The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump

180 Pages·2018·4.32 MB·English

by  Alan I. Abramowitz

The Great Alignment
The Great Alignment
Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump
Alan I. Abramowitz
Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Philip Hamilton McMillan of the
Class of 1894, Yale College.
Copyright © 2018 by Alan I. Abramowitz.
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Ann
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
ONE
A New Age of Partisanship
TWO
The Decline of the New Deal Coalition, 1952–1988
THREE
From Dealignment to Alignment
FOUR
The Changing Political Geography of the United States
FIVE
The New American Electorate
SIX
White Racial Resentment and the Rise of Donald Trump
SEVEN
Negative Partisanship and the Triumph of Trump
Notes
Index
Preface
On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the forty-fifth president
of the United States. The next day, millions of Americans turned out to protest
Trump’s presidency in rallies and marches across the nation. Hundreds of
thousands showed up to march in Washington, D.C., but there were protest
marches in almost every major city in the United States and in dozens of smaller
cities and towns, from Huntington, West Virginia, to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,
to Fairbanks, Alaska.
In the first Gallup Poll measuring Trump’s approval rating as president, three
days after his inauguration, 45 percent of Americans approved of his
performance and 45 percent disapproved. Trump’s initial approval rating was the
lowest in the history of the Gallup Poll; his initial disapproval rating was by far
the highest in the poll’s history. Just as striking, though, was the sharp partisan
divide in these ratings—90 percent of Republicans approved of Trump’s
performance, while 81 percent of Democrats disapproved. In the United States
Senate, Democrats and Republicans quickly found themselves battling over
President Trump’s choices for key Cabinet positions, with several, including his
nominees for attorney general and secretary of state, winning approval on party-
line or near party-line votes.
In an era marked by deep partisan divisions, Donald Trump may well be the
most divisive political leader in modern American history. Nevertheless, while
Trump won the election by exploiting the deep divisions in American society, he
did not create those divisions. The deep racial, cultural, and ideological schisms
exposed by Trump’s candidacy have been developing for decades, and
regardless of the course of his presidency, whether he succeeds beyond the
wildest expectations of his supporters or fails miserably, they are not going away
any time soon.
The central argument of this book is that the deep partisan divide that exists
among the politically engaged segment of the American public as well as among
political elites and activists is, fundamentally, a disagreement over the dramatic
changes that have transformed American society and culture since the end of
World War II, and that continue to have huge effects in the twenty-first century.
The challenges posed by technological change, globalization, immigration,
growing racial and ethnic diversity, and changes in family structure and gender
growing racial and ethnic diversity, and changes in family structure and gender
roles have produced diverging responses from party elites and a growing
alignment of partisan identities with deeper divisions in American society and
culture. This “great alignment” has transformed the American party system and
fundamentally altered American politics in the twenty-first century.
On one side of this partisan divide are those who have benefited from and
welcome the new American society, including racial minorities, the LGBT
community, religious moderates and skeptics, and more educated citizens who
possess the skills to thrive in the economy of the twenty-first century. Those
Americans voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and for
Hillary Clinton in 2016. On the other side of the divide are those who find these
changes deeply troubling and threatening, including religious conservatives and
many less educated whites in small towns and rural areas. Those Americans
voted overwhelmingly for John McCain in 2008, Mitt Romney in 2012, and
Donald Trump in 2016.
With the nation almost evenly divided between supporters of the two sides,
relatively small shifts in party allegiance or turnout can produce different
outcomes and dramatic swings in the direction of public policy. Short-term
forces still matter in elections, as the response of the public to the economic
crisis posed by the Great Recession demonstrated in 2008. However, the great
alignment has produced a sharply polarized electorate marked by deep hostility
among partisans on both sides toward the other party and its leaders. The rise of
“negative partisanship” has resulted in growing party loyalty, straight-ticket
voting, and the increasing nationalization of sub-presidential elections. It also
contributed to the improbable rise and ultimate victory of Donald Trump—a
candidate who overcame strong opposition from many Republican Party leaders
and elected officials and serious reservations among many Republican voters by
exploiting fear and hatred of Democrats in general and Hillary Clinton in
particular.
The great alignment has had profound consequences for almost every aspect
of American politics. For one thing, it has resulted in a growing nationalization
of party politics and electoral competition. The late House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s
famous statement that “all politics is local” has been stood on its head. Today, it
would be more accurate to say that all politics is national. Dramatic increases in
party loyalty and straight-ticket voting mean that the outcomes of elections at
every level from the U.S. Senate and House down to local offices are closely tied
to the results of presidential elections. As a result, the personalities and records
of individual candidates mean far less than they did in the past.
The main beneficiary of this trend has been the Republican Party. Because of
the heavy concentration of Democratic voting groups in large metropolitan
areas, Republicans have long enjoyed an advantage in the number of
congressional and state legislative districts that tilt toward the GOP in
presidential elections—an advantage that had nothing to do with partisan
gerrymandering. As recently as the 1990s, however, high rates of ticket splitting
allowed Democrats to hold on to a large share of these districts. The increase in
straight-ticket voting means that is no longer the case. In recent elections to the
House of Representatives, over 90 percent of contests have been won by the
candidate of the party carrying the district in the presidential election.
A similar trend is apparent in recent Senate elections. Each party now holds
the large majority of seats in states won by its presidential candidate. But
sparsely populated rural states are greatly overrepresented in the Senate, and
most of those states now tilt toward the GOP. Moreover, this Republican
advantage affects presidential elections, since each state’s two U.S. senators
count in determining its electoral votes. In a nation that is becoming increasingly
urbanized, and in which urbanization is highly correlated with partisanship, this
GOP advantage is a source of growing frustration for Democratic leaders and
voters.
Perhaps the most important and potentially dangerous long-term consequence
of the great alignment has been the increasing centrality of issues of race and
ethnicity in American politics. No other development in American politics has
had a greater impact on the rise of partisan polarization over the past thirty years.
Supporters of the two major parties are increasingly divided by race and
ethnicity. More important, they are increasingly divided by their attitudes toward
race and ethnicity, and attitudes toward race and ethnicity are increasingly
connected with attitudes toward other major issues in American politics,
including the role of government and the state of the economy.
Donald Trump’s strong showing among white working-class voters in 2016
has sparked a debate among journalists and scholars about the relative
importance of economic grievances and racial attitudes in attracting support for
Trump among these voters. The evidence presented in this book, however,
demonstrates that economic and racial attitudes are closely connected, and that
among Trump supporters, economic grievances are driven more by racial and
ethnic resentment than by economic conditions. How these voters and their
communities are faring seems to matter less in shaping their political outlook
than whom they blame for their problems.
Acknowledgments
Many individuals have influenced my ideas on the transformation of the
American party system, the rise of negative partisanship, and the nationalization
of elections in the United States over the past several decades. I owe a
considerable debt of gratitude to my collaborator, coauthor, and methods tutor
on several recent projects, Steven Webster. I have also been greatly influenced
by the writings of other scholars on partisan polarization and its consequences,
including Larry Sabato, Kyle Saunders, Ron Rapoport, Walter Stone, Gary
Jacobson, James Campbell, Norman Ornstein, Thomas Mann, and Bill Bishop.
William Frucht, the political science editor at Yale University Press, has
provided constant encouragement and much helpful feedback during the writing
of this book. Finally, I want to thank my students at Emory University for the
past thirty years. Their interest and curiosity about the political world have been
a source of constant intellectual stimulation.
This book is dedicated to Ann Abramowitz, who provided not only
encouragement and support for this project but invaluable instruction on how
national political forces were playing out in our own state and community based
on her deep involvement in the political process.