Culture War Origins
How changing Demographics and an unexpected Republican candidate fueled the American culture war.
There are many ways to examine how American politics has changed over the decades. For example, there used to be both conservatives and liberals in the Democratic and Republican parties, a concept that seems foreign today.
Or even the history behind the Dixie Democrats being so outraged by the passage of the Civil Rights Act that they joined forces with the Republicans to fundamentally change the trajectory of both parties.
There is one change that is still ongoing. It has been happening for decades, but it wasn’t until 2012 that Republicans realized that their party's future was at risk.
America’s demographics are changing at a rapid pace.
In the 2020 Presidential election, Trump won 3 categories of voters:
White voters without college degrees (32-point lead)
Rural voters (32-point lead)
White religious voters (regular churchgoers by 19 points, a 69 point lead with Evangelicals)
This was relatively the same as Trump had received in 2016, and in the past, that breakdown was a winning strategy for Republicans. For all the shock and outrage from the media, Democrats, and even some Republicans, Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 wasn’t anomalous at all. The breakdown of the votes he received tracked with what Bush had received years earlier.
Another aspect that both former presidents shared is that they lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College.
Bush's loss in the popular vote was a warning sign for Republicans, one they didn’t fully appreciate until they began suffering more losses in Congressional and Presidential elections.
Those losses, particularly Mitt Romney's loss to Obama in 2012, are what brought the Republican National Committee to analyze their problems and write a postmortem called the Growth and Opportunity Project, a 100-page report discussing a new strategy for the GOP's future.
Early on in the report, the RNC writes:
“Public perception of the Party is at record lows. Young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the Party represents, and many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country. When someone rolls their eyes at us, they are not likely to open their ears to us.”
The report goes on to suggest a change in messaging:
Positive immigration solutions
Addressing the social concerns of the youth
Supporting the NAACP and promoting black candidates for leadership
Listening to and fighting for women’s issues
They even talked about embracing modern social media platforms like Reddit and Instagram to connect better with younger generations
Much of what they proposed for messaging sounds closer to today's Democrats than it does to the current GOP. And it was precisely the change of messaging the party needed to secure their political future.
A comparison of the demographics from Reagan’s first election to the demographics of today:
Race:
In 1980, 80% of America was White, 11.5% Hispanic, 6.5% Black, and 2% Asian.
Today, that has shifted to under 59% White, 19% Hispanic, 14% Black, and 6% Asian.
White people are expected to drop below 50% of the US population by 2045.
Where People Live:
In 1980, 73% of the US population lived in cities; today, that number has crossed 80%.
White people comprise 80% of the rural population but only 58% of the city population.
Religion:
In 1980, around 90% of the US population was Christian, and around 6% were non-religious.
Today, only 63% are Christians, and this is dropping at a rapid pace, whereas the non-religious population is 29% and rising rapidly.
Christians are expected to drop below 50% within the next 20-25 years
Education:
In 1980, only around 16% of Americans had college degrees. Today, that number is almost 40%.
Sexuality:
Due to the stigma and violence faced by LGBT individuals, it is difficult to find any accurate statistics from years past. Still, it is safe to say that a significantly greater percentage of LGBT individuals are more open about their sexuality and gender today than they were 40 years ago.
The core Republican base is shrinking as a percentage of the American population, and fast.
To their credit, the Republican plan was meant to address this. They wanted to expand their base and change their stance on issues to better align with the American population, which is exactly what politicians and political parties should do to have continued success.
What the Republican party hadn’t counted on was Donald Trump.
Trump wasn’t a Republican insider and had no plans to follow along with their messaging plans. Instead, he tapped into two aspects of our politics:
1)Low voter turnout
2)Anger over change
For high-engagement presidential elections, our nation only gets a 60-62% voter turnout. In more muted years, it can drop as low as 50%. While this is a disappointing statement about our Democratic Republic, it allows for political strategy even when you represent a minority of voters.
If you can excite your base, you can increase their turnout at the polls. If you can get the opponent’s base less enthused, you can decrease their turnout. A couple of percentage points in each direction is all you need.
Trump found success in conservative populism. As the demographics are changing, rural white Christians are feeling ignored and upset. Society was changing in ways they disagreed with, and politicians were focused on swing states and population centers, not rural America.
With the slogan "Make America Great Again," Trump signaled that he wanted to return America to this crowd, to give them the focus and power they had when they represented a huge portion of America.
By referring to Democrats as “Liberal Elites,” he was tapping into those without college degrees who held lower-paying blue-collar and agriculture jobs. He embraced their resentment of the well-educated, wealthy Americans living in cities and suburbs who were viewed as people who preached about social issues while living the good life.
Combine that with the number of Democrats who weren’t excited about Hillary and decided they weren’t going to vote or were going to vote third party, and you now had a recipe for a shrinking demographic to win big, with the help of the Electoral College.
This derailed the 2012 Republican plan. Trump was doing the exact opposite of the messaging strategy they had wanted to ensure a healthy future for their party. Trump has always been about himself and about right now. What happens to the party overall is never his concern.
Republicans in Congress quickly found out that either they get on board with Trump or they get out of office. The far-right base was now energized, loud, and aggressive.
Anyone who tried a more reasoned political approach was called a RINO and relentlessly mocked by both Trump and his voters. Republicans were forced to follow Trump’s lead. They were forced to wage a culture war to get votes.
The demographic changes continue, which means the Trump base continues to shrink. That means that the base is increasingly angry about the country changing and that the politicians need to engage them even more, with ever more divisive rhetoric, if they want to get enough votes to win elections.
The change just since 2016 is astonishing. For those who see themselves as either a Democrat or Republican, dislike of individuals from the other party has risen sharply. The majority of people from both parties now see members of the other party as close-minded, dishonest, immoral, and unintelligent.
Anytime a decisive majority becomes a minority, there is unrest and a fight to restore the status quo. Society is looking, thinking, and governing differently.
The culture war will worsen before it improves, but it can’t last forever. Either the GOP will stick with Trump’s approach, and its base will shrink to the point that it cannot win, or the GOP will adopt messaging and policies that expand its audience and bring the party closer to the center.
2024 may determine which path Republicans take. If they win the Presidency, they will continue the culture war through the next election cycle. If Republicans lose the Presidency, and especially if they lose the majority in the House at the same time, they will need to revisit the change in approach that they had written up back in 2012.
How you vote could determine how the culture war plays out and when it ends.
RNC Growth and Opportunity Project report: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/624581-rnc-autopsy
