Business Insider (Opinion)
By Josh Barro
March 31, 2016
The
Republican Party can be understood, broadly, as a coalition of people
who dislike food stamps because they think the government is too big and
discourages people from working, plus people
who dislike food stamps because they think black people get them.
For
years, Republicans have bristled at these sorts of descriptions,
especially because Democrats tend to leave out the first part, painting
the party as purely racist. But this election
has forced Republicans to confront reality: A healthy chunk of
Republican voters don't have a broad objection to big government, but an
objection to big government for the wrong people.
So, what can nonracist Republicans do about this? It's a hard question.
It's
no coincidence that the two pillars of the Donald Trump coalition are
Southern whites and Northern white ethnics. These groups were loyal to
the Democratic Party through the massive
expansion of the federal government under the New Deal.
Political-science
research shows "ethnocentric white voters" tend to look negatively at
government programs for the poor, but they are disproportionately likely
to favor programs aimed at
the elderly. Relatedly, a lot of white voters were happy to vote
Democratic when they saw big government as serving the interests of
their own ethnic group but shifted to the Republicans when they started
to see government as working to help mostly others.
Trump
correctly realized he could win this kind of white Republican voter by
becoming a demented version of Richard Nixon, turning the dial up on
ethnocentric appeals ("they're rapists,"
"Islam hates us") and turning the dial down on the government-slashing
(no Social Security cuts because he'll "make us so rich").
This
has horrified a great many non-Trump Republicans, many of whom are
ideologically committed to small government or Christian morality and
are sincerely (if naïvely) surprised by the power
of white identity politics within their party. Some of them even say
they do not want Trump's voters in their coalition.
But what is the alternative? Without the Trump voter, there is not a majority coalition for an antigovernment policy agenda.
Trump
is not the first Republican to understand the conditionality of many
Republican voters' opposition to big government. Look at this ad from
2010, which the National Republican Congressional
Committee ran in an effort to defeat then-Rep. Mark Schauer, a
Democrat. What was wrong with Schauer? Why, he voted to cut $500 billion
from Medicare. "Let's save Medicare and cut Schauer," the Republican ad
urged. Voters did.
Of
course, the Medicare cuts were part of the Affordable Care Act, a law
that expanded government spending and healthcare coverage overall. Some
Republicans hated this because it meant a
bigger government. Others hated it because it meant less government for
elderly white people and more government for low-income working age
people. All across the country, the NRCC ran with the second message and
won — but it wasn't a truly antigovernment
message.
If
the GOP sheds the "government out of my Medicare" vote and the
"Mexicans out of my country" vote — heavily overlapping and
Trump-favoring demographics — it will have to find an alternative
way to expand the coalition. But that will be hard because, ironically,
in many cases what nonwhite voters and ethnocentric white voters want
on economic policy is similar.
Medicare
cuts are not any more popular with nonwhites than they are with Trump
voters. The Trumpkins are not a natural fit for conservative economic
ideology, but there is not an available
demographic out there that is a better fit.
Republicans
may not like being in bed with Donald Trump. But they will need to
retain his fans' favor unless they want to either drastically change
their policy agenda or lose elections by
landslides. So watch for them to find ways to accommodate his
supporters, even if he manages to lose the nomination.
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