How inequality and white identity politics feed each other

Aug 6, 2020

Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, political scientists and co-authors of "Let Them Eat Tweets," delve into the symbiotic relationship between inequality and the Republican Party. They argue that as economic disparity grows, the GOP resorts to identity politics and undermines democracy to maintain support among both elites and downscale white voters. The conversation highlights how these dynamics shape political strategies, the struggles within party coalitions, and the implications for American democracy amid changing demographics.

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INSIGHT

White Backlash and the Plutocratic Agenda

The Republican Party's embrace of white backlash is driven by the need to advance an unpopular plutocratic agenda.
It is a causal relationship, not merely a coincidental coalition.

INSIGHT

A Tense Alliance

The plutocratic and populist factions of the Republican Party are in a tense alliance, not a purposeful strategy.
Plutocrats tolerate the social division agenda to achieve economic goals.

INSIGHT

Awkward Coalition

The Republican Party represents an awkward coalition of conflicting interests.
This tension is exemplified by Trump's populist rhetoric and economically conservative governance.

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Conservative parties operating in modern democracies face a dilemma: How does a party that represents the interests of moneyed elites win mass support? The dilemma sharpens as inequality widens — the more the haves have, the more have-nots there are who want to tax them.

In their new book, Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality, political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson argue that three paths are possible: Moderate on economics, activate social divisions, or undermine democracy itself. The Republican Party, they hold, has chosen a mix of two and three. “To advance an unpopular plutocratic agenda, Republicans have escalated white backlash — and, increasingly, undermined democracy,” they write.

On some level, it’s obvious that the GOP is a coalition between wealthy donors who want tax cuts and regulatory favors, and downscale whites who fear demographic change and want Trump to build that wall. But how does that coalition work? What happens when one side gains too much power? If the donor class was somehow raptured out of politics, would the result be a Republican Party that trafficked less in social division, or more? And has the threat of strongman rule distracted us from the growing reality of minoritarian rule?

In this conversation, we discuss how inequality has remade the Republican Party, the complex relationship between white identity politics and plutocratic economics, what to make of the growing crop of GOP leaders who want to abandon tax cuts for the rich and recenter the party around ethnonationalism, how much power Republican voters have over their party, and much more.

Paul Pierson's book recommendations:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

Evicted by Matthew Desmond

The Social Limits to Growth by Fred Hirsch

Jacob Hacker's book recommendations:

Tocqueville's Discovery of America by Leo Damrosch

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Internationalists by Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro

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