Liberalism is Unstoppable
By James A. Haught
Demographics suggest a bright future for liberalism in America. Several trends swing left.
The heart of conservatism is white, older, male, less-educated, socially narrow churchgoers, many of them rural. White evangelicals vote Republican by a three-to-one margin. But this cohort keeps shrinking in the United States.
In contrast, rising Hispanics, Asians, blacks, single women, well-educated urbanites and secular young people generally share tolerant views and vote Democratic. They’re more welcoming to outsiders like gays, more sympathetic to left-out people. They’re expected to dominate the future.
The Census Bureau projects that, sometime around 2040, traditional European whites will slip below half of America’s population — thus every ethnic group will be a minority. Already, the number of minority babies born in America exceeds white infants. The cornerstone of the GOP base, white males, will slip to minor status in coming decades.
Meanwhile, hidebound religion that fuels the Republican Party is fading relentlessly in America and the West. Secular young urban people who say their religion is “none” are soaring, and they generally hold humane liberal views. They have become the largest single bloc in the base of America’s Democratic Party.
Of course, not all religious people are conservatives. Black Protestants, Jews, Unitarians, high-steeple mainliners like Episcopalians and even many Catholics (especially Hispanics) generally lean left. But they lack the unified identity of multitudinous white evangelicals. As the churchless grow and evangelicals shrink, liberal values seem destined to become locked tighter into America’s mainstream.
The collapse of supernatural religion is a stunning sociological development. After World War II, churchgoing took a nosedive in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and other democratic Western regions. Churchy America seemed an exception, but now it is following the secular stampede. All polls since the 1990s find a rapid decrease in worship. The number who list their faith as “none” or “don’t know” has passed 50 million adults, constantly climbing. Sociologist Ruy Teixeira wrote about the United States:
“In 1944, eighty percent of adults were white Christians. But things have changed a lot since then. Today, only about fifty-two percent of adults are white Christians. By 2024, that figure will be down to forty-five percent. That means that by the election of 2016, the United States will have ceased to be a white Christian nation. Looking even farther down the road, by 2040 white Christians will be only around thirty-five percent of the population and conservative white Christians, who have been such a critical part of the GOP base, only about a third of that — a minority within a minority.”
London’s Guardian reported:
“So-called millennials (Americans born between 1982 and 2000) are far more diverse, educated and tolerant than their predecessors. They’re also the least-religious generation in America’s history — they’re even getting less religious as they age, which is unprecedented — and the majority of them identify Christianity with harsh political conservatism.”
U.S. News & World Report said:
“The fastest-growing religious group in the United States is those with no religious affiliation, and members of that group are leaning dramatically in the Democratic direction…. Three in four of them voted for Barack Obama in the last election…. Secular voters will become an increasingly important component of the Democratic base.”
In late 2015, a conservative group, Americans for Limited Government, warned that Republicans are “dying off” in the United States. It said 62 million Americans voted for George W. Bush for president in 2004, but election totals “have been down ever since.”
“Republicans have proven unable to expand their voting coalition,” the organization lamented. The reason “is simply because there are fewer Republicans who are still alive.”
Generations just after World War II were split about 50–50 in their allegiance to the two major political parties, but those aging generations are dwindling. ALG continued:
“Their replacements in the voting-age population at the younger end of the spectrum have unquestioningly skewed Democratic. Millennials, those born between 1980 and 1996, register 53 percent Democrat or lean-Democrat, compared to 35 percent who are Republican or lean-Republican…. Meaning, quite literally, that the Republican Party is dying off.”
Writing in USA Today, Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker said demographic trends seem to show “groups likely to vote for the GOP in steep decline and Democratic-oriented voters surging.” He said America may experience “a doubling of new racial minorities — Hispanics, Asians and multiracial Americans — coupled with the tepid growth of the nation’s aging white population.” He said left-leaning analysts hope for “a triumphal procession of likely Democrats — young and minority voters — marching boldly along a road to the future lined with the graves of dead Republicans.”
However, Dr. Baker warned that “populations do not equal voters…. The very groups predicted to swell the numbers of Democrats are also those least likely to show up at the polls.”
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Here’s an example of rapid social evolution:
As recently as the 1990s, large segments of Americans supported the death penalty. Back then, nearly 80 percent approved of executing those convicted of committing cruel murders. America’s pro-death ratio was higher than in other modern democracies. Maybe it was a remnant from harsh Puritan founders who hanged Quakers and “witches.” Maybe it was tinged with racism, since few whites are put to death.
Republicans, especially, have always been pro-death, with 87 percent in a 1996 poll wanting executions — while Democrats and independents were less eager.
However, the public mood changed dramatically. Support for executions dropped greatly, according to a 2015 survey by Pew Research Center. It found that 77 percent of Republicans still want state killings, but only 40 percent of Democrats do — and a mere 29 percent of Democrats who call themselves liberal. Meanwhile, 57 percent of independents are pro-death.
Think of that: Republicans are almost twice as eager to put people to death as Democrats are.
Pew found that men want executions more (64 percent) than women (49 percent) — whites back death more (63 percent) than blacks (34 percent) — and Protestants support death more (63 percent) than Catholics (53 percent) and churchless seculars (48 percent).
By a slight margin, America at large still supports death, but the ratio is approaching 50–50.
Actually, executions are disappearing in America. Since 2004, seven more states have dropped the practice, bringing non-killing states to nineteen. Many others simply don’t use the death penalty. Just three states — Texas, Georgia and Missouri — perform most executions. Liberal objections to execution slowly are prevailing.
A 2016 Supreme Court case from Pennsylvania alleged that executions are “cruel and unusual punishment,” which is banned by the Eighth Amendment in the Bill of Rights. This case offered hope that the death penalty could be wiped out forever. However, the high court refused to hear the case.
Putting people to death is a barbaric leftover from brutal medieval times. Almost every advanced society around the globe halted executions — except America. I’m proud that my Democrat-led state of West Virginia abandoned the death penalty a half-century ago. I agree with Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote in a 2008 case:
“When the law punishes by death, it risks its own sudden descent into brutality, transgressing the constitutional commitment to decency and restraint.”
In other words, when society kills people for killing, it sinks to the level of the killers, instead of standing for humane values.
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Here’s another example of liberal advance:
Nearly everyone knows that Fox News — owned by right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch — isn’t a normal news channel, but is a conservative political outlet. Its commentators present a never-ending flow of far-right rhetoric. The network’s claim to be “fair and balanced” is almost a joke.
Some observers predict that Fox slowly will lose its dominance over cable news, because its white viewers are aging and dying, while rising young multicultural Americans hold more tolerant, liberal beliefs. Frank Rich wrote in a New York magazine analysis: “Fox News is a right-wing propaganda machine and at times a racist enterprise.”
He acknowledged that Fox is a giant of cable broadcasting — as large as CNN and MSNBC combined — but he stressed that cable news is a small fringe of America. Only about 1 million people watch Fox daily. “More people own ferrets than watch Fox News,” columnist David Brooks commented.
Fox’s viewer group is “more than happy to be cocooned in an echo chamber where its own hopes and fears will be reinforced by other older white ‘people like us.’’’ Rich wrote. “Fox is in essence a retirement community.” He continued:
“The network’s chauvinistic Christianity… is hardly an inducement to a younger America that is eschewing religious affiliation in numbers larger than any in the history of Pew polling. Fox News’s unreconstructed knee-jerk homophobia, most recently dramatized by its almost unanimous defense of the Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson’s likening of gay sex to bestiality, drives away viewers of all ages, but especially the young.”
Younger Americans tend to ignore cable news and get most of their information on the Internet.
Rich said the hard-core right will lose steam “once its unifying bete noire [black beast], literal and figurative, Obama, is gone from the White House.”
TV host Jerry Springer commented that Rich is correct because “liberals always win.” He said it’s “the way that humanity progresses…. Ultimately, the conservatives will lose.”
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One topic that seems to defy liberal reform is the worsening gulf between the ultra-rich and everyone else.
In early 2016, Oxfam International, a worldwide federation of seventeen poverty-fighting agencies, released a report that boggles the mind: A mere sixty-two billionaires now own as much wealth as 3.5 billion people in the bottom half of the world’s population. It was a stunning illustration of inequality.
Just five years earlier, it took 388 billionaires to equal the assets of the lower 3.5 billion, but that number was cut by five-sixths. Concentration of riches at the extreme top snowballed rapidly.
Political scientist Jeffrey Winters of Northwestern University said “unprecedented levels of stratification” have reached the highest peak “in all of human history.” Regarding the intertwined global economy, he said: “No other system has concentrated wealth as much as this system has.”
Part of the widening gulf between the super-rich and the rest is caused by offshore tax havens that let fat cats hide their money from tax collectors. Raymond Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, commented:
“Tax havens are at the core of a global system that allows large corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share, depriving governments, rich and poor, of resources they need to provide vital public services and tackle rising inequality.”
Giant banks and crafty tax lawyers help the elite conceal their assets, Oxfam said.
Meanwhile, a Dutch research group said the ultra-rich are divided into two groups: self-oriented and social-oriented. The latter segment includes billionaires like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson and others who use their wealth to help humanity. In contrast, the self-oriented mostly hoard for their own families.
Professor Winters said billionaires use their political power to gain government policies that further enrich themselves. He concludes that Americans should “adopt policies that make it harder for the ultra-wealthy to shape our government and our society.”
Curbing the terrible gap between the privileged and the public may become one of the next major battlefronts between liberals and conservatives.
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Generally, demographic forecasts paint a rosy future for liberalism — but there’s the glitch noted by professor Baker: Secular young independents often ignore politics and don’t vote. Maybe they’re disgusted by shallow pandering and crudity in campaigns. However, their growing number raises hope that America’s public policies will shift. It would be absurd if America becomes a nation with a liberal majority ruled by conservative politicians who win elections.
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On rare occasions, there are exceptions to the pattern of liberals trying to expand the public safety net and conservatives trying to curtail it. One happened in 2003 when Republican President George W. Bush added prescription coverage to Medicare for seniors.
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Liberalism is driven by a spirit of shared humanity. Virachand Gandhi, an Indian reformer in the 1800s, summed up: “To the liberal-minded, the whole world is a family.”
The struggle between right and left is never-ending, erupting in many forms. It has flared and flailed erratically ever since The Enlightenment. Presumably, it will continue forever as issues and disputes evolve.
Phases of the battle may be long and painful, but it’s heartening that liberals generally win in the end. Civilization keeps advancing progressively toward compassion and tolerance.
Conservatives mocked their opponents so intensely that “liberal” became a term of scorn in much of America. But quietly, almost glacially, progressive values prevail, because they fit the sense of fairness and decency within the human soul.
As comedienne Janeane Garofalo said: “We can no longer tolerate anti-intellectualism. We can no longer tolerate liberal-bashing, and we can no longer tolerate the politics of the dumb and the mean.”
The left is right. Liberals always win.
(Haught is editor emeritus of West Virginia’s largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, and a senior editor of Free Inquiry magazine. He has written 12 books and 150 magazine essays. This is a chapter from his 2016 book, Hurrah for Liberals.)
