Every few hundred millennia or so, the Earth’s magnetic poles switch. Changes in the planet’s molten iron core cause its magnetic fields to weaken, allowing magnetic north to begin moving away from the geographic north pole. Eventually a tipping point is reached, magnetic north moves to the south pole, and vice a versa. NASA estimates that it has happened about 183 times in the last 83 million years. Is something similar happening to our political polarization? Is the magnetic attraction of the Democrat party weakening – setting the stage for a major voter realignment?
According to Adam Carlson, a data scientist for the Brunswick Group, the Democrat/Republican axis is wobbling. As he states:
8 months out from the election, polls are still suggesting 2024 will be the largest racial realignment since the Civil Rights Act was passed.
According to his aggregated data, women, blacks, Hispanics, young voters, lower income voters, and urbanites are moving right (politically). The range of movement varies from 11 percent for lower income voters, to a seismic 28 percent for black voters.
The political magnetic fields are drifting, but nobody knows where the tipping point is. When a major realignment happens, will it be fleeting, or will it last more than one election cycle? Perhaps the last major realignment that occurred in minority community voting patterns will provide some indication.
Post Civil War black voters naturally gravitated to the Republican party – the party led by their emancipator. However, after Abraham Lincoln’s death, the Republican party became largely indifferent to the living conditions of the freed slaves and their immediate descendants. But political loyalty is stubborn. They largely remained in the Republican camp for the next 71 years.
By the 1930s, three generations of blacks had been born after the Civil War, with little appreciable improvement in their aggregate living standard. Then their lives were further decimated by the dust bowl drought and the Great Depression. Their attraction to the Republican party weakened and the political axis began to wobble.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt arrived on the scene with a wife who was a visible supporter of the black community, and the promise of a New Deal for all. Many argue that the changes FDR made had little substantive impact on the black community. What was good on paper, didn’t do much in practice. But as Daphney Daniel of Salve Regina University argues in her paper “How Blacks Became Blue,” FDR recognized the black community as a voter outreach opportunity, and set out to win them over. He made a show of visibly supporting them.
FDR placed blacks in prominent positions in government. He and his wife appeared frequently with blacks in public, and invited them to the White House. Roosevelt rolled out the Democrat party welcome mat for black voters. It was a public relations success. Even though his policies had not significantly improved their living conditions, FDR won 76 percent of black vote in 1936. He had benefited from the tipping point created by the crises of the 1930s. Black voter attraction to Republicans had weakened, slowly at first, and then quickly as the political poles switched in one election cycle. Black voters became largely loyal to the Democrats for decades to come.
Are we due for another political realignment? Three generations of minority voters have been born since President Lyndon Johnson launched his Great Society initiative and signed the Civil Rights acts of 1964 (nondiscrimination in public places and employment) and 1968 (nondiscrimination in housing). But after six decades of post-Johnson promises from the Democrat party, poverty is about the same as it was, racial polarization is on the rise, and the inner cities are becoming unlivable. Has the Democrat party become as indifferent to the concerns of minority voters, as the Republican party of the 1930s was to black voters?
Carlson’s data indicates that minority voter attraction to the Democrats is weakening. Has their disillusionment with the Democrat party reached a tipping point?
The double crisis of the 1930s provided the final nudge for minority voters during FDR’s reelection. Now America is approaching another double crisis. Economic collapse is becoming inevitable – due to runaway government spending and stifled market freedom. Social collapse is also approaching – due to open borders, advancing crime, and ideological conflict. Just as in the 1930s, minority communities will be the hardest hit – and they know it. Are they becoming disillusioned, and considering their options?
Ruy Teixeira (coauthor of The Emerging Democrat Majority with John Judis) is a smart guy. He provides political advice based on the analysis of good data. I pay attention to what he says, and ignore that he’s giving the advice to the Democrat party. For the last couple of years, he’s been saying that the Democrats are losing minority voters (just as Carlson is saying) and that they need to change strategies to get them back. He recommends a strategy of social moderation, abundance, and patriotism.
Teixeira believes that the social extremes staked out by the party on abortion, immigration, criminal justice, and LGBTQ+ issues; is not a winning strategy in the long term. Yet the party of abortion up to the minute of birth, open borders, defunding the police, and men in women’s locker rooms is showing no interest in moderation.
He also notes that people want stuff (i.e., abundance). People want to be prosperous. But the government doesn’t provide stuff – private industry does. Yet the Democrats have become the party of government growth – at the expense of business expansion and consumer buying power.
Teixeira also says that the Democrats have a “patriotism problem.” People want to be proud of being Americans. Apparently, it escapes the party of the 1619 Project that voters prefer pride over shame.
Are the Democrats likely to take his advice, drop the radicals, back capitalism, and stop apologizing to the world? That’s a rhetorical question. We know the answer.
While the Democrats are embracing policies which weaken their attraction to voters, the Republicans are doing the opposite.
Republicans have become the party of social moderation – law and order; legal and orderly immigration; and returning decisions to the states.
Donald Trump made the Republicans the party of abundance – bringing industry back to America; making the United States energy independent; slashing burdensome government regulations; and lowering taxes.
Finally, Republicans don’t display Palestinian flags outside their offices and they don’t pledge to “fundamentally transform America.” Instead, they embrace American flags and pledge to “make America great again.” Which is more likely to give voters pride in their country?
Voter attraction to Democrat magnetic north is weakening, while the attraction to Republicans is increasing. The only question that remains is: Where is the tipping point?
If Carlson and Teixeira are correct, a major realignment seems inevitable in the not-too-distant future. Will 2024 be the year in which a slow rightward drift of minority groups turns into a flip? If it is, will the Democrats take Tiexiera’s advice to adjust and regroup? Or will they spend a few decades whining about their messaging problem?
Author Bio: John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He spent his career designing complex defense systems, developing high performance organizations, and doing corporate strategic planning. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.
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