and without hesitation."

But in the November elections, the achievements of Agnew's strategy were limited. Republicans won a total of just one seat in the Senate, but lost 12 seats in the House of Representatives and lost several key gubernatorial races.

For all the talk of left-wing radicals, voters still seemed more concerned about inflation, rising unemployment and continued war in Southeast Asia.

Although the short-term effects of this strategy were less than Nixon had hoped, Agnew's method became an enduring model in Republican politics.

In an interview with the New York Times in 1971, Agnew said that, according to the media, "creating division among the American people has been my most important contribution to the national political scene since assuming the position of Vice President, more than two and a half years ago."

He continued: "Not only do I accept this charge, but I feel somewhat proud of it."

These attacks were also central to Nixon's highly successful 1972 re-election campaign against Democratic Senator George McGovern. In that election, Nixon achieved a decisive victory in the presidential election, comparable to the victory of Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

In October 1973, Agnew resigned and pleaded no contest to a federal tax evasion charge as part of a plea deal that would have protected him from prosecution on bribery, extortion and other corruption charges; A legal action that is equivalent to accepting punishment without officially admitting guilt.

In August 1974, Nixon was pressured to resign; After Republican senators announced that if the House of Representatives passes articles of impeachment in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Senate impeachment case is unlikely to end in his favor.

In the decades that followed, Republicans gradually became supporters of Agnew's vision.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Newt Gingrich, a Republican who became Speaker of the House in 1995, mobilized Republicans by calling for a tougher and more aggressive stance against Democrats. He wanted to abandon the traditional norms of bilateral cooperation and political politeness and replace them with a kind of harsh, aggressive and relentless politics.