A general election that pits Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump will produce a decisively more affluent and better educated Democratic presidential electorate and a decidedly less affluent and less educated Republican one than in any previous election going back as far as 1976.
.. He has successfully appealed to middle- and lower-income white voters motivated by opposition to liberalized attitudes and social norms on matters of race, immigration and women’s rights.
.. “The Second Demographic Transition: A Concise Overview of Its Development,” by Lesthaeghe, summarizes this concept:
The SDT starts in the 1960s with a series of multifaceted revolutions. First, there was the contraceptive revolution, with the introduction of hormonal contraception and far more efficient IUDs; second, there was the sexual revolution, with declining ages at first sexual intercourse; and third, there was the gender revolution, questioning the sole breadwinner household model and the gendered division of labor that accompanied it.
.. These three “revolutions” fit within the framework of an overall rejection of authority, the assertion of individual freedom of choice (autonomy), and an overhaul of the normative structure. The overall outcome of these shifts with respect to fertility was the postponement of childbearing: mean ages at first parenthood rise again, opportunities for childbearing are lost due to higher divorce rates, the share of childless ever-partnered women increases, and higher parity births (four or more) become rare.
.. With rare exceptions, the same pattern emerged in all four states: the lower the S.D.T. ranking, the higher Trump’s votes compared with his statewide average; the higher the S.D.T. level, the lower Trump’s vote.
.. Trump gains the party ground among declining segments of the population — less well educated, less well off whites — and loses ground with the growing constituencies: single women, well-educated men and women, minorities, the affluent and professionals.
.. Trump is not, as many charge, violating core Republican tenets. Instead, he represents the culmination of the rear-guard action that has characterized the party for decades.
Donald Trump’s Very Republican Foreign-Policy Speech
For a long time, sophisticated conservatives were supposed to understand that Republicans only did this with a wink and a nod. Yes, on the campaign trail, a candidate could talk about harsh immigration enforcement, but in office he was supposed to support comprehensive immigration reform. Sure, he could scare people about terrorism, but he would never really listen to the worst anti-Muslim voices on the right, let alone adopt their policies. And while Republicans could flirt with white identity politics to win a state here or there, they weren’t supposed to run as Rush Limbaugh and base an entire campaign around it.
What scares so many Republican élites is that Trump has refused to play by the traditional rule book, which says G.O.P. candidates can stoke flames but they’re not supposed to create bonfires.
.. Like many conservatives—and liberals—Trump looks back at the period from the Second World War to the fall of the Berlin Wall with fondness. Far from planting himself in the isolationist tradition, Trump on Wednesday declared America’s entry into the Second World War and aggressive prosecution of the Cold War as the nation’s greatest triumphs. When he says he wants to make America great again, this is the era to which he’s referring.
.. When it came to his proposals, though, Trump was again as uninteresting and conventional as his more prominent Republican rivals ..
Wrath of the Conned
Things are very different among Republicans. Their party has historically won elections by appealing to racial enmity and cultural anxiety, but its actual policy agenda is dedicated to serving the interests of the 1 percent, above all through tax cuts for the rich — which even Republican voters don’t support, while they truly loathe elite ideas like privatizing Social Security and Medicare.
What Donald Trump has been doing is telling the base that it can order à la carte. He has, in effect, been telling aggrieved white men that they can feed their anger without being forced to swallow supply-side economics, too. Yes, his actual policy proposals still involve huge tax cuts for the rich, but his supporters don’t know that — and it’s possible that he doesn’t, either. Details aren’t his thing.
.. The Republican establishment has been routed because it has been playing a con game on its supporters all along, and they’ve finally had enough.
And yes, Mr. Trump is playing a con game of his own, and they’ll eventually figure that out, too. But it won’t happen right away, and in any case it won’t help the party establishment. Sad!
Why Trump’s Antiwar Message Resonates with White America
To Mamaw, the president was the living embodiment of privilege, and he had cashed in when it mattered most: by joining the Texas Air National Guard while his less fortunate peers lost their lives in the jungles of Vietnam.
.. Sixty years ago, Americans looked to Europe and Asia and saw continents liberated and despots defeated. With the Islamic State on the rampage, Americans today look to a Middle East that is humiliatingly worse off than the way we found it.
The burden of this humiliation fell hardest on Republican strongholds. Demographically, the military draws heavily from the South, rural areas and the working and middle class. And while no racial group has a monopoly on military service, white enlistees make up a disproportionate share of those wounded and killed in action. This is the very same demographic that forms the core of the contemporary Republican base. Whether they were working-class Reagan Democrats like Mamaw or committed middle-class Republicans, the people who made Mr. Bush president are the same people who sent their children to fight in his wars.