This is an analysis of the current state of the American electorate today, initially written in response to an inquiry elsewhere, in light of Donald Trump’s recent declaration of war on the Republican Party.

Best I can see, there seem to be four main constituencies in the electorate right now.

First, we have the evangelicals. This group supports the establishment of a theocracy that will enforce explicitly Christian moral values. This group strongly opposes legalized abortion under any circumstance, and supports the criminalization of homosexuality. This group largely does not care much about economic issues, and is generally equivocal on issue of race, gender equality, immigration, foreign affairs (although they support going to war to defend Christians, and to keep Israel in Jewish hands because Jewish control of Jerusalem is essential to the Second Coming of Christ). Generally, this group favors a strong, intrusive state that aggressively enforces their preferred moral values. Positions on capital punishment vary. Most of them are vaguely pro-environment, but don’t think much about environmental issues when voting unless the issue is in their own backyards. Virtually all of them are psychological conservatives. Most of them are presently Republicans; a handful are conservative Democrats or members of conservative third parties (e.g. Evan McMullin).

The second group is the nativists. This group wants to reinstate the white male patriarchy of the 1950s and before. They generally don’t care much about abortion or other religious issues, other than capital punishment, which they overwhelmingly support. They want a state that has almost unlimited power to keep “undesirables” under control, but which gives a great deal of freedom to “desirables”. This group generally wants low taxes, but high import tariffs, wants a powerful military, mainly for posturing value (and because it makes them feel powerful), wants homosexuality criminalized, wants men but not women to be able to divorce at will (and without having to pay child support or alimony). They are brutally racist and want immigration sharply curtailed, with only proper Northern European whites to be allowed in, along with some Asians but only if they can prove that they’re really smart and will work hard without expecting the first-class treatment reserved to whites. This group is not religious; while most are nominally Christian, most are not particularly observant of Christian doctrine and are not significantly motivated by religious belief. Most are opposed to environmental regulation. Virtually all of them are psychological conservatives. Virtually all of them are presently Republicans. This is Donald Trump’s party.

The third group is the capitalists. This group wants barriers to global trade minimized and wants taxes structured to their particular advantage, which specifically means tax structures that disproportionately tax labor more than capital, and consumption rather than income or wealth. They want government regulation of business only when it benefits them, and generally seeks to capture regulators so that regulations are used increase the front-end marginal cost of starting a business, without significantly increasing the cost of maintaining an ongoing business, often by mandating that all businesses do things that a large business would do as a matter of course, but which a small business might reasonably choose to forgo. This group opposes laws that force businesses to do things that will annoy consumers, and is therefore fairly responsible to, and reflective of, public social mores. Attitudes toward the environment are mixed in this group. This group does not tend to advance any religious interests. Generally, this group wants a small military, but wants it used frequently to quell world unrest whenever that unrest interferes with its global trade agenda. At the moment, there are slightly more Democrats than Republicans in this group, but it’s a mix. Hillary Clinton is largely representative of this group (although she is arguably more hawkish than typical for this group). The main thing that keeps this group from being more cohesive is its split on abortion rights.

The fourth group is the social democrats. This group wants laws that favor worker interests and consumer interests over those of business. Generally, this group wants higher taxes on the rich. It wants universal benefits: health care, college education, and general subsistence. This group cares strongly about environmental concerns and has the strongest interest of all groups toward what is generally known as “social justice”. This group is adamantly in favor of equality on every conceivable basis: sex, gender, religion, race, color, hair color, handedness, disability, sexual identity, whatever. A majority of this group is religious, but there is no majority religion, and tolerance of other religions is paramount over any single religious group. Generally, this group favors a liberal immigration policy, but opposes “guest worker” policies as exploitative. This group is adverse to what it calls “corporate America” and is willing to aggressively interfere in the operation of businesses that it sees as harmful to the interests of the American people. This group’s champions are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Most of them are Democrats; some of them are Greens or other so-called “liberal” third parties.

Each of these parties represents somewhat less than a quarter of the electorate. No two of them together is enough to achieve a majority, but any two together will come close to a majority. The remainder (around 10%) is comprised of a handful of ideologically extreme groups, the largest of which is the Libertarians.

Now, you find a coalition between these groups that amounts to a majority. I can’t. The only two that are are at all compatible with one another are the first two, and they’re obviously not getting along with one another right now. The only reason the third and fourth groups are getting along at all now is the threat of a Donald Trump presidency.

The current situation isn’t politically stable. Something is going to have to give, but I don’t see what. My guess is that we’re going to have political tempestuousness for a while, possibly as long as a generation, until popular attitudes on divisional issues change enough that a stable coalition of two of these factions (or perhaps fractions thereof) can emerge and form a majority.