My last blog post referred to our country’s “racist fringe,” implying that its numbers are relatively small. I guess I have to stand corrected. A poll cited in a recent NYT Sunday Magazine puts that “fringe” at over 30 million Americans, with about twice that many responding that it’s “okay” to have white supremacist views.
As final election results trickle in and Democrats grow increasingly self-satisfied, we might think that it’s enough to repudiate Trump’s politics of hatred at the ballot box. But nobody should be naïve enough to think this growing cancer on our democracy will be solved by simply electing a Democrat to the White House in 2020. We have to understand, at a deeper level, what’s made Trump’s tactics so successful to begin with.
Discussions typically focus on three things: (a) a polka-dot political landscape, with urban islands of blue surrounded by oceans of red; (b) an upsurge of nativist sentiment caused by economic anxiety among displaced white workers; and (c) increasingly pinpointed appeals of both parties to regional, cultural, and racial differences, sharpening the process by which party becomes tribe. All feed the maw we collectively bemoan as “polarization.”
But that’s only the mouth of the beast. Its bloodstream runs deeper, pulsing with long-term demographic trends of America today. We’ve come to a historic population tipping point — one that deeply affects how we feel about race and democracy.
First, the demographics underlying the urban-rural divide: in 1965, about 70% of Americans lived in cities. Now, nearly 84% does, and that ratio is increasing fast — by half a percent per year. By 2050, the US will be 90% urban. Rural America is inexorably losing the demographic race. By the hard logic of these numbers, the political power of rural elites faces steady erosion and eventual doom.
Second, the demographics underlying the rise of white hate: it’s been recently recognized that rust-belt economic distress doesn’t really explain resurgent right-wing racism. Population shifts are likely a more powerful driver. In 2017, the white population declined, and actually dropped below 50% for the 0-10 age group. Both of these things are new, but they are expected to last. They scare white racists, and it isn’t surprising that they feature prominently in alt-right propaganda. If your race defines your identity and your life is a glorious racial struggle, these numbers mean you’re inevitably going to lose.
Third, the demographics underlying polarization: this is where we get beyond recent headlines, and a little wonky. As societies go from poor to rich, they pass through a “demographic transition.” Grossly oversimplified, this is a progression from (1) high birth rates and high mortality, and thus low population growth; then (2) to high birth rates low mortality, as advances in economics and health care improve survival rates, leading to high population growth; then (3) to slower birth rates as societies adjust to later stages of development, resulting in a return to low population growth. Some demographers find that the second phase of the transition corresponds to an explosion of democracy, with younger, urbanizing populations rebelling against an established order. They suggest that the third phase of the transition represents a “mature” phase of democracy, as older populations settle into more established methods of political participation.
Other demographers paint a direr picture, arguing that at a certain level of overpopulation, liberal democracy will cease to function altogether.
I wonder whether right now we have “phase 2” – i.e., growing younger urbanite — and “phase 3” – i.e., stagnating older rural – types of democracy going on at the same time, in different regions and different cultures. It follows that they will obey different norms, respond to different messages, and generally distrust one another. A recipe for polarization.
Nate Cohn’s “538” piece this week illustrates how these dynamics played out in the Texas Senate race. The five fastest-growing counties in Texas broke solidly for O’Rourke — with unprecedentedly high turnout — making the overall race more competitive than any in recent memory. In contrast, Texas’ far-flung rural counties are demographically stagnant, with comparatively lower voter turnout increases. The slower-growing the county, the stronger its preference for Cruz. Cohn, the ruthless demographer, draws the lesson that in future Democrats can essentially write off rural voters and simply let urbanites disenfranchise them over time.
I look to the character of our democracy and draw a different conclusion – partly from Beto’s campaign, but partly from my own family. My father’s line hails from a ranch in Knickerbocker Texas, in Tom Green County, where some of my cousins still live. The county is conservative, but my cousins are a complicated, heterogeneous lot, as are most people if you actually get to know them. In 2012, Democrats won just 25% of Tom Green County’s vote. This year, O’Rourke did not write off rural Texas – he campaigned in every county, speaking to all kinds of voters statewide. As a result, his showing in Tom Green County improved to 28%, and his results across rural Texas improved incrementally was well. I’d argue that Beto’s near-success is not just because he ran up the score in Austin and Houston, but that he inched it up in San Angelo and Big Spring too.
It’s not just O’Rourke. Congresswoman-elect Lauren Underwood, a 32-year-old African-American, won Dennis Hastert’s old seat in Illinois by knocking on every door in her district, over 80% of which is white. “People who hadn’t been spoken to in ten years,” she said in an interview.
My point is that, for our democracy to revive, we should listen to Beto and Lauren, and reject Nate, understanding our demographics but not allowing them to control us. We should broaden our efforts, not compartmentalize them. Unless we keep dialogue and deliberation at the center, our electoral process will simply devolve into a quadrennial census — you could call it a “demogracy” — and polarization and hatred will be our just reward.