Tom Edsall discusses how whites are the primary demographic target of conservative attacks on President Obama:
With Republican party leaders so constrained by ideological blinders that none of their positions is likely to produce gains among non-white minorities, especially Hispanics, the GOP is finding it has no real alternative but to revert to a "white voter" strategy.
To some extent, it's working. The party's opposition to President Obama's agenda -- particularly his cap-and-trade energy proposal and health care reform plan -- is resonating strongly with disaffected white Democratic voters. Republican grievances about Obama, combined with race-baiting commentary from the far-right ideologues who have become some of the most dominant voices of the modern GOP, have led to a precipitous drop in the president's approval ratings among whites.
There is much to agree with here. This is especially the case if one narrows Edsall's formulation of "white voters" to "white Christian voters," given that white non-Christians vote for Democrats by 3-1 margins that are nearly identical to non-whites.
Republicans have suffered such severe electoral losses in recent years, and become so dominated by right-wing leaders and institutions, there are few moderating voices left to suggest a less hard-line message. Further, while the electorate has become significantly more ethnically diverse (26% non-white in 2008, compared to 15% non-white in 1988), and more religiously diverse (76% of Americans self-identified as Christian in 2008, down from 86% in 1990), according to Pew the Republican Party is composed of the same percentage of white Christians as it was at the start of the decade. Republicans are thus becoming relatively less diverse compared to the rest of the country, and therefore lacks a critical mass of voices that could make them appealing to a wider range of demographic groups.
Perhaps even more basically, the ideology that dominates the Republican Party is drenched in a language of cultural supremacy (anti-immigrant, "Christian Nation," anti-Islam, Birthers, etc.) that is fundamentally at odds with even the presence of more diverse groups in the United States. Intuitively, the conservative movement isn't trying to broaden its demographic base, despite population trends indicating it would be a wise move. Their ideology is largely predicated on fighting against those very trends, not in accepting them and moving on.
However, could such a strategy actually work for Republicans in national elections in either the short-term or long-term? Can they realistically increase their share of the vote among self-identified white-Christians to the point where their deficits among non-whites and non-Christians are, ala the 70's and 80's, once again irrelevant? To put it a different way, would it be possible for the Republican Party to get the entire country voting like large sections of the South, where 70% or more of self-identified white Christians choose the GOP?
As I explain in the extended entry, while a longshot, this proposition is not entirely impossible.
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Here is a not entirely implausible scenario on how Republicans could win back power without becoming more diverse in ethno-religious terms:
- A mid-single digit increase among white Christians would go a long way. John McCain won 62% of the white Christian vote last year (52% among white Catholics, and 65% among the far more numerous white Protestants). He would have squeaked out a narrow national victory had that number risen to 68%, only 6% higher.
- Increase in religious diversity might be slowing in America. According to the Trinity ARIS Survey, Self-identified non-Christians grew at a very slow rate during the period from 2001 (23.3% of the population) to 2008 (24.0% of the population). While younger age groups tend to be less Christian than older age groups, the country may never again witness a rapid rise in non-Christians it experienced during the 1990's.
- Increase in ethnic diversity might be slowing in America. As the economy slides backward, immigration has experienced a sharp decline in America. This has led to new, slower projections of minority population growth.
Overall, this means that if the economy struggles of the long-term, it is actually possible that there will be enough of a slowdown in ethno-religious diversity (through heavily decreased immigration), combined with enough of a backlash against Democrats among white Christians (who Republicans are not unsuccessfully targeting with their main messages), to put Republicans back in power during the next decade. Even beyond the 2010's, if these trends continue, they could stay competitive without becoming more diverse well into the 2020's, or even beyond.
For this to work, it would basically require a Depression lasting nearly a decade. However, given that the policies Democrats have instituted might not go nearly far enough to turn the economy around, and given what Republicans would do if they were to regain power in a Depression, even that is not an entirely far-fetched possibility. |
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