Conservatives Pronounce the End of Minority Support for Democrats – Again.

My response to a recent City Journal article

Opposition to the left’s diversity agenda – which includes both mass immigration and race preferences – has grown considerably in recent years. Back in 2016, it was almost unheard of for conservative pundits to talk frankly about these issues, and those who dared wade into such controversial waters often did so timidly. Now, however, it isn’t uncommon for figures like Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk to explicitly denounce the Great Replacement. Not to mention the fact that America’s top conservative activist, Chris Rufo, has denounced critical race theory as anti-white in similarly explicit terms. 

Despite these positive developments, many conservatives appear either incapable of or unwilling to disabuse themselves of their own pro-diversity positions. A recent article in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal titled “The Democrats’ Emerging Race Problem” is but one of many examples. In the article, its authors, Michael Hartney and Renu Mukherjee, argue that minority support for the Democrats is waning, offer some explanations, and predict that this shift spells the end of race-based politics. 

Fault lines have undoubtedly appeared in the left’s rainbow coalition. But there is far more to the story. Conservatives should exercise caution when predicting that a more diverse America will feature less racial politics. 

Hartney and Mukherjee begin by arguing that “the Democratic Party can no longer count on unified minority support.” They cite a Gallup study that shows the Democrats holding a 47-point advantage with black voters. According to the study, 66% of black adults identify as or lean Democratic, with only 19% identifying as or leaning Republican. 

Although I am not one to discount polling data, I have found that on this particular subject it is almost entirely untrustworthy. Before every election, polls circulate predicting great gains in the black vote for Republicans. In late Oct. 2020, Rasmussen polls showed that roughly 30% of blacks intended to vote for Trump. Other polls told the same fictitious story. Conservatives shared these polls at the time, gleeful at the prospect of heightened minority support for their party. 

Lo and behold, Trump didn’t get 30% of the black vote. According to Pew Research Center, “Biden received the support of 92% of Black voters, nearly the same as Clinton received in 2016 and Democratic candidates for the U.S. House received in 2018.” (Some exit polls reveal greater black support for Trump, ranging from 8% to 15%. But Pew’s data is drawn from validated voters and overall more methodologically rigorous.) 

The good fellows at the Manhattan Institute would do well to keep all of this in mind. And to be fair, Trump getting 19% of the black vote would be a considerable gain. But based on past election cycles, that is unlikely to happen; even if it does, does 19% of black voters supporting the GOP really indicate that, as the authors of the article in question claim, the Democratic Party is no longer the de facto party of minorities? I think not. 

The authors also cite increased support for the GOP among other groups: Hispanics and Asians. Gallup data reveals that 47% of Hispanics support Biden, compared to 35% who support Trump. Those looking for evidence of concrete gains in the minority vote can actually point to Hispanics, given that Trump improved his performance with them by 10 points (28% in 2016 to 38% in 2020). Only 28% of Asians, on the other hand, voted for Trump in 2020. (Pew reports that the sample size among Asians was too small to measure in 2016.) But the authors do provide a Pew study that reveals “just four in ten (Asians) approved of President Biden, down from nearly six in ten in 2022.”

So of the three groups provided as evidence that the Democratic Party is losing minority support, only one group, Hispanics, has actually changed its voting habits since 2016 – and they still favor Democrats. As such, if there is a massive rupture in the American political landscape – some great racial paradigm shift – it has yet to occur. 

Hartney and Mukherjee venture a few explanations for this (largely nonexistent) shift in political affiliation among minorities: Democrat soft-on-crime policies, concerns about inflation, and Trump’s celebrity appeal. No data is provided for these claims, although I do not find them to be unlikely explanations for the rightward shift seen in Hispanics.

But the authors provide another, more interesting reason: 

However, a more systemic factor is also driving minorities’ political evolution: the diminishing value of using racial appeals in a multi-ethnic democracy premised on equality of opportunity over equality of outcomes. Put simply, it becomes practically impossible to hold a diverse coalition of minority groups together while embracing policies that benefit some of those groups at the expense of others.

Cracks are indeed forming in the left’s coalition. We have not only seen that with Asian opposition affirmative action, a policy that benefits blacks and Hispanics, but also with pro-Israel Jews and pro-Palestinian types. Such are the wages of diversity, and there is more than a little irony in conservatives pointing out the problems inherent in such a diverse coalition also advocating for a more diverse GOP.

To prove their point, the authors cite a recent study they published for the Manhattan Institute titled “Americans for Meritocracy.” In the study, respondents were asked how they felt about affirmative action.

Hartney and Mukherjee detail the study’s findings: 

Unsurprisingly, we found universal opposition to affirmative action among Republicans. But among Democrats, we found a significant crack in the Obama coalition. Most Democrats favored affirmative action when told that it would harm whites. Yet, when Democrats learned that it was Asians who would lose out, a majority (55 percent) rejected racial preferences, including 63 percent of non-black Democrats (Hispanics, whites, and Asians).

In other words, Democrats support affirmative action when it harms whites, but not Asians. Unsurprising indeed! The authors are correct that Asians and blacks, at least on this issue, have different interests. That does present a problem for Democrats. But at the end of the day, both groups reliably vote Democrat, and until that changes, it remains an internecine battle.

The article concludes with this paragraph: 

In our view, this approach won’t work for much longer. Intermarriage in the U.S. has been on the rise since 1980, with nearly one in five newlyweds today having a spouse of a different race. Indian Americans now have the highest median household income out of any ethnic group. Asian women are outearning white men. The more diverse and inter-connected the nation becomes, the less race-based political appeals will work. Indeed, they will increasingly backfire.

By “race-based political appeals” the authors appear to be referring to affirmative action. It is true that a growing Asian electorate will make affirmative action less viable. Asians played leading roles in fighting affirmative action in California and recently against Harvard. But the strategy of appealing to minority groups based on their group interests is not going anywhere. Racial politics are inevitable in a multiracial democracy – it’s just a question of what form they take.  After all, even the GOP is unafraid to appeal directly minority group interests. (Trump’s First Step Act and Platinum Plan come to mind.)

But racial appeals and wokeness in general entail more than affirmative action. The essence of wokeness is not a hatred of the successful, but a hatred of whites. Asians do oppose affirmative action, and they might object to soft-on-crime policies, but they have otherwise been comfortable with supporting the party of open anti-white animus. Data from America National Election Studies reveals that Asians rate whites lower than all other racial groups. This suggests Asians are, overall, only opposed to the policies that directly harm them and not terribly concerned about anti-whiteness.

Race preferences, let us not forget, constitute only half of the left’s diversity agenda. Mass immigration is the other half. And Asians are some of the most vociferous advocates of the Great Replacement. The 2022 Chicago Council Survey revealed that 66% of Asians believe increasing diversity in America makes the country a better place to live in – more than any other group. Asian respondents were also the least enthusiastic group when it came to legal immigration restriction, with only 18% supporting a decrease. 

As such, even if the Democratic Party refuses to budge on race preferences, Asians will still be turned off by the Republican Party’s support for immigration restriction – which is admittedly weak. I would love for it to be stronger, but weak as it is, immigrant groups are aware of the fact that calls for less immigration are virtually only found right of center. I believe this to be a major factor in Asian and Indian support for the Democratic Party, despite the party’s support for race preferences that harm them. Collectivism, not individualism, is the norm for all groups but whites.

Of course, the GOP could completely do away with immigration restriction to court Asian voters. That would be disastrous, of course, and I would not support it. But Asian voters, while the fastest growing racial group in America, are still only 7.2% of the country. Moreover, they are only 4% of the electorate, meaning that they are not exactly the most politically active demographic – unlike whites, who are 71% of the country and 75% of the electorate.

To be clear, opposing affirmative action, DEI, critical race theory, and other forms of race communism is undoubtedly the right move. And if the Democrats lose support among some minority groups due to an unwavering commitment to race-based policies, then great. But that hasn’t happened yet. 

Furthermore, there is a danger in believing that increased diversity will lead to conservative policies. First, as previously stated, there is no conclusive evidence of increased minority support for the GOP, other than a ten point gain among Hispanics. That’s something. But it isn’t much in the grand scheme of things. Even if Trump gains a few points with every minority group in 2024, the Republican Party will still have a ways to go before it enjoys majority support from any of them. 

Second, one might read this City Journal article and conclude that mass immigration is the key to ending wokeness. That is wrong for the aforementioned reasons. More non-white immigration entails more voters for the Democrats. Why do you think they’re throwing open the borders? The left is many things, but it isn’t stupid.

Third, the focus on the elusive minority vote distracts the GOP from focusing on white voters, who constitute roughly 90% of the GOP and 75% of the electorate. Barry Goldwater’s famous line about going hunting where the ducks are – those ducks being white voters – rings true more than six decades later. Although hardline, explicit racial appeals to white Americans are unlikely to prove electorally successful, appealing to things whites on average care about – immigration restriction, preservation of American culture, law and order, opposition to affirmation etc. – is the way to go.

Fourth, trying to court minority voters often entails ceding ground to the left on critical issues: immigration, crime, etc. Gaining minority voters is not worth compromising on what matters. The correct formula is to promise and then deliver good government, and if non-white people want to come along for the ride, then great. But no pandering or concessions!

Some conservatives long for a Republican Party that welcomes mass legal immigration and opposes race-based policies. This is more or less what we have now. But it is also a recipe for Asian and Indian domination of our institutions. And given that both groups heavily lean left, that is a recipe for more leftism. 

But say those groups did suddenly become stalwart supporters of the Republican Party. Would that be a reason to support mass immigration? Of course not. While importing Democratic voters – especially those intelligent enough to gain institutional influence – is a suicidal decision, we should also oppose demographic change on the grounds that it will permanently turn America into something else – the proverbial global shopping mall, a mere economic zone bereft of its historic identity, people, and culture.

If you replace the people, you replace the nation. No one seriously believes that a swapping out the population of China with Nigerians would result in China. It would result in something else. Similarly, swapping out Americans – who for most of our country’s history have come from a European background – with third world immigrants is bound to result in something other than America. And as someone who quite likes America, despite its problems, that is unacceptable.

Mass immigration is also guaranteed to make America more tribal. In fact, if race preferences are done away with due to Asian immigration, then that, too, would qualify as racial politics, being the result of one group pursuing its interests. Paradoxically, if you want America to be less racialized and tribal, you have to oppose the demographic transformation of the country. Fortunately, a plurality of Americans support immigration restriction.

The Republican Party must firmly oppose both anti-white preferences and mass immigration. Compromising on either issue only benefits the left. Conservatives should enjoy watching the Democrats’ coalition fall apart without deluding themselves into believing that further demographic change will result in a multiracial utopia. All available evidence points to the opposite scenario being more likely.