Two parties, divided by decades
The cultural and demographic gulf between the Republican and Democratic electoral coalitions can now be measured not just in space, but also time. Today, the two parties represent not only different sections of the country, but also, in effect, different editions of the country. Across many key measures, the Republican coalition mirrors what all of American society looked like decades ago, and the Democratic coalition mirrors what America could look like in decades ahead. The parties’ ever-escalating conflict encapsulates our collective failure to find common cause between what America has been, and what it is becoming.
In terms of race and religion, there’s no question Republicans now embody America at an earlier stage, and Democrats a likely future point in the nation’s evolution.
In 2012, whites accounted for about 90% of the ballots cast in the Republican presidential primaries, and the votes Mitt Romney received in the general election. The last time whites represented 90% of the total American population was 1960. Ethnic groups now equal just over 37% of Americans. By contrast, voters of color accounted for nearly 45% of President Obama’s votes in 2012. Ethnic minorities probably won’t equal that much of the total population for about 15 more years.
White Christians account for 69% of all adults who identify as Republicans, according to the Pew Research Center’s massive religious landscape survey. The last time white Christians equaled that much of America’s total population was 1984 — the year of Ronald Reagan’s landslide reelection. Today, white Christians have fallen below majority status, to just 46% of the adult population.
The change is even more pronounced among Democrats, less than one-third of whom are white Christians. Another third of Democrats are nonwhite Christians. And the party’s largest group (about 35%) comprises people from all races who identify with non-Christian faiths or, increasingly, with no religious tradition. Those non-Christians are growing rapidly across American society — but in the entire population they probably won’t match their current level among Democrats until after 2020.
Likewise, the share of Republicans who are married or live in households with guns reflects the numbers for the entire population roughly two decades ago. Both marriage and gun ownership have fallen in the general population since — but are even less common now among Democrats than in the nation overall.
From these contrasting constituencies, the parties now separate, above all, by their attitude toward the growing diversity and cultural changes remaking America.
As I’ve written, Republicans represent a coalition of restoration centered on the groups most unsettled by the changes (primarily older, non-college, rural and religiously devout whites). Democrats mobilize a coalition of transformation that revolves around the heavily urbanized groups (millennials, people of color, and college-educated, single and secular whites, especially women) most comfortable with these trends.
A December national poll by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute mapped the chasm between those perspectives. The survey found that almost three times as many Republicans (53%) as Democrats (19 %) agreed both that “immigrants are a burden” on American society and that “the values of Islam are at odds with American values and way of life.” Nearly four times as many Democrats (43%) as Republicans (12%) rejected both ideas.
“The issue of immigration, Syrian refugees and the issue of Muslims are all in the same basket,” says Daniel Cox, the PRRI’s research director. “They raise fears about security — whether that’s national security or economic security — and fear of cultural change. These are all things that the white working class is really struggling with.”
Electorally, this divergence has benefited Democrats in presidential elections because the groups comfortable with America’s evolution are casting a growing share of ballots in those contests. But it’s helped Republicans to control Congress by deepening their hold on communities outside America’s urban centers, where these changes are concentrated.
The larger truth is that this cultural partition has frustrated both parties, by denying either a broad enough reach to establish a dominant or durable political advantage. More important, this hardening division obscures our common interest in making our new dynamics work for all Americans — on issues such as balancing security with respect for all communities and equipping America’s diverse younger generation with the skills to reach the middle class and pay the taxes that will support Social Security and Medicare for the nation’s predominantly white seniors.
The cultural and demographic changes remaking the country are as irreversible as tides, but they probably will not wash away the values so many culturally conservative Americans fear are endangered. At its best, the U.S. has always reformulated both its public policies and social mores to refresh its oldest traditions with its contemporary realities. Anyone watching the volatile and vitriolic presidential campaign recognizes that America once again needs to bridge its past and future. But that won’t happen if each party only speaks to one side of the divide.