Film blogger Sasha Stone, who rankled Hollywood in recent years by thinking for herself in public, recently captured my feelings for the umpteenth time on X.
“There are a lot of people out there like me. We’re strays,” she posted. “We don’t belong in any party and chafe at anyone telling us what we must think and believe. It isn’t that we go which way the wind blows, it’s that we are nomads.”
My hunch is there are more nomads in the electorate right now than most realize: People who have aligned themselves with MAGA — because have you seen the other guys? — but haven’t pledged their allegiance. People who cheer for regulatory reform and sex-specific bathrooms but are creeped out by the “king” jokes. People who sense cancel culture rising again, but this time on both sides.
The nomads’ sworn enemy, the True Believers, trumpeted their certitude following the Oval Office donnybrook — “I told you he was a Russian agent!”, “I told you he was the MAGA king!” — but the nomads raised their eyebrows and backed slowly away.
It is precisely when the social pressure to conform spikes that nomads begin to drift. When MAGA hounds on X branded Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) a heretic for calling the Oval Office scene “heartbreaking,” nomads made for the exits.
But that doesn’t mean they’ll drift back to the Democrats. The extreme social coercion of the past decade has burnt that bridge; it must be rebuilt bolt-by-bolt. The nomads loathe every smug anti-Trumpist who posts “I Stand With Ukraine” banners on their Facebook feeds to lend their blind hatred of Trump a virtuous air.
But they are troubled by the early warning signs of a different cry-bully.
The petulant edge of Vice President JD Vance’s complaint that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not say “thank you” felt eerily similar to the woke demand to “check your privilege.” It isn’t becoming for the powerful to play the victim, no matter how cathartic it is to see the shoe on the other foot.
Of the three main characters in Friday’s scuffle, Trump likely played best to the nomads, at least before Vance tuned him up about the “thank you” slight. His cold recitation of the facts of life — “You don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards. But without us, you don’t have any cards” — was free of the emotional blackmail Democrats have confused with leadership in the woke era.
Of course, it’s hard to say exactly how big and powerful the nomad bloc might be. That’s because nomads are less likely to make themselves seen and heard; “I’m skeptical!” doesn’t meme as easily as “I Stand with (fill in the blank).” Millions have vacillated between Trump and the Democrats in recent elections, but not all of those voters fit the nomad mold — indeed, they might only be going where the wind blows.
But Trump can’t afford to let the nomads wander away again. His coalition is more fragile than it looks. With the slimmest majorities in Congress and an approval rating at the tipping point, losing the drifters could break his second term and its grand plans.
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To keep them in the fold, he must continue to break stale norms and thumb his nose at the sanctimonious — but without allowing MAGA to be consumed by virtue signalers and conformists of the True Believers.
The Left lost the nomads when it demanded they take a knee. The Right risks losing them by demanding they bend the knee.
Trump needs to keep the strays from roaming without keeping them on a leash.