Culture War Origins
How changing Demographics and an unexpected Republican candidate fueled the American culture war.
There are many ways to look at how American politics has changed over the decades. Such as how there used to be both conservatives and liberals in both the Democrat and Republican party, 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. A change that has been happening over decades, but it wasn’t until 2012 when Republicans realized that the future of their party 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 church goers by 19 points, 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 both former Presidents share is that they lost the popular vote but won the electoral college.
Bush losing the popular vote was a warning sign for Republicans. One they didn’t fully appreciate until they began suffering more losses with Congressional and Presidential elections.
Those losses, particularly Mitt Romney losing to Obama in 2012, is what brought the Republican National Committee to analyze their problems and write up a post mortem called the Growth and Opportunity Project, a 100 page report discussing a new strategy on how the GOP should move forward.
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 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
A lot of what they proposed for messaging sounds a lot closer to today's Democrats than it does to the current GOP. And it was exactly the change of messaging the party needed to secure their future in politics.
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 it has crossed 80%.
White people make up 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 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, but 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 are supposed to do in order 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 the minority of voters.
If you can get your base more excited, 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 didn’t agree 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 that 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 with 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 a concern of his.
Republicans in Congress quickly found out that either they got onboard with Trump, or they got 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 are continuing, which means the Trump base is continuing to shrink. That means both 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 powerful majority becomes a minority, there is unrest and a fight to restore the status quo. Society is looking different, thinking different, and governing differently.
The culture war will get worse before it gets better, but it can’t last forever. Either the GOP will stick with Trump’s approach and their base will shrink to the point that there is no way to win, or the GOP will adopt messaging and policies that expands their audience and bring the party closer to the center.
2024 may be what determines which path Republicans take. If they win the Presidency, then they will continue the culture war through to 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