Demographics and the GOP’s Reaction to Long-term Trends: what is really going on

Politics & Elections
1

I feel that I am restating something as obvious as “water is damp,” but tell me if this is a true observation that everybody understands: the GOP has become anti-democratic directly in response to the inevitable growth of Democratic voters, specifically blacks and other minorities. By “GOP,” I mean roughly “White Christian conservative voters,” and again, a bit more specifically, “white supremacists,” who comprise a large and forceful fraction of the GOP. This fraction fuels the impetus to destroy democracy, but of course the more “moderate” not-explicitly-racist GOP voters are thoroughly complicit in allowing these evil miscreants to run the show.

In other words, the GOP (for short) has seen the same demographic trends anyone with one functioning eye can see plainly: birth rates and death rates (and immigration, and several other factors) have steadily predicted a coming shift in voting outcomes for several decades now, and that shift works inexorably against white Christian interests.

I have taken (false) solace in these demographic trends, going back decades, telling myself that I was seeing the arc of justice working slowly, and that when we finally arrived at a majority of those opposed to pro-white, pro-Christian values that the GOP is built upon, we will get some mildly progressive policies in place, and the promise of even more progressive ones some time after I leave this earth.

Where I was fooling myself in what I believed the GOP’s response would be: “Hmmm, we got our asses kicked in the last few election cycles, and it looks to be getting worse and worse from here on in, so maybe we should move a little further to the political center, lose some of our loser policies, reject racist dogwhistles, stop subsidizing wealthy folks quite so much, and maybe salvage a viable political party able to win an election or two?”

The next most likely GOP response, to me, was to dig in their heels, accept being the minority party, continue to oppose progressive policies, and serve as a venting source for the white Christian (male, rich, authoritarian, etc.) position, for at least a generation or two before coming to their senses and accepting the response above.

I did not expect that they would simply reject the concept of democracy. But that appears to be their strategy, exploiting the weaknesses of a system that paid lip service to the rights of the minority, such as the filibuster and the gerrymander and the Electoral College (to say nothing of a willful misreading of the Constitution that allows, for example, a sitting VP to “affirm the count” that his party lost the previous election and thereby nullify a free and fair election), undermining the validity of democracy itself, but that seems to be precisely what they have done.

In other words, I think the prevailing close examination of what the GOP is up to is a waste of effort: it’s very simple. These people have decided “OK, we’ve lost popular support for the foreseeable future, but rather than accept that fact, we will seize power by any means necessary, whatever it takes. A GOP dictator? Fine. A repressed press? Fantastic. Elections going to the loser? Whatever it takes. But we will not accept our status as a minority. Death before dishonor.”

2

I would argue that it’s much more about religion than race. Here in Texas, I see a considerable number of evangelical-charismatic Hispanic Christians who are rabidly pro-Trump/pro-Republican/MAGA. A good number of people at my Chinese church are pro-Trump/-Republican despite Trump’s anti-China rhetoric. The notion that America ought to be a Christian, that Christian = conservative, IMHO, is a much more powerful binding and rallying cry than any issue of skin color. The MAGA brand would sooner welcome a Cuban conservative than a white liberal any day; indeed, MAGA-ism particularly loathes and despises white liberalism above other forms of liberalism, from what I can tell.

The trend to watch for isn’t how brown America’s overall skin color becomes, it’s whether this Christian-nationalism thing spreads and grows. Christian nationalism really transcends race. So far, though, there is little sign it will ever break a ceiling of, say, 30% of America at most.

That being said…the reason for the GOP’s intractability is probably its sincere belief that it is going up against The Forces of Pure Evil. If you really think abortion means murdering a million babies a year, that LGBT is an abomination, that it’s a war of good vs. evil, then you can’t give an inch. When you can’t win because of demographics, but compromising your stance would mean caving in to evil, what other recourse is left to you? The only viable option you have remaining is to seize power un-democratically; anything else would mean Letting Evil Win.

3

“If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”

  • David Frum, only half right, as they’ve abandoned conservatism, too
4

I think Republicans have painted themselves into a corner by openly accepting white supremacists into their party. They did it quietly for quite a while, but Trump did it openly. While some moderate Republicans have become Independents or Libertarians, most have just held their nose and continued to support their party no matter what. I would have thought that would be the end of the Republican Party, but I underestimated the number of people willing to support someone like Trump and a party that caters to right-wing radical nutjobs.

Diehard Republicans are never going to abandon their party any more than Democrats are. The only long-term hope of the Republican party is to seize control of power in Washington DC and make it so they never lose another election. It may sound like a long shot, but they really don’t have any other good options.

5

I think Republicans believe the takeaway lesson of 2020 is that trying to seize power won’t work as long as the narrative is that you’re the loser who’s trying to reverse a win. What they’ll try in 2024 is to seize power by setting the tone early such that they are perceived as the upper dog and the Democrats are perceived as the ones trying to reverse a win. The GOP takeaway is that there is a golden window of time that narrows rapidly; “whoever is perceived as the winner within the first 48 hours after Election Night is the one likely to prevail eventually and be inaugurated.”

6

At the level of the entire movement, it’s not about race, or religion, or sex, or any other specific demographic; it’s about “Us” vs. the “Other”. This is convenient for the party, because it lets the “other” be different things for different people: A Hispanic fundamentalist Christian and a white Jew can both call themselves “Republicans”, and both vote for the same candidates, all while fantasizing about murdering each other (and while the candidate they’re both voting for fantasizes about murdering both of them).

7

I see a similar risk, but in addition to religion, it’s the susceptibility to the basest forms of selfish capitalism. Working in software, I know a number of recent arrivals from India and China.
There are a lot of great people, and there are a lot of folks who are alarmingly likely to have ethos of “fuck everybody else, I’m getting mine.” In conjunction with the model minority mindset, and a complete lack of regard for this country’s civil rights woes, you have a recipe for budding Trumpists.

It seems unlikely to suggest that white people will further enlarge the tent of whiteness as happened with Irish and Italians in earlier centuries. But I think it’s possible that they’d accept any ethnicity who agreed that Jesus is good, Black people are bad, and white people owe nothing to anybody.

My main point here is that liberals should never take demographic advantage for granted. There is always someone willing to cozy up to power no matter how badly the powerful have treated them in the past. In fact that’s can be a great incentive to trade your dignity for power - it’s better to be the oppressor than the oppressed.

8

They accept any ethnicity as long for as they think they still need them.

I have no doubt that the GOP loves having Chinese Christians voting for them, but I also have no doubt that they’ll turn on them just as soon as they think they can secure the government without their help. The racism is just too strong.

I mean, look at the GOPers who, at the start of COVID, said things like, “I don’t hate the Chinese, I hate the Chinese Communist Party!”, but then turned around and harassed Chinese Americans, telling them to “Take your Kung Flu back to CHY-na!”

They can say the words, and maybe hold off on action for a while, but in the end, they just can’t keep it up.

9

Not sure how much it matters to rank them in terms of racist, bigoted by religion, age, sexual orientation, national origin,etc. They have a very simple agenda: to protect the majority interests, if not the actual majority vote, of straight, white, Christian males (and they would gladly be more explicitly against women if they didn’t need women’s votes). Sure, they’ll encourage right-thinking Catholics and Jews, dark-skinned people, misguided homosexuals, and women who sew the hoods of their Klannish husbands to vote with them (unless they reach the point that they no longer need their votes, when it becomes “OK, throw another rope over that branch”) but it’s easier to define what they’re for than who they’re against: white, Christian supremacy. It’s so simple that I’m amazed that any other diversionary topic ever makes the news.

10

Until they have dumped democracy. Then, they’ll turn on the non-white members. It’s about race at the core.

11

And they’ll also turn on the non-protestant whites, and on the Log Cabin Republicans, and on women, and on everyone else who doesn’t fit the model. It’s about all of the bigotries, at the core.

12

Perhaps, but white people really adore a model minority who does what they’re told and confirms everything that people want to believe about American capitalism being colorblind. All it takes is Fox News running a few segments saying “actually Chinese people are OK now.” You notice that a lot of the rhetoric is not “China sucks” but “the CCP sucks.” The distinction is already being made.

And while I’m sure Indians or Chinese would not exactly relish being a second-class constituency of the Republican party, it’s got to be a big improvement over their status in the home country. People who have been poor will do a lot to avoid repeating the experience.

13

That’s one of the pithiest summaries of a complex situation that I’ve read in a long, long time. Thank you.

14

Including 2000, there have been 6 Presidential elections. Of those:

  • 3 won by the Democrats where the candidate won both the Electoral College and the Popular vote (Obama 2x, Biden).
  • 2 won by Republicans where the candidate won the Electoral College but NOT the popular vote (Bush 1st term, Trump).
  • 1 won by a Republican where the candidate won both the Electoral College and the Popular vote (Bush 2nd term).

Seems clear the Republicans have a hard time capturing enough votes to stay in power in areas where there is competition without depending on holes in the system. At the local level I think Republicans fare much better, but it seems for the top jobs the only way they can win any more is to cheat or dilute Democratic votes somehow (Gerrymandering, voter suppression, Russian bots, or just plain tip the scales in broad daylight in their favor by putting yes-men in the right positions - that’s their latest tactic).

The Democrats should instead of spending millions on TV ads for their candidates should instead spend some money on ways to get people to the polls - maybe a voucher for Uber and Lyft rides to polling places (for all voters, not just their party). Or set-up websites in key states that make requesting a mail ballot simple and easy, and offer free postage. Spend some money communicating the importance of voting - get top talent involved (entertainers, athletes, etc.) - the more people that vote, the better it is for Democrats in many places, especially the so-called “battleground” states. The Republicans know this and are taking action accordingly, so Democrats need to go on the offensive with getting people to the polls.

15

I thought about this thread while I was reading this article. It is a review of three books detailing the source of the current state of the American right.

The first book (_A World After Liberalism, Matthew Rose) is about the intellectual underpinnings of the right; how various racist and ethnocentric thinkers going back all the way to Spengler developed ideas that appeal to many in the west who resist cultural and demographic change. Despite their lack of a mass following, their concepts found followers who could put them into operation.

The second book (The Right, Matthew Continetti) shows how the more mainstream conservative movement yielded over time to the demands of its most radical and antidemocratic members, citing the end of the Cold War as when whatever commitment was left to small-l liberal democratic norms began to be discarded. The reviewer points out that Continetti believes the conservative movement strategizes based on the support of the radical right without truly realizing the degree to which the tables have turned.

The final book (Why We Did It, Tim Miller) details the psychology behind why Trump was able to take and reshape the Republican party in his own image - or the image of his radical right supporters in whom he sees his reflection. Miller, a gay (former?) Republican political operative, tells about how some of his fellow politicos made the psychological switch to accommodate and ultimately embrace Trumpism as a lesser evil than the liberalism.

I don’t know that I’m going to read any of these books, but I certainly recommend the synopses in the linked article.

16

I think the premise of the OP is actually how many in GOP leadership perceived their situation back in 2010 or so, and likely still in 2012 and even up until election night 2016. However, perceptions do not always match reality. But let’s first deal with the perception–it is absolutely the case that the form of cultural revanchism that is cherished by evangelical Christians / Christian Nationalist etc (who are predominantly, but not exclusively, white and most of their leaders are men, but they obviously have the support of patriarchy-supporting women) is viewed as “being under attack” and by an unassailable “horde” of blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals and “effete” liberal whites. This belief is a core part of why they no longer support democracy.

Now the even worse part is I think the perception may be wrong. Specifically, the perception is this cultural revanchism is a dying candle, sputtering on its final flames. However, I can actually see a situation where even without undermining democracy, this flame can not only keep burning, but come to dominate the country. How? Because the electoral college, Senate and even the House disproportionately favor lower population rural states, and Republicans dominate those. Additionally, several important states like Florida and Texas, that if you squint right and turn your head right, you could sorta imagine turning blue at some point based on demographics. Except…that probably isn’t happening. Why? Because the demographic changes in those States is making them less white, and if the political battle lines were drawn where they were in say, 1995, it would be making them bluer. But the political battle lines are now turning much more on conservative cultural issues than on economic issues. Democrats economic message worked pretty well with Florida’s non-Cuban Hispanics and Texas’s Mexican-American / Tejanos population. The problem is, the Democrats cultural message doesn’t work with these groups at all. The Rio Grande valley may be historically in favor of things like universal healthcare and robust social welfare, but they are anti-abortion with the heat of a burning furnace, and when the cultural argument defines politics…these voters are actually drifting red.

The other big issue is a number of other swing states don’t have quite that racial demographic but they do have that political demographic. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are not getting that meaningfully diverse ethnically, and all are slower growth rust belt states. Most of them were traditionally decently decent states for Democrats. But the Democrats power in these States was largely based on labor unions, which have basically been obliterated into nothingness politically. These voters now don’t feel any economic affiliation with Democrats, and just like Florida’s Cuban American population or the Tejanos, all of these blue collar whites have basically always been culturally conservative. But historically cultural issues weren’t the be all end all, the fissures existed, but they weren’t so stark. One reason they weren’t so start is cultural conservatives and liberals used to exist “cross party”, while more were GOP than Dem, there were tons of culturally conservative Democrats holding Congressional and Senate seats in the Rust Belt, that now isn’t much of a thing, and the Democrats are going to struggle to win elections here–and it is likely to get worse.

While the high populations of a few coastal States might continue to mean Democrats rack up big popular vote wins in Presidential elections, the fact is most currently contested states are trending red due to cultural issues.

If we look at swing states, here is a list that shows each swing state, its number of electoral votes in 2024, and my analysis on whether it is trending: Democrat, Republican, or “Hold” (meaning it will likely stay a swing state.)

Arizona (11) - Democrat
Florida (30) - Republican
Georgia (16) - Democrat
Iowa (6) - Republican
Maine (4) - Hold
Michigan (15) - Republican
Minnesota (10) - Republican
Nevada (6) - Democrat
New Hampshire (4) - Hold
North Carolina (16) - Hold
Ohio (17) - Republican
Texas (40) - Hold
Wisconsin (10) - Republican

So of this current batch of swing states, we have 3 states representing 33 electoral votes “trending” Democrat, and 7 states representing 107 votes trending Republican. Worse still–of the 4 “Holds”, Texas and North Carolina (representing another 56 electoral votes) are “Holding” with a red lean, Maine and New Hampshire will hold with a blue lean, but only represent around 10 electoral votes.

The unfortunate thing for Democrats is increasing extreme political polarization, increased “sorting” of progressives / liberals out of rust belt states into coastal ones (where their votes are largely wasted) and etc likely mean these swing states do keep trending in their current directions and become “less swingy.” Meaning it isn’t at all unreasonable to assume by 2028 or so there’s only 4-6 swing states left.

Where does that leave it? It leaves it in a real bad place for the Democrats: if the above trending states converge into being red or blue, then before ANY remaining swing state is factored in, Republicans will be sitting on 272 electoral votes. That’s ball game. If the Democrats win all the remaining swing states they will only clear 265, and their hope of victory will be on the most competitive of the “new” red states–likely places like Michigan and Minnesota. But Democrats can only even be in fighting position there if they win literally all the remaining swing states and only if the couple of states trending their way…stay trending that way. The scary thing for Democrats is it’s an open question really if Arizona and Georgia which are genuinely showing signs of trending blue, will keep trending blue enough to secure them reliably. It could be the situation is even worse for the Democrats.

Note that if Senate races follow this map–which is becoming more and more of the norm, States electing Senators that don’t match their Presidential vote is a dying concept, the Republicans will have a hammer lock on the Senate and the White House likely for generations without cheating at all, just using the 1788 constitution that made a compromise with small states that enshrined them into permanent power in the Senate and electoral college. Note we made a very bad choice as a country to exacerbate that problem by adding 37 additional states with no real consideration of population sizes.