Party Coalitions in the 1980s by Seymour Martin Lipset

Author:Seymour Martin Lipset [Lipset, Seymour Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Campaigns & Elections, Political Science, Political Process, General
ISBN: 9781351500777
Google: NS0rDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 35635119
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1981-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

1980 and Beyond

Did the Republicans destroy the New Deal Democratic majority in 1980, and are they in the process of creating a new majority coalition on economic issues?

The 1980 election was certainly a triumph for the Republican party, and economic issues can be shown to have dominated public concerns to an unusual degree during the 1980 campaign. The factor analysis presented in this essay argues for the preeminence of the economic-based partisan alignment in 1980. It is also true that the electorate rejected Jimmy Carter principally because of his perceived incompetence in managing the economy. (See Schneider 1981 for a more detailed discussion.)

Around the time of the 1972 election, the prevailing theory of realignment was that the Republicans could build a new majority by shifting the political focus from economics— where the Democrats had a natural advantage—to social and cultural issues, including foreign policy. The Republicans’ traditional economic conservatism—pro-business, anti-government, anti-labor—had never gotten the party very far, while the Democrats had torn themselves apart over race, Vietnam, and cultural radicalism. The Democrats’ commitment to New Deal social-welfare liberalism was what carried the party through the bad times. It very nearly got Hubert Humphrey elected in 1968. It brought massive numbers of traditional blue-collar Democrats back to the party fold in 1974 and 1976, when the Republicans presided over the worst recession since the 1930s. The economic issue seemed to hold the normal Democratic majority together, while the social issue appeared to be the Republicans’ great opportunity.

That is why the 1980 election was so devastating for the Democrats. When the Republicans got the Democrats in 1980, it was not on race or foreign policy or corruption, but on the economy. In other words, the Republicans got the Democratic party where it lives. The 1980 election destroyed the one position in the Democratic party consensus—“economic protection”—that had always held the party together; indeed, that had created the party in the 1930s. In 1980 the social-welfare liberalism offered by the party of the New Deal no longer meant “economic protection” to most voters. It meant “big government.”

That shift in meaning is in large part attributable to inflation. By 1980 inflation was felt to have become a more serious problem than unemployment, and the electorate consistently singled out “big government” and government spending as the principal cause of inflation. Inflation was the single issue that most preoccupied the voters in 1980, and Ronald Reagan held a consistent lead as the candidate best able to handle it. The Democrats also gave up their natural advantage on the unemployment issue. By bringing about a recession in the spring of 1980—and announcing it long in advance—Jimmy Carter weakened the economic ties of blue-collar Democrats to their party. The Democrats could no longer claim to offer the “economic protection” that had worked time and again to bring their traditional constituency back home. With economic self-interest no longer a compelling reason to stick with the Democrats in 1980, a majority of blue-collar voters and Catholics did not.

One of the basic facts about the 1980 election is that the Democrats lost more than the Republicans gained.

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