In 1997, GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio released “The Elephant Looks in the Mirror,” a report on an extensive survey of the Republican Party. Now he has released results of a similar poll, “The Elephant Looks in the Mirror 10 Years Later.”
For Democrats, the most interesting trend is the GOP’s age demographics, which have skewed dramatically older over the decade. The percentage of Republicans age 55 and older grew from 28 percent in 1997 to 41 percent now, while the number of 18- to 37-year-olds dropped from 25 percent to 17 percent. A Republican analyst finds this to be alarming:
This is not good news [says the GOP analyst]. We already know that we are struggling with younger voters. These results … point out just how old our base is shifting. This probably represents several things including, aging of the people involved in the conservative backlash to the 60s, losing the younger generation due to the war, and the dying, frankly, of the New Dealers.
In the poll, Fabrizio identified seven interest groups within the GOP:
- Bush hawks – This new, dangerously paranoid group, along with the Fortress America crowd below, accumulated its members from the GOPers’ anti-tax, anti-gubmint lunatic fringe
- Moralists – More accurately referred to as “Christian nationalists,” they generate headlines on social issues that make sensible conservatives cringe
- Government knows best Republicans – Seems like an oxymoron but Pres. Bush is, if nothing else, a big-government conservative
- Dennis Miller Republicans – The snarks get their own category?
- Fortress America Republicans – Like the Bush Hawks, the “nationalist” wing of the Christian nationalism gained members from the economic-focused groups, the Heartlanders and free marketeers
- Heartland Republicans – The number of these sensible Republicans declined from 1997
- Free marketeers – As did the number of self-identified anti-taxers
Despite their dominance in the media, moralists represent less than a quarter of the Republican Party. Their influence appears to be waning, however, perhaps because their pose of moral superiority wears thin, even among conservatives:
[By] a margin of 53 percent to 42 percent Republicans believe that “The Republican Party has spent too much time focusing on moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage and should instead be spending time focusing on economic issues such as taxes and government spending.”
Forty-nine percent of Republicans in the poll favored ending the ban on allowing gays to serve in the military.
Poll: ‘Elephant in the Mirror’ Updates Republicans’ View of Themselves…
Updating a survey done 10 years ago, a new poll of Republican Party members tracks demographic shifts, post 9/11. The GOP is bleeding younger members, and the oldsters are more concerned with security and less about economics these days. Half appear t…
Perhaps the biggest reason for this decline is the Internet, where young people can get access to information and ignore the conservative networks, conservative newspapers, or conservative radio shows.
And once people have all the facts (assuming they are decent + intelligent) these people will not choose conservatism.
Republicans match up well with the demographic that demand Lincoln Town Cars, Buick Park Avenues, and Cadillac deVilles. Young people don’t want expensive crap and that is what Republicans offer.
Hispanics would match up with the conservatism and religious aspects of the party, and they are a growing political group. But, sadly, the Republicans already aligned themselves with the racist bloc back in 1968. It was made clear last week that this is still part of the party’s base.
A Bit of Cold Water. The same trends “against” Republicans were present in 1974 and 1992. Both were instances when the youth rebelled against entrenched GOP power, only to see the Republicans return with a vengence more successful and more tilted to the right than before, so its no time for us progressives to get complacent. The good news is that the issues that helped the GOP in the last decade are narrow. Without fear (a.k.a. 9/11) & questionable election-fixingpractices, the GOP seems to be running out of ammo.
I wonder what a similarly designed survey of Democrats would show. The country’s demographic is shifting older and the number of people who register as Independents is growing as well and those factors may make up a significant portion of the Republican shift. Older people vote in higher numbers than younger people, who are often clueless with regard to policy details. What hurts Republicans the most is the socially liberal leanings of young people. They are not so anti-gay, outside of the portion that have grown up within the influence of the most regressive churches. What hurts all parties the most is the trend to simply not vote or be informed. This is due to the obvious lack of influence that voters exert. We would not be in Iraq; we would have universal health coverage; trade policies would not send jobs overseas; higher education would be more financially accessible if government reflected the will of the people. Since it really doesn’t, why vote? Both parties reflect the best interests of corporations and their profit motives and the fact that they do so somewhat unequally is of small interest to much of the population. When we have publicly financed campaigns, I will be long dead, as maybe we all will.
Note to Ricardo: Lincoln Town Car – no, but $1000 game consoles, expenisive, gadgety cell phones and the like are considered essentials to most youth. And what young person that you know wants an $12K Hyundai Accent (31 mpg) instead of a $30K Mitsubishi Spyder (24 mpg)?
Young people are not accurately counted in polls any longer. While I hope the trend is changing, I can not take any poll numbers indicating changes in the under 30 demographic seriously. This is because of the lack of land line telephones amongst the under 30 – 35 crowd. Wireless only and IP telephone households, not counted in the polls, are a growing and large part of that age group. While I think the poll is probably showing a valid and correct trend, there is no way to really know given the major flaws in all polling techniques today.
I thing big Dave is correct- Young people bypass the corporate media for news, and instead get their info from the internet.
I quit watching the corporate media almost a decade ago, and it’s amzing what the difference is!
For example, in the USA the news that israel routinely targets innocent civilians is completely blacked-out. The entire rest of the world knows that israeli snipers have been using schoolchildren for target practice.
The BBC has covered that fact, but the USA media is afraid to mention that.
It’s horrifying that as a US citizen, I have go abroad for news!
With the single exception of the McClatchy newspapers, only foreign outlets have mentioned that the US attorney firings are linked to an illegal GOP plan to disenfranchise primarily minority voters. (Which is a felony!)
Being better informed than a corporate news watcher can only drive someone away from the repug party.
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Republicans should be more concerned about: being WRONG, on Bush, on Iraq, on ____. .