Even if Donald Trump is defeated in November, the Republican Party is likely to continue on his path for a while. The reason why goes into the history of the parties, and how the Civil Rights Act remade them.
Before the Civil Rights Act, Republicans were the educated wealthy party, and Democrats were the FDR coalition of Northern labor folks (often ethnic minorities) and poor white Southerners. Gruesome vote suppression made black Southerners a political nonentity.
Angered by a Democratic President ending segregation, white Southerners left and became the core of today's Republican Party. The northern labor folks plus newly enfranchised black voters became the core of today's Democratic Party. The old Republicans chose between the new parties depending on whether their values were more shaped by education or wealth. These changes took decades to play out, but they accumulated steadily over 55 years.
The Republican Party came to represent wealth and white Christianity, and then with the decline of religiosity, wealth and white nationalism. The wealth of white America means that these forces often come together in the same people.
The Democratic Party represents the interests threatened by the wealthy and by white nationalism. Of course, wealthy and white interests are strong in the Democratic Party too, as they're powerful interests. But this difference between the parties is significant, and it explains why the Democratic Party contains the groups it does.
It explains why labor and environmentalist groups are Democratic despite their very different interests. They're both threatened by concentrated corporate wealth. It also explains why black and Jewish voters are both heavily Democratic despite many demographic differences. They both feel the threat of white nationalism.
It also makes the current party system more stable than the old one. The North-South Democratic alliance was always unsteady, especially as it required depriving a whole race of the right to vote. The parties of today have much more coherence as interest-group coalitions. It's hard to see how they'll change.
This polarization of the parties began before me. It's been going on all my life. And I don't see how it'll stop, now that the parties are more stable coalitions than we had before. What the Republican Party has been becoming for decades, as a combination of wealthy and white nationalist interests, expresses itself clearly in Trump. You could say he was its destiny.
Before the Civil Rights Act, Republicans were the educated wealthy party, and Democrats were the FDR coalition of Northern labor folks (often ethnic minorities) and poor white Southerners. Gruesome vote suppression made black Southerners a political nonentity.
Angered by a Democratic President ending segregation, white Southerners left and became the core of today's Republican Party. The northern labor folks plus newly enfranchised black voters became the core of today's Democratic Party. The old Republicans chose between the new parties depending on whether their values were more shaped by education or wealth. These changes took decades to play out, but they accumulated steadily over 55 years.
The Republican Party came to represent wealth and white Christianity, and then with the decline of religiosity, wealth and white nationalism. The wealth of white America means that these forces often come together in the same people.
The Democratic Party represents the interests threatened by the wealthy and by white nationalism. Of course, wealthy and white interests are strong in the Democratic Party too, as they're powerful interests. But this difference between the parties is significant, and it explains why the Democratic Party contains the groups it does.
It explains why labor and environmentalist groups are Democratic despite their very different interests. They're both threatened by concentrated corporate wealth. It also explains why black and Jewish voters are both heavily Democratic despite many demographic differences. They both feel the threat of white nationalism.
It also makes the current party system more stable than the old one. The North-South Democratic alliance was always unsteady, especially as it required depriving a whole race of the right to vote. The parties of today have much more coherence as interest-group coalitions. It's hard to see how they'll change.
This polarization of the parties began before me. It's been going on all my life. And I don't see how it'll stop, now that the parties are more stable coalitions than we had before. What the Republican Party has been becoming for decades, as a combination of wealthy and white nationalist interests, expresses itself clearly in Trump. You could say he was its destiny.
