#376: Our Double Demographic Dilemma

The 2012 election provides ample evidence that we face a spiritual challenge to our national unity.
 
If the Obama-Romney election had happened in 1918 (when only white men could vote), Obama would not have won a single state or electoral vote.  White male voters in 2012 favored Romney by almost 30 points: 64% to 36%.

Only ONE voter here!

If the election had happened in 1960 (when women could vote but most Blacks could not) Obama would have won some states and electoral votes, but Romney would have won the presidency in a landslide.  White voters favored Romney by 20 points, 59% to 39%.

If the election happened in 1972, when Blacks could vote but before large numbers of Latinos, Asians, and young people had not yet entered the electorate, the race would have been much closer but Romney would still have won.

Yet in 2012 Obama was able to win a tight popular vote and a comfortable electoral college margin by winning the majority support of all those “recent voters”: women, blacks, Latinos, Asians, and young people. 

In this sense, the “snapshot” of America that the 2012 election represents is both misleading and revealing.

Why misleading?  Because the close 50% to 48% popular vote gives the superficial impression that Americans are evenly divided between Democratic and Republican voters, between liberal and conservative.  But in fact the divide within various voting blocks was not even or close at all.  Even though Obama’s overall victory margin was only 2%, this was the mere mathematical coincidence of a lot of conflicting “landslide” margins.  Among women, the margin was 11%; among voters under 30 it was 27%; among Latinos it was 52%; among Asians it was 56%; among blacks it was 86%.

In other words this election featured yawning gaps between the candidates among almost any group of voters you care to select.  The same is true for Catholics: overall, the Catholic vote was (like the overall vote) 50% to 48% for Obama, but white Catholics favored Romney by 13% while Latino Catholics favored Obama by 43%.

Why is all this revealing?  Because it shows a country sharply split in two: on one side is the older, white, especially white male population that dominated political life for most of the 20^th century.  On the other side is everyone else.

In that sense, the election reveals, not a country closely divided on by its political priorities, but a country deeply divided by its demographics.

Moreover, the election suggests that the close popular vote is not merely an ironic mathematical coincidence of all these wide demographic gaps.  Rather, the close vote is a passing phenomenon, a phase our country will soon leave behind.  Why?  Because the older white (especially white male) voters are being overtaken, slowly but surely, by all those other groups combined.

In other words, as America becomes a white-minority country, future elections that follow the same demographic splits will produce a wider and wider gap in the overall popular vote.  Indeed, it is not an accident that between the elections of 1988 and 2016--28 years!--the Republicans will have won the popular vote only once (in 2004).

It is almost as if America is evolving into two distinct countries: (1) the “mainstream” white society that shaped America after World War II and is portrayed in 1950s movies and TV shows, and (2) the “diverse” society that emerge beginning in the 1960s and has now achieved majority status.

THE MAINSTREAM

For better or worse, Barack Obama has come to represent this new, more diverse America.  More kinds of Americans judge him to be “more like us” then his opponents in 2008 and 2012.  And more of the world now sees America as a more diverse and “global” culture because Obama, as our head of state, has changed the face of our nation before the world.

THE NEW FACES

 But many Americans have struggled to accept the new face Obama puts on our national identity.  They resist even his legitimacy as president.  They challenge his birthplace, doubt his eligibility for office, label him a “socialist” or “fascist,” and paint Hitler mustaches on his image.  They insist he is an Arab, or a Muslim, and persist in repeating his middle name as if that proves something.  They urge friends and colleagues to “vote for the white guy.”

So perhaps it is fair to say that the demographics of 2012 revealed two things: the dominance of the white “mainstream” is passing away—and as it does, our unity as a people is being challenged.

Of course, increasing diversity is a constant in the history of our immigrant nation.  But now, for the first time, we have reached a tipping point.  When my father was born, in 1918, the very groups that ensured Obama’s victory had no voice at all in our national politics or leadership.  Now, less than a century later, they can pick our leaders even when the “mainstream” wants someone else.

It seems to me that this demographic shift poses a double dilemma--one for Republicans, and one for Democrats--and together these raise a profound spiritual and cultural challenge for our country.

For Republicans, the dilemma is between (1) clinging to its current “mainstream” support base and (2) reaching out to the new “diverse” electorate with policies that may attract them but alienate their mainstream base.  The choice Republicans make may depend on how pragmatic they are. Can they acknowledge that depending solely on their mainstream base has no political future, or will they sink into denial, as if merely recruiting a few Spanish speaking or black candidates will end their decline?

For Democrats, the dilemma is between (1) riding the rising tide of a diverse electorate with no regard for the national polarization it has provoked, and (2) acknowledging that our current “gridlock” means that even the victors cannot really govern.  Their choice may depend on their willingness to understand that, while a new demographic “coalition” can win elections, making good public policy requires a broader consensus, beyond one’s own base.

In short, if both parties cling to their bases, Republicans will find it harder and harder to win elections, and Democrats will find it harder and harder to govern.

Beneath all this, at the ground of our national life, is a challenge that is more cultural and spiritual than political.  It is the challenge of reconciling diversity and unity.

The root Christian view of this challenge, from St. Paul, has always been that diversity and unity belong together.  Paul’s image of the “Body of Christ” pictures a society in which many diverse gifts build up a single, united community.  Modern Catholic Social Teaching consistently proclaims that the “common good” is the most constant measure of good public policy and social justice.  And since 1980, “solidarity” has become a Catholic buzzword (drawn by a Polish pope from his activist countrymen) for the popular spirit that embraces the common good as its goal.

But as John-Paul II said, “Collaboration is the act proper to solidarity.” In other words, the proof of solidarity is when we actually work together.  And millions of Americans know that “working together” has seldom described our leaders in recent years.  Our low opinion of their job performance, confirmed in poll after poll, reflects our observation that too few of our leaders make the common good their priority.

Sure, these leaders love to spout “the American people want” this or “the American people believe” that. But the demographics of 2012 prove that when leaders generalize this way about “Americans,” they are really referring to whatever demographic group they seek favor from.  The truth is that, given the yawning gaps among demographic groups, there is very little that all Americans think or believe in common.

Can our Republican leaders finally realize that diversity is here to stay?  Can our Democratic leaders realize that diversity is no substitute for national unity?  Can they work together to collaborate in modeling and promoting a spirit of solidarity that will make the common good the unified goal of all Americans? 

Let me suggest that, even if they try, they cannot do it alone.  Reconciling the fact of our diversity with our need for solidarity is not primarily a political challenge.  Solidarity cannot be legislated. It must be both preached and practiced--not only by politicians, but by churches, communities, and even families.

Sadly, we Americans seem to rise to solidarity only during catastrophes like 9/11 or Superstorm Sandy.  At least those moments prove that we’re capable of pulling together--but a thriving future will depend on making solidarity the rule of our national life, not merely the exception to the more general rule we call “gridlock.”

Whether we are governed by Democrats or Republicans, the question of our future remains: will we allow our demographics to divide us into two peoples who have nothing in common—or will we be governed by solidarity, and live together for the common good? 

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012