Hyperpartisanship IV: Can either party take control?
Clinton-era triangulation out of favor with today's Democrats; GOP on the hunt for an answer
At the end of the last post, we asked:
Does either party show tendencies of breaking out of the current rut in order to grab a clear advantage in federal elections? And what would that take?
That current rut leaves the parties in tight competition for power both in Congress and for the presidency.
CLOSE ELECTIONS TODAY, BUT NOT IN TIMES PAST!
As noted in previous posts, recent presidential elections often result in neither party receiving 50% of the vote — we’ve had only four 50%+ elections since 1992, and two of those were exceedingly close. Before that, from 1920 all the way up through 1988, most elections could be deemed “landslides” (13 of 18), and only three were won by a candidate receiving fewer than half the votes. Republican candidates won eight landslide elections, Democrats five.
Unlike our current era, voters in pre-1990 America seemed willing to swing from one party to the other. The party coalitions had the potential to take in voters with a much wider range of views. At the very least, most voters didn’t demonize the other side to the extent that they’d never consider switching allegiance.
THE PARTY COALITIONS PRE-1990
The party system in those days was an artifact of the Civil War, with Republicans spanning from business conservatives to nativists to progressive reformers whose 19th century roots were in abolition and civil rights. Democrats encompassed the segregationist South (through much of the period), intellectuals, and Labor liberals.
Today the parties are more ideologically uniform, with Democrats liberal on social and economic issues and Republicans taking more conservative stands. Result: a more stable alignment.
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE POLICY DIFFERENCES TODAY
A Pew study from earlier this year showed Democrats and Democratic leaners with a miniscule 49-48% advantage over the Republicans and Republican leaners, basically what recent election results show. But other studies have shown that the majority of voters do not have ideologically rigid views, and in fact there is overlap in the two parties’ coalitions on some economic and cultural issues.
A key dynamic of hyperpartisanship explains this. The most committed and active voters in each party’s coalition are the most ideological, which comprise approximately 23% of the GOP base and about 12% on the D side. This segment of voters drives the action in primaries, working especially effectively on the Republican side to enforce loyalty and ideological purity. And on both sides they are the most vocal — studies show that voters with moderate views are less likely to post on social media about politics than the more ideological.
IS THERE A WAY OUT?
While we concluded in the last post that Republicans benefit more than Democrats from electoral stasis, wouldn’t both parties prefer to consolidate a stable majority? Wouldn’t it be better not to have to battle tooth and nail each cycle to gain at least a foothold on power? Certainly Democrats should want that since the current alignment works against them.
It turns out that the two parties have different things going on internally, with Republicans experiencing more churn and policy entrepreneurship.
The Trump movement represents exactly that; it was an intra-party effort to replace the existing consensus. Trump ran fully against the internationalist establishment on foreign policy (including trade), and took a decidedly different tack than the Bush-Romney-Ryan Republicans on social welfare by effectively proclaiming the major entitlements sacrosanct.
Having said that, the establishment deregulatory and tax-cutting positions have held, keeping the economic conservatives largely on board, while the foreign policy position remains in flux with House Republicans split about evenly and the Senate GOP still siding with the internationalists.
Democrats have experienced relatively little churn. All elements of the coalition remain liberal on economic and cultural issues, the differences mainly being in degree and intensity rather than in kind. There are substantial dissident elements on the foreign policy front, but the established position holds sway.
POLICY ENTREPRENEURS
Other than Trump himself, numerous high profile Republicans — notably senators J.D. Vance and Josh Hawley — are intent on exploring the potential of populist economics and “come home America” foreign policy, together with conservative cultural stances, in driving a wedge in certain Democratic constituencies, even core groups like African-Americans and Latinos.
Democrats, on the other hand, seem strangely listless. Recent anti-establishment movements, like the Bernie Sanders campaigns and the younger Ocasio-Cortez-led Squad in the House, while popular are really just efforts to generate movement within the broader Democratic coalition — and possibly non-voters — instead of coming up with ways to attract Republican-leaners. The best theory put forth seems to be that ginning up turnout among young voters is what will enable Democrats to have a shot at that stable majority.
Clinton-era triangulation, which was a concerted strategy to establish middle ground positions on controversial issues, seems out of the question in the contemporary Democratic party. A Biden executive order to close the border to asylum seekers when crossings reach a certain threshold smacks more of opportunism or desperation than part of a larger strategy.
A FINAL IRONY
The party with more to lose in the current electoral climate is more complacent when it comes to doing something about it. Democrats show little or no signs of creative approaches to exploiting the evident weaknesses of a Republican party in thrall to a strongman leader with mind-boggling legal challenges. Republicans look more like the party of policy entrepreneurship, with leading figures trying to achieve a new synthesis to break the current deadlock.