The Politics of American Government: Republicans and Democrats
Most of us know that America has a two party governmental system made up of Republicans and Democrats. Yea, we tend to vote for one party or the other or both, but what many of us don't know is the history behind who the Democrats and Republicans are, and the changes they may or may not have gone through over the decades and centuries.
Whether Republicans, or Democrats, they're the two parties that America has consistently known since around the time of our very foundations to the present. For a number of decades, Democrats have strived to establish themselves as the party of the working class and commoner, while the Republicans have been the party of the Elitist. Though these respective party affiliations and representations span over centuries, the electorate that constitutes each party has shifted and changed somewhat over the course of time. Republicans weren't always an almost exclusive party consists whites, while blacks didn't always vote Democratic in large numbers. There was a turning point in history known as the New Deal whereas the groups that historically voted Republican and historically voted Democratic took a major shift as to being closer to what they're in the present. Throughout the course of time in America's history to the present, there has never been an unwavering constant political party favorite.
Approximately two centuries ago, no party was successful in being seen as "America's party" or leading over the other party at the polls. The parties were essentially deadlocked, especially at times of voting. A lot of it had to do with the politics of culture and major issues which kept the country divided (1).
What's also to be taken into consideration is that the Constitution had and has no provisions for political parties, as is evident in how the president is selected vie the means of the Electoral College, and the Senate, at that time, by state legislatures (2).
There were then, like there are now, individualists who feel that the government is involved too much in their personal lives and day-to-day activities. But at the same time utilize the power of the government for their own personal use in advancing community goals, which would put limitations on what some individuals would be capable of doing (1).
While on the flip side of it are individualists who feel that we're the best and most admired country in the world and we should take care of our own matters, while on the other spectrum, they're individuals who find contentment in America's pluralism, diversity and openness to the world and global involvement (1).
Yesterday's Democrats
The hacks and heroes of the Democrat party of the nineteenth century that were preceded by the Jeffersonian Republicans would come to adopt the Jeffersonian Republicans beliefs. The Democrats of that era wanted to stop the government's overreaching. They felt that the government was corrupt by nature and bound to succumb to the will of the rich and powerful (1). These Democrats opposed high tariffs and protected manufacture. They considered to themselves to be a kind of "special guardian" over the principles of the constitution. They didn't want bigger government. They sought to center their beliefs around the "everyday common man, who were not inclusive of slaves or Native Americans. (1)." The pre-Civil War Democrats stance of slavery would later have much to do with their long regime at the political top coming to an end (1).
The Republicans of Yesteryear
As the Democratic Party floundered and fell, the Republican Party rose up as "America's party, by winning the majority of elections between the years 1860 to 1928. These Republicans' platform was about modernization, unification as well as having a nationalist vision for the nation, all of which started out ideologically as the parties battled through the economic transformations of the later part of the nineteenth century and start of the twentieth century (1). Without any apologizes, Republicans associated themselves with business and with the belief that growing industrialization would make the general welfare better. Republicans were very pro-capitalist. Voters knew the Republican platform and Republicans consistently won elections (1).
The New Deal and what It Was
From the 1930s decade through the 1960s decade, our country of America saw many and major changes in politics, government and law. The Great Depression along with the Second World War, Cold war and post-1945 transformation of American material and cultural life were the contributing factors (2). Particularly during the times of the Great Depression and presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administrations, America and the world would see and witness a sweeping change of parties in American politics (2).
With the Great Depression came very hard financial times for Americans. Large numbers of Americans all over the country were losing their jobs and not able to find another one to replace that which was they had. People were facing foreclosures on and losing their homes, becoming homes, living in the streets and in parks and relying on soup lines for food for whole families. Times looked dismal and sad with no relief in sight. Americans knew they had to do something and make a change, in order to see a difference in our lives that would take off the streets and out of shelters, back into our homes and preparing our own meals. We decided to make that change political, literally. The elections of 1932, 1934 and 1936 did just that.
Voters were so disgruntled with Herbert Hoover and his party (the Republicans), and the state that the country was in under his party's presidency and majority rule in Congress, as opposed to his challenger, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that not only did Roosevelt win the 1932 election, but for the first time in an off-year election, in the year 1934, the Democrats (incumbent party) increased its already vast congressional majority (2). The election of 1936 yielded a Congress that was already more than 75 percent Democrat, and gubernatorial candidates won twenty-six of thirty-three elections on the state level (2).
The visceral Republicanism found themselves overwhelmed by having received so many votes from urban, working-class immigrants and ethnic minorities that voted Democratic - for FDR and other Democrats. Of the estimated 95 percent of prospective new voters in larger cities that came out to vote in 1936, 90 percent of them voted for Roosevelt (2). There were not just changes that took place within the Democratic party, but the changes that Roosevelt represented within the Democratic party and government, reflected upon American public life in general (2).
To the masses, FDR was about as close as you can get having an American aristocrat, compared to presidents Jackson and Lincoln (2). He had a way of connecting with the American public as a sensitive leader that could relate to his constituents.
For millions of lower-income Americans, FDR's New Deal opened up previously closed doors to the excluded, while redefining American nationality, and reversing the trends of previous decades. He won over organized labor of which previously had no solid political identity (2). He had an impact on various ethnic groups such as the Catholics and Jews. Irish Catholics always affiliated with the Democratic Party, but felt more included under FDR. Prior to the 1930s, the majority of Jewish voters were aligned with the Republicans or Socialist, but under FDR's New Deal, they became and remain overwhelmingly Democratic (2). Arguably, the biggest political party turnaround came from black voters.
The New Deal, Blacks and Eleanor Roosevelt
Though FDR and the New Deal wasn't particularly encompassing toward blacks and their needs, president FDR's wife Eleanor was attentive to the needs and desires of blacks (2). Due to president Lincoln emancipating blacks at the time of the Civil War, blacks held a robust and durable tie to Lincoln's party, the Republican Party. There were programs under the New Deal that were the first public policies since the time of Reconstruction to have a substantial measurable impact on blacks (2). An impact that helped to facilitate what would be soon to follow politically for not just blacks, but American politics overall.
During the 1928 Democratic convention held in Houston, there were no black delegates, and just a few alternatives that were seated separately and behind a wire mesh fence. Even in the year 1932, when FDR was causing somewhat of a political upset, 80 percent of the city of Chicago's voters who voted, cast ballots for the Republicans (2). Things were changing, though.
Half way through the 1930s decade, an estimated 40 percent of African-Americans were in receipt of some federal aid. And by the latter part of the 1930s, 75 percent of blacks voted Democratic (2). In all of this, an historical transformation had taken place.
Who comprises today's Democratic Electorate
America has come a ways since we declared our independence from the motherland of Britain, some almost two hundred and thirty five years ago. We have an African-American president; a former first lady is Secretary of state, and an African-American holds the top law enforcement position in the country. They didn't arrive at those positions by accident. Many someone's somewhere had to have voted for them to all be in office. So who are those someone's?
There were cross sectional studies, and some longitudinal studies done over the course of an eighteen month span of research that helped to identify who these Democratic voters were leading up to the years 2000 and 2004.The Democratic world centers around rights and government, modern gender roles and secularism, and vulnerability before markets, of which produces a range of loyalists groups that have their respective counterparts on the republican side (1).
The starting point of these Democratic loyalists is the African-American voter. This was quite evident during the Civil Rights era that was instrumental in transforming the Democratic and republican parties, as seen by the large number of blue-collar and Southern whites into the Republican Party, and successive racial minorities into the realm of the Democrats. This put into motion the association of Democrats being seen as the Party that fights discrimination, inequality, and promoted individuals rights, tolerance and diversity (1).
The result is a black community that votes and with a nearly singular voice. While 86 percent of blacks align themselves with the Democrats, only 8 percent of blacks consider themselves Republicans. It is with this fervor that African-American loyalists have voted in high numbers during elections (1).
As a result, African-Americans have regularly come to comprise between 9 to 10 percent of the presidential electorate election after election. And African-Americans are a leading factor in the competitiveness of the Democratic Party (1).
The next loyalist group is the Latinos. They are a growing community that the Democrats look to see how loyal they are to the party, especially considering that their (Hispanics) numbers in this country have now surpassed those of the blacks. The number of Hispanics registering and voting increases as time goes by. In the 2000 presidential election, Latinos made up 7 percent of the electorate, an increase of 2 percent from 1996, and up from 2 percent in the year 1992 (1).
According to Stanley B. Greenberg, Latinos have all of what is needed in a loyalist group. Twenty of the twenty-five Hispanic members of Congress are Democrats; and nine out of every ten of the country's 5,000 Hispanic elected officials are Democrats (1).
As with blacks, apart from civil rights, Latinos have a number of reasons for being closely aligned with Democrats. In addition to it being national and state Democrats who have welcomed Latinos into American party politics, while fighting for civil rights protections, as opposed to the stances that Republicans have taken concerning Hispanics, Hispanics in this country are amongst the most economically disadvantaged. Though comprising 12 percent of the population, there is more than double that amount of Hispanic families in poverty (1).
Hispanics are more likely than 32 percent of whites and 39 percent of blacks to be in favor of big government. But when it comes to other domestic issues such as education, the economy and taxes, Hispanics tend to be less enthusiastic than other Democratic loyalties. With nearly half of Hispanics being Catholic, their conservatism is more reflective of Mexico and Latin America than that of the United States (1).
Well-educated women are another Democratic loyalist group. They are a part of one of the most dramatic changes of the present era. By being Democrats, they confound the politics of the Men of Privilege that many of them are married to. Until recently, there weren't enough of them to survey, but now, they make up 7 percent of the voting electorate, 9 percent when looking at exit polls; and with their thinking they're bringing more educated woman along with them, as well a number of their husband (1).
Next are the Secular Warriors. These Democratic loyalists have roots in the developed Christian world. They are very religious and attend religious services on a regular basis, and own firearms. For many who are blue-collar and from rural America, the ownership of guns is seen as a way of central to preserving their way of life and autonomy, and a right central to that preservation (1).
But it's those Secular Warriors that never go to church and own no firearms that are the true loyalists in the modern Democratic world. They favor legal abortion and gun control as the real and symbolic means in which to safe-guard their way of life against the likes of the Faithful, Country Folk, and F-You Boys. Secular Warriors comprise 15 percent of the electorate, and their views just about parallel those of the Faithful, whose size is just about identical to their own (1).
Another Democratic loyalists group comes is made up of voters from the Cosmopolitan States - metropolitan areas and states. They are made-up of a melding of racial and ethnic diversity and education, and secular independence from traditional institutions, and receptive to technology, being global and more tolerant and open which creates the cosmopolitan culture in which they comprise. They solidly align with the Democrats at 52 percent, as opposed to with the Republicans at 40 percent (1). They are 24 percent of the Democratic electorate, and cast more than 50% of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency (1).
Then there are the Union Made Democratic loyalists. For over a quarter of a century, union members and their families see themselves as being fully Democratic. They see themselves as being as Democratic as their union social democratic parties' counterparts in Europe (1).
Voters in Union families, even those who are white, have almost always accepted a Democratic identity regardless of hard times as well as political fortunes that the Democratic Party goes through. It's these Union members and their families - the white working class America- who is the only section of such that still thinks of itself as part of the Democratic family, despite all the happenings of the sixties. Through three decades starting in the 1950s, 60 percent of white union households identified with the Democrats (1). Over the course of that time, they have made up anywhere from a high of 28 percent of the Democratic electorate to a low of 18 percent over the years (1).
Republicans of Today
Just like with the Democratic Party, there are Republican Party loyalists. These seven groups or blocks of voters are who make the Republican Party who they are. It can be said that the majority of them are Reaganities - children of the time of Reagan, the Reagan Revolution (1). Many of them are voters that have long term allied themselves with the Republican Party, because of the Republican Party's stance on morality, big government, religious faith as well as America's military might, for examples (1).
The Faithful Republicans are white Evangelicals that are at the center of the Republican world. It is their beliefs that give meaning to the Modern Republican Party, and their way of thinking defines what "red America" is. Almost three-quarters of the Faithful align themselves with the Republican Party (1). Faithfuls have a deep bond with the Republican Party that spans decades of cultural war. They are around one in every five Americans, 17 percent, and their faith is what animates the modern-day Republican Party (1).
The next Republican Party loyalist group is the Deep South voters, whereas the Deep South is residence to one of every five voters in the country. These voters are a part of the growing and modernizing South. And a growing number of them, 16 percent, reside in high-growth rural, suburban, and exurban areas. At the time he was in office, former president Texan George W. Bush is now more than any other leader, the face of the Republican Party and the personification of the Deep South's character (1).
The Deep Southern loyalists feel that the Republicans, more-so, than the Democrats are devoted to the military and keeping America strong. It's the white Southerners that represent the mainstream of the loyalists. This mainstream can also be seen on the "cosmopolitan" East and West coasts and among minority voters and suburban women (1).
Country Folk are the next of the Republican Party loyalists. Fifty-three percent of which align themselves with the Republican Party, compared to only 39 percent that say that they're Democrats. These voters' worries lie in seeing to their families and lessons for their children, which are issues that have them in great numbers in the Republican Party, for now. With their worries, however, those tides may turn to the Democratic Party in the future (1).
The Luke of Exurbia is yet another Republican Party loyalist group. They're the fastest-growing rural and suburban counties after the 2000 presidential election and who came to light after the 2002 Republican gains that demographers and strategists have been paying attention to. They are primarily located in the Sun Belt of the South and Southwest, and make up the new "red territory", and may help to decrease the decline in rural America. These areas have mega-churches and outlet shopping malls and the likes, and are approximately 2.3 percent of voters, though small, are an important part of the Republican loyalist world (1).
The F-You Boys are another Republican Party loyalist group. They are white, don't have college degrees, are blue collar married and under fifty years of age, with young families like much of what you see with the politics of today's Republicans. Overwhelmingly they feel that America should stop telling them what to do with and how to live their lives. They make up a mere 6 percent of the Republican Party electorate, but are one of the strongest elements in the Republican Party loyalist camp (1).
The F-You Old Men are another Republican Party loyalist group, comprising 7 percent of the electorate. They have a partner in the F-You Boys, for the F-You Men are white and retired, and over the age of sixty-five, but the two groups share a lot in common with the younger group. The elder of these two groups lived through the times of the 1960s and 1970s that molded the consciousness of white family men of that time (1).
Like their younger counterparts, they feel that the Republicans are the go-to-party when it comes to the military and keeping America robust. They aren't as culturally and conservatively at battle as the F-You Boys are, concerning issues like guns and being anti-government. Though they're no longer found in very large numbers, they were once the heart and soul of America as young married men. But they're still kept on the map with the attention that they get from George W. Bush (1).
Privileged Men are who make it possible for the Republican loyalist bloc to be large enough to compete in these times of parity, because of the support of these white, educated and married men who comprise 13 percent of the electorate. These advantages earn them not only a higher family income than above the norm for the country, but above those of the other loyalists also, with incomes in the $50,000 to $75,000 and $100,000 annual incomes and above. But because of what they have, it also sets them apart from others, including some of the other Republican loyalists, such as the Faithful, Country Folk, and F-You Boys (1).
They take such a liking to the Republicans because of the tax cuts and business propositions that they receive from them. Back in the days of Reagan, only 30 percent of them considered voting for a Democrat, at that time, and when you look at the numbers, they're Republicans, as 61 percent of them align with the Republicans, and only 32 percent with the Democrats. But only 45 percent of these Privileged Men consider themselves "political conservatives" (1).
But what a difference the years can make. Due to President Bush's unpopularity, the Republican Party is getting smaller. In the 2006 midterm elections, Independents leaned more towards and voted Democratic, than Republican. And polls found that fewer Americans were willing to identify themselves as Republicans, and the party has been reduced in size and is appealing more to a more conservative core (3).
Whether you're a member of the party of the president that was instrumental in telling Gorbachev to "tear down those walls", or the current administration that's platform revolves around domestic and world changes, or you're an Independent that leans in one direction or the other, one thing that you can be sure of is that America didn't arrive here yesterday or by accident, and it's through the leadership of our Republican and Democratic administrations that we stand strong and the United States of America. Fifty states, thousands of counties, millions of cities, and over 300 million inhabitants, we're America; the land of sovereignty.
References-
1. Stanley B. Greenberg. The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It.
New York: ST. Martin's Press, 2004.
2. Morton Keller. America's Three Regimes: A New Political History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
3. Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson. The Story Of An Extraordinary Election: The Battle For America 2008. New York: Penguin Group, 2009.
Approximately two centuries ago, no party was successful in being seen as "America's party" or leading over the other party at the polls. The parties were essentially deadlocked, especially at times of voting. A lot of it had to do with the politics of culture and major issues which kept the country divided (1).
What's also to be taken into consideration is that the Constitution had and has no provisions for political parties, as is evident in how the president is selected vie the means of the Electoral College, and the Senate, at that time, by state legislatures (2).
There were then, like there are now, individualists who feel that the government is involved too much in their personal lives and day-to-day activities. But at the same time utilize the power of the government for their own personal use in advancing community goals, which would put limitations on what some individuals would be capable of doing (1).
While on the flip side of it are individualists who feel that we're the best and most admired country in the world and we should take care of our own matters, while on the other spectrum, they're individuals who find contentment in America's pluralism, diversity and openness to the world and global involvement (1).
Yesterday's Democrats
The hacks and heroes of the Democrat party of the nineteenth century that were preceded by the Jeffersonian Republicans would come to adopt the Jeffersonian Republicans beliefs. The Democrats of that era wanted to stop the government's overreaching. They felt that the government was corrupt by nature and bound to succumb to the will of the rich and powerful (1). These Democrats opposed high tariffs and protected manufacture. They considered to themselves to be a kind of "special guardian" over the principles of the constitution. They didn't want bigger government. They sought to center their beliefs around the "everyday common man, who were not inclusive of slaves or Native Americans. (1)." The pre-Civil War Democrats stance of slavery would later have much to do with their long regime at the political top coming to an end (1).
The Republicans of Yesteryear
As the Democratic Party floundered and fell, the Republican Party rose up as "America's party, by winning the majority of elections between the years 1860 to 1928. These Republicans' platform was about modernization, unification as well as having a nationalist vision for the nation, all of which started out ideologically as the parties battled through the economic transformations of the later part of the nineteenth century and start of the twentieth century (1). Without any apologizes, Republicans associated themselves with business and with the belief that growing industrialization would make the general welfare better. Republicans were very pro-capitalist. Voters knew the Republican platform and Republicans consistently won elections (1).
The New Deal and what It Was
From the 1930s decade through the 1960s decade, our country of America saw many and major changes in politics, government and law. The Great Depression along with the Second World War, Cold war and post-1945 transformation of American material and cultural life were the contributing factors (2). Particularly during the times of the Great Depression and presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administrations, America and the world would see and witness a sweeping change of parties in American politics (2).
With the Great Depression came very hard financial times for Americans. Large numbers of Americans all over the country were losing their jobs and not able to find another one to replace that which was they had. People were facing foreclosures on and losing their homes, becoming homes, living in the streets and in parks and relying on soup lines for food for whole families. Times looked dismal and sad with no relief in sight. Americans knew they had to do something and make a change, in order to see a difference in our lives that would take off the streets and out of shelters, back into our homes and preparing our own meals. We decided to make that change political, literally. The elections of 1932, 1934 and 1936 did just that.
Voters were so disgruntled with Herbert Hoover and his party (the Republicans), and the state that the country was in under his party's presidency and majority rule in Congress, as opposed to his challenger, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that not only did Roosevelt win the 1932 election, but for the first time in an off-year election, in the year 1934, the Democrats (incumbent party) increased its already vast congressional majority (2). The election of 1936 yielded a Congress that was already more than 75 percent Democrat, and gubernatorial candidates won twenty-six of thirty-three elections on the state level (2).
The visceral Republicanism found themselves overwhelmed by having received so many votes from urban, working-class immigrants and ethnic minorities that voted Democratic - for FDR and other Democrats. Of the estimated 95 percent of prospective new voters in larger cities that came out to vote in 1936, 90 percent of them voted for Roosevelt (2). There were not just changes that took place within the Democratic party, but the changes that Roosevelt represented within the Democratic party and government, reflected upon American public life in general (2).
To the masses, FDR was about as close as you can get having an American aristocrat, compared to presidents Jackson and Lincoln (2). He had a way of connecting with the American public as a sensitive leader that could relate to his constituents.
For millions of lower-income Americans, FDR's New Deal opened up previously closed doors to the excluded, while redefining American nationality, and reversing the trends of previous decades. He won over organized labor of which previously had no solid political identity (2). He had an impact on various ethnic groups such as the Catholics and Jews. Irish Catholics always affiliated with the Democratic Party, but felt more included under FDR. Prior to the 1930s, the majority of Jewish voters were aligned with the Republicans or Socialist, but under FDR's New Deal, they became and remain overwhelmingly Democratic (2). Arguably, the biggest political party turnaround came from black voters.
The New Deal, Blacks and Eleanor Roosevelt
Though FDR and the New Deal wasn't particularly encompassing toward blacks and their needs, president FDR's wife Eleanor was attentive to the needs and desires of blacks (2). Due to president Lincoln emancipating blacks at the time of the Civil War, blacks held a robust and durable tie to Lincoln's party, the Republican Party. There were programs under the New Deal that were the first public policies since the time of Reconstruction to have a substantial measurable impact on blacks (2). An impact that helped to facilitate what would be soon to follow politically for not just blacks, but American politics overall.
During the 1928 Democratic convention held in Houston, there were no black delegates, and just a few alternatives that were seated separately and behind a wire mesh fence. Even in the year 1932, when FDR was causing somewhat of a political upset, 80 percent of the city of Chicago's voters who voted, cast ballots for the Republicans (2). Things were changing, though.
Half way through the 1930s decade, an estimated 40 percent of African-Americans were in receipt of some federal aid. And by the latter part of the 1930s, 75 percent of blacks voted Democratic (2). In all of this, an historical transformation had taken place.
Who comprises today's Democratic Electorate
America has come a ways since we declared our independence from the motherland of Britain, some almost two hundred and thirty five years ago. We have an African-American president; a former first lady is Secretary of state, and an African-American holds the top law enforcement position in the country. They didn't arrive at those positions by accident. Many someone's somewhere had to have voted for them to all be in office. So who are those someone's?
There were cross sectional studies, and some longitudinal studies done over the course of an eighteen month span of research that helped to identify who these Democratic voters were leading up to the years 2000 and 2004.The Democratic world centers around rights and government, modern gender roles and secularism, and vulnerability before markets, of which produces a range of loyalists groups that have their respective counterparts on the republican side (1).
The starting point of these Democratic loyalists is the African-American voter. This was quite evident during the Civil Rights era that was instrumental in transforming the Democratic and republican parties, as seen by the large number of blue-collar and Southern whites into the Republican Party, and successive racial minorities into the realm of the Democrats. This put into motion the association of Democrats being seen as the Party that fights discrimination, inequality, and promoted individuals rights, tolerance and diversity (1).
The result is a black community that votes and with a nearly singular voice. While 86 percent of blacks align themselves with the Democrats, only 8 percent of blacks consider themselves Republicans. It is with this fervor that African-American loyalists have voted in high numbers during elections (1).
As a result, African-Americans have regularly come to comprise between 9 to 10 percent of the presidential electorate election after election. And African-Americans are a leading factor in the competitiveness of the Democratic Party (1).
The next loyalist group is the Latinos. They are a growing community that the Democrats look to see how loyal they are to the party, especially considering that their (Hispanics) numbers in this country have now surpassed those of the blacks. The number of Hispanics registering and voting increases as time goes by. In the 2000 presidential election, Latinos made up 7 percent of the electorate, an increase of 2 percent from 1996, and up from 2 percent in the year 1992 (1).
According to Stanley B. Greenberg, Latinos have all of what is needed in a loyalist group. Twenty of the twenty-five Hispanic members of Congress are Democrats; and nine out of every ten of the country's 5,000 Hispanic elected officials are Democrats (1).
As with blacks, apart from civil rights, Latinos have a number of reasons for being closely aligned with Democrats. In addition to it being national and state Democrats who have welcomed Latinos into American party politics, while fighting for civil rights protections, as opposed to the stances that Republicans have taken concerning Hispanics, Hispanics in this country are amongst the most economically disadvantaged. Though comprising 12 percent of the population, there is more than double that amount of Hispanic families in poverty (1).
Hispanics are more likely than 32 percent of whites and 39 percent of blacks to be in favor of big government. But when it comes to other domestic issues such as education, the economy and taxes, Hispanics tend to be less enthusiastic than other Democratic loyalties. With nearly half of Hispanics being Catholic, their conservatism is more reflective of Mexico and Latin America than that of the United States (1).
Well-educated women are another Democratic loyalist group. They are a part of one of the most dramatic changes of the present era. By being Democrats, they confound the politics of the Men of Privilege that many of them are married to. Until recently, there weren't enough of them to survey, but now, they make up 7 percent of the voting electorate, 9 percent when looking at exit polls; and with their thinking they're bringing more educated woman along with them, as well a number of their husband (1).
Next are the Secular Warriors. These Democratic loyalists have roots in the developed Christian world. They are very religious and attend religious services on a regular basis, and own firearms. For many who are blue-collar and from rural America, the ownership of guns is seen as a way of central to preserving their way of life and autonomy, and a right central to that preservation (1).
But it's those Secular Warriors that never go to church and own no firearms that are the true loyalists in the modern Democratic world. They favor legal abortion and gun control as the real and symbolic means in which to safe-guard their way of life against the likes of the Faithful, Country Folk, and F-You Boys. Secular Warriors comprise 15 percent of the electorate, and their views just about parallel those of the Faithful, whose size is just about identical to their own (1).
Another Democratic loyalists group comes is made up of voters from the Cosmopolitan States - metropolitan areas and states. They are made-up of a melding of racial and ethnic diversity and education, and secular independence from traditional institutions, and receptive to technology, being global and more tolerant and open which creates the cosmopolitan culture in which they comprise. They solidly align with the Democrats at 52 percent, as opposed to with the Republicans at 40 percent (1). They are 24 percent of the Democratic electorate, and cast more than 50% of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency (1).
Then there are the Union Made Democratic loyalists. For over a quarter of a century, union members and their families see themselves as being fully Democratic. They see themselves as being as Democratic as their union social democratic parties' counterparts in Europe (1).
Voters in Union families, even those who are white, have almost always accepted a Democratic identity regardless of hard times as well as political fortunes that the Democratic Party goes through. It's these Union members and their families - the white working class America- who is the only section of such that still thinks of itself as part of the Democratic family, despite all the happenings of the sixties. Through three decades starting in the 1950s, 60 percent of white union households identified with the Democrats (1). Over the course of that time, they have made up anywhere from a high of 28 percent of the Democratic electorate to a low of 18 percent over the years (1).
Republicans of Today
Just like with the Democratic Party, there are Republican Party loyalists. These seven groups or blocks of voters are who make the Republican Party who they are. It can be said that the majority of them are Reaganities - children of the time of Reagan, the Reagan Revolution (1). Many of them are voters that have long term allied themselves with the Republican Party, because of the Republican Party's stance on morality, big government, religious faith as well as America's military might, for examples (1).
The Faithful Republicans are white Evangelicals that are at the center of the Republican world. It is their beliefs that give meaning to the Modern Republican Party, and their way of thinking defines what "red America" is. Almost three-quarters of the Faithful align themselves with the Republican Party (1). Faithfuls have a deep bond with the Republican Party that spans decades of cultural war. They are around one in every five Americans, 17 percent, and their faith is what animates the modern-day Republican Party (1).
The next Republican Party loyalist group is the Deep South voters, whereas the Deep South is residence to one of every five voters in the country. These voters are a part of the growing and modernizing South. And a growing number of them, 16 percent, reside in high-growth rural, suburban, and exurban areas. At the time he was in office, former president Texan George W. Bush is now more than any other leader, the face of the Republican Party and the personification of the Deep South's character (1).
The Deep Southern loyalists feel that the Republicans, more-so, than the Democrats are devoted to the military and keeping America strong. It's the white Southerners that represent the mainstream of the loyalists. This mainstream can also be seen on the "cosmopolitan" East and West coasts and among minority voters and suburban women (1).
Country Folk are the next of the Republican Party loyalists. Fifty-three percent of which align themselves with the Republican Party, compared to only 39 percent that say that they're Democrats. These voters' worries lie in seeing to their families and lessons for their children, which are issues that have them in great numbers in the Republican Party, for now. With their worries, however, those tides may turn to the Democratic Party in the future (1).
The Luke of Exurbia is yet another Republican Party loyalist group. They're the fastest-growing rural and suburban counties after the 2000 presidential election and who came to light after the 2002 Republican gains that demographers and strategists have been paying attention to. They are primarily located in the Sun Belt of the South and Southwest, and make up the new "red territory", and may help to decrease the decline in rural America. These areas have mega-churches and outlet shopping malls and the likes, and are approximately 2.3 percent of voters, though small, are an important part of the Republican loyalist world (1).
The F-You Boys are another Republican Party loyalist group. They are white, don't have college degrees, are blue collar married and under fifty years of age, with young families like much of what you see with the politics of today's Republicans. Overwhelmingly they feel that America should stop telling them what to do with and how to live their lives. They make up a mere 6 percent of the Republican Party electorate, but are one of the strongest elements in the Republican Party loyalist camp (1).
The F-You Old Men are another Republican Party loyalist group, comprising 7 percent of the electorate. They have a partner in the F-You Boys, for the F-You Men are white and retired, and over the age of sixty-five, but the two groups share a lot in common with the younger group. The elder of these two groups lived through the times of the 1960s and 1970s that molded the consciousness of white family men of that time (1).
Like their younger counterparts, they feel that the Republicans are the go-to-party when it comes to the military and keeping America robust. They aren't as culturally and conservatively at battle as the F-You Boys are, concerning issues like guns and being anti-government. Though they're no longer found in very large numbers, they were once the heart and soul of America as young married men. But they're still kept on the map with the attention that they get from George W. Bush (1).
Privileged Men are who make it possible for the Republican loyalist bloc to be large enough to compete in these times of parity, because of the support of these white, educated and married men who comprise 13 percent of the electorate. These advantages earn them not only a higher family income than above the norm for the country, but above those of the other loyalists also, with incomes in the $50,000 to $75,000 and $100,000 annual incomes and above. But because of what they have, it also sets them apart from others, including some of the other Republican loyalists, such as the Faithful, Country Folk, and F-You Boys (1).
They take such a liking to the Republicans because of the tax cuts and business propositions that they receive from them. Back in the days of Reagan, only 30 percent of them considered voting for a Democrat, at that time, and when you look at the numbers, they're Republicans, as 61 percent of them align with the Republicans, and only 32 percent with the Democrats. But only 45 percent of these Privileged Men consider themselves "political conservatives" (1).
But what a difference the years can make. Due to President Bush's unpopularity, the Republican Party is getting smaller. In the 2006 midterm elections, Independents leaned more towards and voted Democratic, than Republican. And polls found that fewer Americans were willing to identify themselves as Republicans, and the party has been reduced in size and is appealing more to a more conservative core (3).
Whether you're a member of the party of the president that was instrumental in telling Gorbachev to "tear down those walls", or the current administration that's platform revolves around domestic and world changes, or you're an Independent that leans in one direction or the other, one thing that you can be sure of is that America didn't arrive here yesterday or by accident, and it's through the leadership of our Republican and Democratic administrations that we stand strong and the United States of America. Fifty states, thousands of counties, millions of cities, and over 300 million inhabitants, we're America; the land of sovereignty.
References-
1. Stanley B. Greenberg. The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It.
New York: ST. Martin's Press, 2004.
2. Morton Keller. America's Three Regimes: A New Political History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
3. Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson. The Story Of An Extraordinary Election: The Battle For America 2008. New York: Penguin Group, 2009.
Post Comment