Understanding American politics has become increasingly confusing as the old party labels have lost much of their meaning. A simplistic Left vs. Right worldview no longer captures the complexity of what’s going on. As the authors of the October 2017 “Pew Survey of American Political Typologies” write, “[I]n a political landscape increasingly fractured by partisanship, the divisions within the Republican and Democratic coalitions may be as important a factor in American politics as the divisions between them.”
To understand our politics, we need to understand the cultural values that drive it. The integral cultural map developed by philosopher Ken Wilber identifies nine global cultural value systems including the archaic (survival), tribal (shaman), warrior (warlords and gangs), traditional (fundamentalist faith in God), modern (democracy and capitalism), and postmodern (world-centric pluralism). When combined with Pew’s voter typologies, Wilber’s cultural levels offer a new map of America’s political landscape.
Of Wilber’s nine global value systems, the Traditional, Modern, and Postmodern categories are most useful to understanding our moment. Traditional culture values disciplined adherence to assigned gender and social roles: men are providers and heads of households, marriage is between one man and one woman, and the institutions of the military, law enforcement, and the clergy are all highly respected. Historically, traditional cultures were monarchies or states ruled by “strongmen.” Modern culture superseded traditional systems in the West during the Enlightenment, and values rationality, democracy, meritocracy, capitalism, and science. Individual rights, free speech, and free markets harness an entrepreneurial spirit to solve problems.
Postmodern culture offers a borderless, geocentric political view that values pluralism. It challenges a pro-American narrative by focusing on the horrors of American history, including the exploitation of Native Americans, slavery, and persistent inequality disproportionately affecting historically disadvantaged groups. Those left behind by modernity and progress now seek recognition, restoration, and retribution via a politics of protest, and show little interest in building political organizations or institutions. We are currently living in a postmodern political moment of disruption, best described by author Helen Pluckrose in her Areo essay “How French Intellectuals Ruined the West: Postmodernism and its Impact, Explained”:
If we see modernity as the tearing down of structures of power including feudalism, the Church, patriarchy, and Empire, postmodernists are attempting to continue it, but their targets are now science, reason, humanism and liberalism. Consequently, the roots of postmodernism are inherently political and revolutionary, albeit in a destructive or, as they would term it, deconstructive way.
When we overlay Pew’s data with Wilber’s Value levels, six cultural political categories emerge: Traditional Left and Right, Modern Left and Right, and Postmodern Left and Right.
Traditional Left: Devout and Diverse
If you live in an urban bubble, you may not even recognize the Traditional Left. Pew identifies these Democrats as “Devout and Diverse,” mainly comprised of minorities. Pew describes them as “…fac[ing] the most difficult financial challenges among all Democratic categories.” They are “the most religiously observant Democratic-leaning group, and the only one in which a majority (64 percent) says it is necessary to believe in God to be moral and have good values… they have a strong support for the social safety net and further action on racial equality.” These Democrats don’t support gay rights or increasing immigration and, as Pew notes, “40 percent describe their own ideology as conservative.” They are the oldest of the Democratic voter groups and make up around six percent of all engaged voters.
Traditional Right: Country First
While the Devout and Diverse voters have almost no public profile in the media, the Traditional Right is perceived to be much larger than it is. Pew refers to them as “Country First” Republicans, who “fear America risks losing our identity as a nation.” They have largely negative views of scientists and artists, and are the most elderly of all typology groups. Primarily comprised of white men, they hold a generally favorable view of Trump and uniformly oppose same-sex marriage. They make up about six percent of all engaged voters.
While both Republicans and Democrats have socially conservative, anti-gay, anti-immigrant voters in roughly the same numbers, the social conservatives on the Right play a more prominent role in American politics, partly because they play a larger role in the GOP, and partly because the media like to highlight them to fit their own narrative. Based on their aging demographic, the traditional value level is unlikely to be as significant a force in future elections.
Modern Left: Opportunity Democrats
The Modern Left is best represented by Pew’s “Opportunity Democrats,” who are optimistic and pro-business. They believe “most people can get ahead if they are willing to work hard” to achieve the American Dream. Almost half of them say “most corporations make a fair and reasonable amount of profit.” They are primarily white, financially well off, and describe themselves as moderate. They are socially inclusive, liberal on immigration, and supportive of gay rights. They are also less likely to believe that blacks and women face structural barriers to advancement. Until recently, this group defined what it meant to be a Democrat, but they have lost their center of power. Today, they make up around 13 percent of all engaged voters.
Modern Right: Core Conservatives and New Era Enterprisers
Two different groups in Pew’s study represent Modern values among Republican voters. The larger and older of the two are called “Core Conservatives,” while the younger, smaller group Pew calls “New Era Enterprisers.” Both groups share modern values evidenced by their belief in the power of capitalism and democracy. Both believe in the power of the free market and the importance of America’s global leadership. Both remain optimistic about the possibilities afforded by the American Dream. They make up the 66 percent of Republicans who support the “Dreamers.” Their pro-immigration position is also confirmed in a Gallup report, which states that “… significantly more Republicans favor a path to citizenship than support building a border wall or deporting illegal immigrants.”
Core Conservatives are the largest Republican voter group. Made up of mostly white men, they enjoy the highest rates of home ownership of any voter group, and a majority believe that they’ve achieved the American Dream. They are the best educated of any Republican group, yet have the most negative attitudes toward the impact colleges have on our country. They are most likely to invest in the stock market and their most important issue is the economy. “Sixty-eight percent express a positive view of US involvement in the global economy ‘because it provides the US with new markets and opportunities for growth.’” In addition to their largely pro-free market and pro-immigration views, they have the most favorable view of Donald Trump among all voting groups. They represent 20 percent of all engaged voters.
New Era Enterprisers, meanwhile, are young, urban, and much more ethnically diverse. Pew points out that they are “strongly pro-business and generally think that immigrants strengthen, rather than burden, the country.” Innovation and entrepreneurship are most important to them. They are pro-immigration and pro-gay rights with the highest opinion of a role for government among any Republican group. Only a quarter of them self-identify as strong Republicans. They are the least supportive of Donald Trump among Republican groups, and the least likely to express negative attitudes toward the Democratic Party. They make up nine percent of all engaged voters.
Together these two modern Republican groups total 29 percent of engaged voters, and represent the center of power within the GOP.
Postmodern Left: Solid Liberals and Disaffected Democrats
The two Pew voting groups which make up the Postmodern Left are “Solid Liberals” and “Disaffected Democrats.” Both groups have negative views of capitalism and are concerned about America’s treatment of minority groups.
Solid Liberals is a bit of a misnomer as they tend to reject liberalism in its classical form. They are progressives who hold strongly negative views of businesses, question or reject the concept of the American Dream, and see the world through the lens of identity politics. They are mostly white, well-off, and well-educated, and they are the most secular voters found across voting groups. Ninety-seven percent strongly disapprove of Trump’s job performance. They are unlikely to have friends outside their political circle, and over half of this group would say “that a friendship would be strained if someone voted for Trump,” much higher than any other Democratic group. It isn’t just Trump they dislike. They are highly partisan in general and the least tolerant of Republicans among all Democrat groups. They are the largest engaged Democratic voting group and the largest of all voting groups in Pews voter typologies. They make up 25 percent of engaged voters.
Pew characterizes Disaffected Democrats as a “financially stressed, majority-minority group [that] supports activist government and the social safety net…” They are unhappy with America and their “disaffection stems from their cynicism about politics, government and the way things are going in the country. Disaffected Democrats would be the most likely to see the world through the lens of identity politics.”
A large majority of Disaffected Democrats say their side has been losing in politics, while fewer than half believe that voting gives them a say in how the government runs things, highlighting another hallmark of their beliefs: they have very little faith in the system.” They believe government has failed them and that, “poor people have hard lives because government benefits do not go far enough to help them live decently.” Unlike the white elite Postmodern Democrats, they often have lived in the same neighborhood their entire lives. They make up 11 percent of all engaged voters.
Together these two diverse progressive groups make up 36 percent of all engaged Democratic voters, which makes them the largest of any groups on the Left or Right. When pundits refer to the Democratic Party moving “leftwards” there are trying to capture this movement toward the postmodern level—the new center of gravity of cultural power on the American Left.
Postmodern Right: Market Skeptic Republicans
The group that is least understood in American politics is the Postmodern Right. While postmodernism on the Left focuses on the failure of modernity to address social justice in term of identity politics, the Postmodern Right questions the fundamental economic worldview of the Modern Right. In Pew’s survey, they show up as a new category named “Market Skeptic Republicans.”
Like those on the Postmodern Left, they share a strong skepticism of America exceptionalism, an overriding pessimism about the country, and they are critical of both political parties. They are the first ever “Republican-leaning group that is deeply skeptical of business and the fundamental fairness of the nation’s economic system.” They do not believe in lower taxes, which until recently defined the modern GOP, and they have an unfavorable view of banks and other financial institutions. Unlike other Republicans, Market Skeptic Republicans believe American capitalism is unfair, “an overwhelming share (94 percent) say the economic system unfairly favors powerful interests.”
The media often lumps them in as traditional conservatives because of their opposition to immigration. But that’s a mistake. They favor legal abortions in higher numbers than the Traditional Left Democrats, and they are the most secular of all Republican groups. They are also most interested in a white identity politics, mirroring those on the Left.
They are also the least loyal to the GOP. As Pew notes, “They stand out for their criticism of both political parties when it comes to caring about the middle class.” They hold a more favorable view of Donald Trump than most other Republican groups. Though not well known and ignored by the media, they are a larger voting group than the religious Right in the Republican Party, making up 10 percent of all engaged GOP voters.
Using Pew’s voter groups on an integral value map illuminates how polarization is causing divisions within, and well as between, America’s Left and Right. It also shows that the center of American politics has moved from a modern base which held the center of gravity for over a century to a new postmodern base. Today, the Democratic Party energy’s is centered at that postmodern level, while the center of the GOP remains modern.
Pews Voter Typologies By Cultural Worldview
| % engaged voters | % engaged voters | ||
| Postmodern Left | 36% | Postmodern Right | 10% |
| Modern Left | 13% | Modern Right | 29% |
| Traditional Left | 6% | Traditional Right | 6% |
What this Map Tells Us about the 2016 Election
In 2016, instead of hiring DC-based consultants, Donald Trump listened to conservative talk radio to plot his strategy. Just as a bat uses sonar, Trump bounces ideas off audiences and recalculates his path accordingly. He intuitively understood that the element unifying the different aspects of the Traditional and Modern Rights was their united opposition to the growing dominance of the urban elite, and the identity politics favored by the Postmodern Left. He exploited those tensions by aggravating them and antagonizing the mainstream media as a means of uniting the Right.
In addition, his post-truth worldview and ability to criticize establishment Republicans provided him with access to a new, postmodern Republican voting group—Market Skeptics. Writer David Ernst has argued in the Federalist that Trump is the first President to “turn postmodernism against itself,” because he grasped the postmodern idea of the anti-hero.
If politics flows downwards from culture, then it was only a matter of time before a politician mastered the role. Love him or hate him, Donald Trump cracked that code. Tony Soprano, Walter White, and Frank Underwood are just a few recent examples of the enormously popular characters who have, each in their own way, stood in for the role of the complicated bad guy who fascinates millions of Americans.
Clinton’s Loss
No one told Hillary Clinton that the political landscape in which she and her husband had learned politics had changed. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton successfully navigated the values divide between moderns and traditionalists by polling and then speaking successfully to both traditional and modern voters on the Left and center-Right. That’s not the political world Hillary inherited.
Neither she nor Bill are at home with the postmodern voters that are now the largest voting group in the Democrat coalition. Bill Clinton repeatedly proved to be a liability in the 2008 and 2016 races because he failed to understand the demands of the newly “woke” Democrat coalition. Hillary was a modern candidate in a postmodern party without the cultural translation skills she needed to communicate with progressives. Many of those progressives voted in unusually high numbers for Green party candidate Jill Stein or simply stayed home.
What to Expect in 2020
Trump will again seek to unite his coalition by goading the Postmodern Left. Though incumbents are usually judged by how they performed in office, Trump will try to make these opponents the focus of his 2020 campaign, just as he did in 2016. The more he’s scolded by the media, the better his chances will be of reuniting his coalition. However, this strategy risks losing New Era Entrepreneurs, and losing any voting group on the Right makes Trump’s re-election difficult.
Democratic primary voters, meanwhile, are becoming more postmodern. The pressure to move from the modern liberal to progressive postmodern worldview in the crowded primary field risks alienating modern Democrats. Worse, whoever wins the progressive primary will need to work hard to attract any modern voters in the center and on the Right. Though two aging straight white men lead the polls in the primary as of this writing, the reality of a postmodern base in the Democratic coalition doesn’t bode well for straight white male candidates, and offers new opportunities to candidates who are female, black, Latino, or gay.
The challenge for Republicans is that the Traditional Right voting block is aging out. The divisions around business and the role of government between Market Skeptic Republicans and Core Conservatives are as profound as—if not greater than—the divisions on the Left. Worse, their larger voting coalitions are demographically much older. Trump risks pushing the remaining younger entrepreneurial, ethnically diverse voters into the Democrat coalition.
There is, however, one bright spot in this chaos. According to Wilbur’s theory, a new “integral” value system is emerging that “transcends and includes” the best aspects of earlier value systems. Jordan Peterson’s popularity may be an early sign of this—while embracing aspects of tradition, science, and therapeutic culture, his message and best-selling book appear to be resonating.
If this marks an early shift towards integral values, such a move could put an end to our vicious culture wars as new leaders emerge with the ability to see multiple viewpoints and accommodate their contradictions. Understanding American politics will continue to be hard work. But only when we understand culture will we understand politics so that we can transform it for the better.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Ken Wilber’s name as Ken Wilbur. Quillette apologises for the error.
Rich Tafel is the director of the American Project at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. You can follow him on Twitter @richtafel
Featured pic courtesy of whitehouse.gov
Plenty of interesting material here, but I can’t agree with a lot of it. Right off the bat, the “Traditional Left” described here never existed. It is, at best, a self-flattering caricature from people for whom “diversity” meant “I get what I want!”
The key to post-Reagan US political migration is the Democrats’ embrace of Critical Race Theory and identity politics in general. This meant the wholesale declaration that everything Democrats don’t like is “whiteness”, and opposing is it required to avoid “racism”.
This has had a number of side-effects. First off, working-class white people have been driven out of the party. Democrats used to tell these people that they had their backs, particularly when their jobs were threatened by outsourcing. Now, Democrats say that white people have no problems and are simply enemies of all that is good, with their entire history being one of exploitation and oppression.
Many suffer firsthand at the hands of affirmative action and other racial politics. They grow up hearing Democrats’ rhetoric, but find it incompatible with their lived experiences. They backlash, sometimes violently, against a world that openly calls for their eradication. These comprise the “alt-right”.
Richer white people are more left-wing, because the intellectual masturbation of left-wing rhetoric strokes their sense of purpose, while the costs of Leftism are largely felt by poorer whites. Witness the extreme Leftism of Portland, Madison WI and Boulder CO, which are among the whitest cities of their size in the country, suffering far less urban crime or illegal alien presence than other areas.
Suburban, decently-off whites are led to believe that while they see little of the trouble Democrats try to scare them with in their own lives, disaster must surely be all around them (the TV said so!) Being increasingly well off, they have no greater political interests than to join the Democrats’ crusades.
But have “Left” and “Right” ceased to be? Not at all. Nor have they changed. The Left is still collectivist, still tribal. The Right is still individualist and prefers principle to tribe. The illusion of divergence from this dichotomy is a product of dishonest rhetoric.
The alt-Right, for example, is defined by its declaration that the Right inadequately fights the Left. It’s right in the name! It opts to fight the Left using left-wing tactics - tribalism at the expense of principle - because it feels threatened. In short, its basic psychology is the same as that of any other left-wing group.
But wait, how can the alt-Right be left-wing if it fights against the Left? The Left can’t fight the Left!
That’s the key mistake. Or rather, the key deliberate lie. Left-wing groups declare that anyone who fights them must be right-wing, no matter how contradictory that makes the Right appear to be (making the Right appear to be self-contradicting is a feature, not a bug!). But of course, left-wing groups can absolutely oppose each other. When Hillary ran against Obama, or against Bernie, did that make one side of those races right-wing? Not at all!
There is room in this world for an infinite number of tribal groups, because there are theoretically an infinite number of tribes. Even the world’s most famous left/right misclassification - the Nazis - is based on the notion that a group that ran against the communists must be right-wing, despite their tribal, state-focused, anti-individualist and anti-free-market politics!
Fighting the anti-white Left doesn’t make the alt-Right a right-wing group. Their tactics and principles make them a left-wing group; they just happen to be opposed to the other left-wing group. They are also a textbook example of one of the worst consequences of tribalism: backlash.
So what are American politics today? They are a bunch of tribal, collectivist groups (Leftists), trying desperately to unlearn every lesson of history, or in some cases simply fighting like hell with their backs against a wall. Then there remains the Right, which is ever-smaller in number and forced to vote alongside at least some of the tribalists (because there are tribalists on all sides, one cannot vote against all of them). But have Left and Right changed? Not at all.
As one of those new fangled “market skeptic republicans,” according to Pew, I offer the following observations about Pew’s categories:
It is going to be very easy for Trump’s re-election committee to frame Pew’s “solid liberals” as “stalinist/maoist anarchists” since that is what they seem to be.
Pew does not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration but Trump’s re-election committee is going to pound on this very point for all it’s worth. Accordingly, pay close attention to how, over the next year, Trump uses the free hand the Supreme Court just gave his administration when it comes to dealing with refugee claims for asylum that do not involve Mexicans or Canadians. I think we got a hint last week when Trump denied temporary residence status to the people in the Bahamas.
In general Pew is very reliable but their polls are usually 5 years behind the curve because of the way they choose to frame their questions; particularly their questions on immigration, civil rights and religion. I also think they have a tendency to over sample people like themselves; educated solid liberals.
As for myself, if I get the chance I’ll vote for Gabbard or Trump but I will never vote for any of the Democrats currently flying their freak flags on CNN.
Very well written bi-partisan article. However regarding the 2020 election, winning has nothing to do with Trump appealing to this group, Democrats alienating that group of visa versa. If Trump holds all the states he won in 2016, he wins. If Trump loses some states he won in 2016 but replaces them with sufficient electoral votes from other states he had not previously won, he wins. The election has nothing to do with popular vote totals. If the Democrat nominee wins 1 million more votes in California than Hillary did but still loses all the same states as Hillary, that candidate loses. If Trump or the Democratic nominee attract a third party rival, that person most likely loses. If the Democrats hope to win in 2020 they had better devise a strategy that deprives Trump of STATES he won in 2016.
In that case, I have to wonder whether you’re being overly generous in describing them as “very” reliable.
I consider Pew to be less unreliable than some, but that’s faint praise, indeed.
Expanding on the subject of differing left-wing groups:
It is common for many contemporary observers to speak of “Left” and “Right” as something other than “collectivist” and “individualist”. Usually, the partisanship of these speakers shows through in the form of obvious contempt for one side of their classification system. For example, most left-wing groups define anything remotely Christian as right-wing, regardless of the nature of the thing, and similarly try to claim any and all alternative sexual lifestyles as left-wing. These classifications are frustrated by both socialist-leaning Christians and people like Milo Yiannopoulos, because they are simply not workable.
Most libertarians use this political classification system:
The above is an oversimplification. A drastic one. It imagines that one can use either authoritarian or libertarian means to achieve one’s aims, but one’s aims must be either “left” or “right”. What absurdity, to suggest that there are only two sets of goals in the world!
To make the libertarian axis accurate, its X axis would need to be replaced with infinite dimensions. Libertarians tend to know this, but they are unfortunately wedded to their need to say “The Left and Right are both equally awful, and we’re above the fray!” This nonsense claim tends to trump their principles when push comes to shove, which is why I say that the biggest problem with libertarianism is libertarians (I actually like the principles quite a lot).
Leftists also struggle against the existence of many potential policy goal sets, which is why they do the aforementioned misclassification (Christian == right!) and why they invented “intersectionalism”, whereby people with plainly competing interests are brow-beaten into holding hands and hating Republicans together.
The only group not struggling to process the many competing goal sets into their political ideology is the only group that doesn’t tolerate moral relativism and “subjective truth”: the Right. Having definitionally rejected tribalism, the Right has no mechanism for making decisions except principle, which requires it to have principles. A right-wing person can’t say “I prefer this person over that person because of his skin color”, else he would be a tribal Leftist. He must establish criteria: “I prefer A over B because A supports my principle and B opposes it.”
Note how easy it is to pretend that adherence to principle IS tribalism by defining “sharers of a principle” as a tribe. This sophistry is also common today, used as a tool for disregarding the moral differences between ideologies (more moral relativism!) The leading voices in today’s Democratic Party speak as if everyone is tribal and the only difference is whether they support the bad tribe (whiteness!) or the good tribe (anything else). To paraphrase William F Buckley, they don’t understand that there ARE other perspectives.
The last two are redundant.
Perhaps the real divide is between those who want to preserve the system that brought us the incredible, if imperfect, prosperity that we have today, versus those who want to throw out the entire system in an effort to correct the imperfections.
The Sanders/Warren wing of the Democratic Party and the entire current Republican Party seem to fall into the later camp, though coming at it from different angles. The Sanders/Warren gang want to throw out the economic system, while the Republicans want to (and are) trashing the political system.
The large plurality of Democrats who continue to support Biden seem to be the only ones who want to correct the imperfections, but do so within the systems we have. They seem to intuitively realize that throwing out the political and/or economic systems we have will likely result in disaster—it won’t correct the imperfections, while risking the prosperity that we take for granted.
Democrats want to throw out the EC and pack the SCOTUS, and you say Republicans want to trash the political system that brought America prosperity? How, exactly?
I have my own Three Peoples theory: Subordinates, Responsibles, and Creatives. But the problem is the Creatives, your Postmoderns. They think that all Subordinates are helpless victims and all Responsibles are racist sexist homophobes. There is a word for this: unjust.
What America needs is for the Creatives – who believe in a creative life for themselves, but subordinate obedience for Responsibles – to grow up and realize, as with Wilber’s Integrals, that there are other people in the world besides them and their helpless victim clients.
Another way to understand the three groups is through their gods. The god of the Subordinates is their earthly lord or political boss; the god of the Responsibles is the Axial Age God that made the world and told humans to get on with it, in accordance with his Law. The Creatives believe that they are the gods, creating the world as they go.
Fair point, the Democrats hardly epitomize respect for the system.
But whatever can be said about the Democrats, at least they have not degenerated into a personality cult like the Republicans have.
For a moment, when I read “personality cult”, I assumed you were referring to Saint Obama. Then I saw that you’d written the word “Republican”.
Surely you can’t be thinking of Trump. People support him because he’s not a Democrat, not because they think he’s a moral figure.
Well, I am a small “r” republican and over the last generation unregulated financial markets have done considerable damage everywhere in the West. Also, I just can’t see how debt to infinity is the high road to a stable, prosperous future.
Unregulated financial markets? Surely you’re not talking about the housing bust, which was caused by regulation. And debt-to-infinity is Keynesian, which is antithetical to free markets.
Great article. I would have liked to have seen some form of oppositional matrix of the antagonisms between the various groups, because these days who you vote for is more defined by who you oppose, than who you support.
In this vein, I believe that in 2020, we will see yet another ‘Brexit effect’ take place, in which many people vote for Trump, secretly. This is probably the reason why Facebook and Google have been moving to restrict recommendations for independent content creators in the political sphere- because they realise that only the standard media dichotomy of Fox versus CNN and MSNBC, can hope to redress this change in voter demographics and knowledge. They are going batshit crazy about the fact that a significant portion of swing voters find the types of things ‘The Squad’ like to say, more alarming than Trump.
To put it another way, the Postmodern Left are scaring the crap out of everyone else.
One heartening thing I’m observing about destructive elements in both the left and the right, is that they are increasingly exclusionary. You cannot be accepted by either group if your ideology differs from theirs, even slightly. Of course, the far left is much more influential than the far right, it has a sympathetic ear in the media. But, this doesn’t translate into power very well, because the levers of power, courts, police, military, are disliked by the left, even after a concerted effort to corrupt the justice system it still comes down on the “wrong side of history” too often. The kangaroo ‘human rights’ courts are ridiculous, and unlikely to survive much longer given the scrutiny they are getting.
One example I can give you, in the mid-sized, generally ‘progressive’ Canadian city I live in, the police have angered the left by not prosecuting and persecuting groups that disagree with abortion, gay rights, and immigration AKA “Hate groups” so they have rejected police presence in the latest ‘Take Back The Night’ march and so were confined to an easily avoidable park instead of disrupting traffic! They are so deluded that this is offered up as an example of WINNING, which is hilarious.