Donald Trump May Be Causing The Long-Awaited American Political Realignment
2018 and 2020 may be the end of the Nixon-Reagan Era
Progressives, rejoice! For Gallup has finally given you what you seek — hard data that proves Donald Trump is gutting the Republican Party.
The latest polls indicate an electoral opportunity for Democrats, and a disaster for the national GOP, as critical states in the South have seen plummeting support for President Trump. Most important are the slides in Texas, Arizona, and Georgia, all of whom have been deep red since the 1990s or before.
Are we witnessing a long-awaited, much hyped American political realignment? There’s a considerable amount of evidence that the answer is yes.
Political realignments are the inevitable and natural transformations of governing systems. Much as the seasons clear away the underbrush and give way for new periods of growth, political realignments overturn stale ideologies and outdated governing theories to usher in frenzied periods of activity.
Only in the culling harshness of winter can seedlings be given space to grow, preventing forests and grasslands from choking themselves to death on endless summer.
If we think of politics as a means to respond to the needs of society, we must also accept that needs, over time, change as economies develop, technologies reorder behavior, and geopolitical threats recede and emerge. Realignments are ways that governing systems modernize themselves to confront the challenges of the era.
Political scientist James Sundquist charts much of this in his book Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties.
“But as time passes, the leaders who exploit old issues seem increasingly anachronistic. Once the critical issue [of the day] has been resolved, people weary of conflict yearn for political peace. New issues demand attention. A new generation that has not lived through the realignment period does not respond to the old slogans and symbols,” writes Sundquist.
Chinese thinkers have long understood this phenomenon. Dynastic cycles trace the patterns of Chinese government, as great leaders come along to overthrow poor ones. As they pass power down, their own line weakens, succumbing to a new dynasty in due time.
In America’s political history, realignments emerge in response to shifting geopolitical and cultural challenges. Good ideas grow stale and become bad; old political leaders find themselves on the wrong side of history, and they are peacefully overthrown by the ballot box.
Since the 1970s and 80s, American political culture has increasingly been dominated by the split values of the Baby Boomers. In alliance with sympathetic Generation Xers, these Boomers constructed the Nixon-Reagan consensus of ever-lower taxes, an ever-smaller state, and ever hotter culture wars, fought and refought over the same issues, which generally favored social conservatism.
It’s not that there weren’t dissenters; they just couldn’t get over that governing threshold to stop the Nixon-Reagan consensus.
Looking at Pew’s 2014 typology survey, you can see the clear split: the “partisan” voter groups of Business and Steadfast Conservatives is 28% to the Solid Liberals of 15% in the 50–64 age group (Boomers), giving the GOP a big base advantage over Democrats and forcing Democrats to race for the less predictable middle groups in the other typologies.
That lead vanishes the younger you get: from a mere 18% to 14% in the 30–49 age group (the Gen-Xer and older Millennial cohort) to a liberal advantage with 10% to 16% with the 18–29 Millennials. In other words, the younger you go, the smaller the GOP base becomes.
Combine that with surveys that show that Trump’s approval ratings are in the dumps with the same Millennial age group: not even cracking 30% with the 18–29 group, and suffering badly in the 30–49 group as well. Only amongst the 50+ does he get over 40%, being strongest with the graying 65+.
Yet the slide across all age groups is telling. Not only is there a soon-to-be-domineering cohort of Millennials who despise Trump and have a very, very weak base for the current GOP, but aging voters in those middle ground typologies are also slipping away from him.
It seems that Trump cobbled together a bare-bones coalition in 2016 from the following typologies: the reliable Business and Steadfast Conservatives, who would have voted for Satan himself if he had an (R) behind his name, many Young Outsiders, who would have seen appeal in his non-political background and his stance on limited government, many Hard-Pressed Skeptics, who would have seen appeal in his America First, jobs first rhetoric, and the Faith and Family Left, who might have been motivated by his opportunity to appoint a Pro-Life Supreme Court justice.
Combined with the age 50+ advantage in base supporters and key wins in the other three typologies amongst the Boomers and Gen Xers, that was enough to push him over the line. Yet this latest poll is proof that key pillars of that win are falling away. So where is his collapse likely happening?
Almost assuredly, he’s losing the Faith and Family Left. He has appointed a Supreme Court justice, but his decidedly anti-Christian public conduct cannot have gone down well among them. Trump’s lack of religiosity is surely a big reason why religious states like Texas and Georgia are seeing a slide in numbers.
The Hard-Pressed Skeptics might be willing to give him more time or to write off his failures as the work of a “deep state” they feel has been hammering them their whole lives. Yet there is only so much defense they can afford him as he fires advisor after advisor and has no major legislative wins. If Trump cannot produce change and jobs, he will lose this faction rapidly.
Finally, the Young Outsiders are seeing little of value from Trump. Trump might have promised limited government, but if he cannot win a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, his promises will become the cliche of the politician. That would cause Young Outsiders to dart from the GOP tent, choosing perhaps to sideline themselves during the next election.
Yet the collapse of Trump’s support in the short term pales in comparison with the doomsday of the near future.
Each year after 2015, Millennials will become an ever-larger share of the population. While some might argue that Millennials will become more conservative as they age, that isn’t true. With their formative political years behind them, Millennials will begin to impose their worldview, not change it. By the 2020 election, they will both increase their share of voters (as older voters do tend to vote more often) while also increasingly their absolute numbers. Their Solid Liberal typologies will become a larger share of the electorate than the Republicans’ Steadfast Conservatives and Business Conservatives.
All of this projects doomsday for 2020 and beyond for the GOP. The GOP base as led by Trump will only shrink, while his inability to govern will shed voters from the other borderline typologies that gambled on him in 2016. Meanwhile, the Democrats own base will stay steady, and when combined with the New Generation Left, will almost assuredly move the party leftward.
This perfect storm (to use a 2002 cliche) is almost certainly a harbinger of a realignment. The Nixon-Reagan base that has anchored economic and social policies for decades will crumble away, replaced by something else. What will that something else be? That is for another article.
