Every once in a great while, Donald Trump will make a small effort to appease moderate opinion–most notably, on abortion. After all, you can win an election deliberately offending 45 percent of the population, but not 80 percent. That limited exception aside, however, Trump’s modus operandi is to throw red meat to his base and ignore everyone else. It goes against the grain, but he thinks driving up extremist turnout is how to win elections.
Joe Biden’s approach is completely different. He thinks general elections are won by appealing to centrist swing voters. That is what makes groups such as No Labels so ridiculous–he is already doing everything they want him to do. The danger here is that the blue base will be so disgruntled that it will refuse to show up in November.
Who is right? We’ll find out next year.