Jeb Bush wasn’t right about a whole lot in the 2016 Republican presidential primary — he bombed out after starting the race as the nominal frontrunner —but I think he nailed Donald Trump.
“Donald, you know, is great at the one-liners,” Bush said at a debate in late 2015. “But he's a chaos candidate. And he'd be a chaos president.”
That word “chaos” kept kicking around in my head. And nine years later, in early 2024, I was having lunch with a Democratic media consultant who told me two things:
Joe Biden’s “democracy” message wasn’t moving independent and swing voters at all
The best (only?) message that the consultant had seen move those key voters was focusing on the chaos Trump had created in his first term.
The argument went like this: Like him or hate him, it’s impossible to argue that all the late-night tweets, the “my button is bigger than yours” foreign policy and the rampant unpredictability of Trump had worn people down by 2020.
It was just, well, a LOT. Exhausting. And, by the end of Trump’s first term, the country was tired of it all.
Neither Biden nor Kamala Harris spent considerable time or money pushing the “chaos” message during the 2024 campaign.
But, I have continued to believe that if Democrats really want to break through against Trump, the path to doing so is not by insisting he’s America’s Hitler but rather by pointing out how much chaos he creates — both here and in the wider world.
There’s new national polling out this morning that suggests “chaos” is the way forward for Democrats. Sponsored by Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, the data is eye opening: More than 6 in 10 voters say that “chaotic” is a word that aptly describes Trump’s 2nd term so far.
The “chaos” message is particularly powerful among independents. And, even a solid majority of non-college voters — Trump’s longtime base — agree with the idea that “chaotic” fits when describing him.
Democratic strategists would do well to pay attention to the above slide. To my mind, it may hold the key to making the case against Trump — and the broader GOP — in the run-up to the 2026 election.
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