The Theoretical Foundations Of Republican Politics

People who understand the theoretical foundation of Republican policy positions tend to see it as too obvious (and obviously flawed) to mention. But this post is devoted to setting forth the core points of that theoretical foundation in the hope that a better understanding of it can point us towards better political tactics.

1. The Zero Sum Theory Of Employment Economics

Stylized Consensus Facts

The left and the right agree that the economic well-being of U.S. born white men without college educations relative to other workers in the U.S. economy has declined greatly, in relative terms, since at least 1970. They have captured almost none of the benefit of U.S. economic growth in the last 55 years, while women, non-white men, and college educated men, have all seen significant economic gains, relative to white men without college educations, over the last 55 years.

It is also widely agreed that the percentage of the U.S. population that is foreign born was at an all time low in 1970 and is now at or near an all time high, 55 years later. It is widely agreed there are a signifiant share of people in America (about 10 million in round numbers) who are not U.S. citizens and do not have legal immigration status, and that the undocumented immigrants who are in the labor force are predominantly less educated, less skilled workers. A significant number of U.S. born citizens, moreover, are children of undocumented immigrants.

And, it is widely agreed that a large share of good consumed in the United States are produced outside the United States with non-U.S. labor and imported to the U.S. There is also a significant off shored employees who provide services to people in the U.S., most notably, people who answer customer service telephone numbers for big U.S. businesses. The share of goods and services consumed in the U.S. that is produced with non-U.S. labor is much lower now than it was in the time period from roughly 1945 to 1970.

Zero Sum Thinking

Where Republicans (and right wing political movements generally) and Democrats (and centrists and left wing political movements generally) differ, is that the right believes that the labor market is well approximated by a zero sum model, in which the number of jobs in the economy is largely fixed.

If the labor market is a zero sum game, then all growth in non-white employee employment and pay comes at the expense of white employee employment and pay. Likewise, this theory implies that every improvement in female employment and pay comes at the expense of male employment and pay, that every job filled by someone who is not a U.S. citizen comes at the expense of a job that would otherwise be filled by a U.S. citizen, and that every off shored job that provides goods or services to the U.S. economy comes at the expense of a U.S. person's job.

In this theory, the Civil Rights movement, disparaged as "DEI", caused women and minorities to get jobs that white men would have gotten without government intervention, which they see as discrimination against white men. Therefore, it is imperative to right the horrible wrong that the Civil Rights movement has done to white men, who they feel that the pre-Civil Rights law economy demonstrated were actually more qualified than women and minorities.

In this theory, immigration laws that allow more immigration and illegal immigration have taken many millions of jobs away from native born Americans, as have the children of illegal immigrants whom they do not see as legitimate U.S. citizens since their citizenship was made possible by the illegal conduct of illegal immigrants. And, since most of these jobs are less skilled, this has come at the expense of non-college educated native born Americans. So, mass deportation of immigrants (legal and illegal), discouraging new immigration, and ending birthright citizenship all increase the supply of jobs available to native born Americans, especially those without college educations.

In this theory, free trade has made it economically feasible to off shore work that contributed to the U.S. economy and all of the off shored jobs would have otherwise filled by people in the U.S., so large tariffs are desirable in order to force firms to replace off shore workers with U.S. workers. And, again, off shored jobs tend to be disproportionately jobs that don't require college educations.

2. Moral collapse theory, and the belief that homosexuality and transgender identities are perverse and immoral choices.

Stylized Consensus Facts

Relative to the 1945-1970 time period, divorce rates have soared, marriage rates have fallen, couples are getting married later, a larger share of children are born out of wedlock, more children are being raised in single parent families, and people are having fewer children. Divorces are disproportionately sought by women. These trends have been particular stark for non-college educated men who are also experiencing economic stagnation.  This economic stagnation has led to economic pressures which, together with inferior social skills due to being less smart and educated, makes it more likely that they will be accused of child neglect and/or child abuse.

Non-college educated men, who have seen lower relative incomes and growing unemployment rates, also tend to end up having weaker relationships with their children when they are born out of wedlock or following a divorce, to have greater difficulty and willingness to pay child support and/or alimony, and to increasingly see marital assets reliably split 50-50 even though those marital assets were purchased disproportionately from their incomes.

The time period since 1970 has also been marked by the widespread increased availability of birth control pills and IUDs, by the legalization of abortion, by the rise of gay rights, and by a stark decline in the percentage of people in the U.S. who identify as Christian (in favor of both "nones" and non-Christian religions) as well as the percentage of people who attend church and otherwise actually make Christianity a part of their lives. It has also been accompanied by the near universal availability of unilateral "no fault" divorce, and laws that have given women with lower earnings more reliably larger child support and alimony awards, larger property division awards, and a greater ability to enforce those court orders. And, furthermore, women's rights outside the workforce have improved, making it easier for women to borrow money independently and receive higher education in fields previously reserved almost entirely for men like law and being medical doctors.

This is also a time period in which "war on poverty" and "Great Society" social programs have provided economic support to poor families, and especially, poor single mothers, first mostly black mothers, but increasingly non-college educated white mothers.

And, in the later part of this time period, access over the Internet to free hard core pornography of all kinds has become ubiquitous, when the First Amendment establishment clause has been enforced to make public schools and government more secular (such as removing prayer and the Ten Commandments from schools), when public schools have been more comfortable teaching scientific and historical discoveries at odds with Christian doctrine, and when school and public libraries have been more willing to shelve books that are arguably obscene or contrary to more restrictive conservative Christian belief systems.

Moral collapse theory

The right attributes most of these changes to moral collapse, and to feminism motivated changes in the law that have helped facilitate this moral collapse by undermining traditional values.

In this view, the law is making it too easy for women to have children out of wedlock, and making it too easy for women to shirk their marital obligations to their husbands by divorcing them and getting unfair benefits for doing so in female biased divorce settlements, and by restricting the number of children they have without the consent of their husbands or lovers. They also see abortion as murder. They see laws against marital rape as undermining the basic concept of marriage where a wife is obligated to have sex with her husband who is the head of the family and should be the ultimately decision maker on all questions in the marriage, in which wives should obey their husbands.

They feel that a transgender identity is contrary to common sense, isn't real, is a voluntary choice, and actually reflects a combination of perversion motivated fraud, and liberal brain washing. They feel that homosexuality is a voluntary choice that is sinful and perverse, is contrary to nature and God, and is disgusting. They see trend of the law treating homosexuality and transgender identity as legitimate as a symptom of the overall moral collapse in society that feminism has likewise facilitated.

In this worldview, gay rights, transgender rights, legalized abortion, birth control without a husband's permission, no fault divorce, prohibitions on marital rape, interpretations of the law that criminalize sexual assertiveness in pre-marital relationships, and greater independent economic rights of women, the decline of Christianity in general and in public institutions, and state intervention in the father-child relationship for abuse and neglect or to recognize an adolescent's or wife's autonomy, are all deviations from traditional values that are symptoms of a larger moral collapse in society.

This moral collapse is in this view the cause of these changes and needs to be addressed by returning society to a previously more implicit, Christian foundation.

In this view, the remedy to the fact that non-college educated men are having increasing difficulty getting married, staying married, keeping their kids and maintaining a relationship with them, and not being accused of rape, is to insist on making society more overtly Christian and to reinstate laws based upon a pre-1960s "traditional values" across the board.

3. Government is harmful theory.

Stylized Consensus Facts

Total nominal government spending has increased steadily. The scope and scale of the federal government, in particular, increased dramatically, first after the U.S. Civil War, modestly again during the Progressive era in the late 19th century and early 20th century, dramatically again during the Great Depression and World War II, and then significantly but less dramatically in the post-World War II to 1970s era. The scope and scale of the federal government far exceeds what was initially contemplated by the Founders and what the practical reality was for the first 80 years or so of the United States.

Government is harmful theory.

A third major pillar of right wing political theory is that government spending generates no value and is inherently less efficient and economically valuable than private sector spending, and that each government employee on average, has a net negative economic impact. And, taxes automatically reduce economic output.

In this view, the correct size of government is always to have less government spending and fewer government employees, with less taxation. So, indiscriminate tax cuts, spending cuts, and layoffs of government employees, especially at the federal level, is a good thing.

4. Education is overrated.

Stylized Consensus Facts

Educational attainment has steadily increased since World War II, with more people graduating from high school, more people attending college, more people graduating from college, and more people earning graduate and professional degrees. At first this was due to the GI Bill (which benefited veterans which a very large share of adult men young enough to consider college were after WWII, Korea, and Vietnam), and due to the creation of cheap state public universities made possible by high levels of economic prosperity at the time. Starting in the 1970s, women and minorities began to receive higher education at greatly increased levels, with women achieving something close to parity sometime in the early 1990s and continuing to have greater educational attainment than men since then.

Many jobs that previously did not require a certain level of formal educational attainment now do, either formally, or as a matter of practical reality. Almost all of the benefits of economic growth since 1970 in the U.S. economy has been captured by college educated people. College educated people have faced less competition from immigrants and off shoring than non-college educated people. Government has devoted far more resources to supporting higher education than vocational education such as apprenticeships in skilled trades.

Education is overrated.

The right sees the educational establishment from kindergarten through higher education as equally as much an institution for spreading left wing ideologies and propaganda, and undermining religion and traditional values, as it is an institution for actually providing value added knowledge. They see most educational requirements for work as artificial cultural and class driven barriers to entry rather than as being genuinely necessary to do the job. They believe that teachers and academics immorally twist what they teach to their own political agendas and self-interest that have little to do with truth and more to do with an agenda to undermine traditional values and to facilitate moral collapse. They will grudgingly acknowledge that sometimes education can be necessary (especially in STEM and in basic literacy), but that even there instruction is improperly undermining traditional values and religious beliefs based upon alleged academic knowledge that they do not trust. They see most teachers and professors as less competent and valuable than people who more directly produce economic value in our economy.

They see this as being motivated, especially, by a collective class effort of the upper middle class of college educated people to appropriate economic gains from the working class and middle class of non-college educated people and people with some college but not four year or greater degrees.

Conclusion

While there are other, less central, foundations of Republican politics, such as economic beliefs about where prices come from, energy policy, homelessness, crime, controlled substances, prostitution, and the political process, these four core theoretical foundations (all of which could be facially plausible, but don't bear out to be true with closer examination) which also impact some of these issues, at least in part, go a long way towards explaining right wing political stances.