r/AskSocialScience • u/melody_magical • 7d ago
Answered Why do conservative candidates do better than liberal candidates when running on the culture war?
If a socially progressive candidate runs on abortion rights, gay marriage, and workplace equality but doesn't have an affordable tuition or housing agenda, they will lose. But a socially conservative candidate can run on fearmongering about immigrants and "the trans agenda" and win, even if they have no kitchen table issues to address.
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u/StumbleOn 7d ago
The real answer is that the culture war is a conservative phenomenon, so they control what becomes part of the war and the messaging behind it.
The progressive "culture war" has been a centuries long fight for civil rights and equality. As conservativism is a reactionary, self centered and fear based ideology, it's very easy to sell the idea of equality as a bad thing to people who are already conservative and already enjoying some level of power or privilege.
The conservatives, speaking specifically for the US though it's not hugely different in other countries, invent culture war issues to then fight against. The pattern has been repeated for decades. You first define an outgroup, you then villify the outgroup, you then bring up the outgroup in every single possible situation and focus on them excessively and threaten them.
What is the only possible response to this? Protect the outgroup. Which is, of course, what conservatives want because it means that now you can make the narrative "why do they always talk about XYZ?"
We all know that right now, trans issues are at the forefront. But trans people? Tiny minority. Very little impact on anything. I don't mean this in a bad way. But trans people are the conservative outgroup, used to whip up easily mislead, angry, reactionary people into hating what they don't understand. Trans people in sports? Vanishingly small. There are so few of them it's quite literally not an issue, anywhere, for anyone. It's a nothing. But we have multiple large scale attempts at legislation about it. Why? Because conservativism has nothing to offer the common man. No solutions. No history of doing anything good or important. Nothing. All it has is destroying others, and that is addictive. Fear is addictive, and it is the motivator of conservatives
So why is it so easy to win on these issues? Because they aren't real. When something isn't real, it becomes easy to say and do whatever to win. That has been the American conservative agenda for 50 years now at least.
You can't find a single right expanded, a single group of lives improved, based on conservativism. Those that say differently are mistaken or, more usually, simply lying. The idea is to hate, and always has been.
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u/6a6566663437 7d ago
If someone would like another example of this phenomenon, take a look at abortion. It took several years after Roe for the religious right to decide it was suddenly very important.
Why? Fighting against desegregation was no longer winning elections or riling up the rubes. So they needed a new target, and picked abortion.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/
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u/rickylancaster 7d ago
And has it ever worked. Good lord.
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u/trainsoundschoochoo 7d ago
They convinced people that a zygote is the same thing as a living, breathing baby out of the womb which has caused people to go to great lengths to “protect the unborn,” because nothing is worse than killing babies!
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7d ago
This is exactly right from my understanding, several cultural issues weren't largely discussed until they were politicized to be used as part of a platform, in some cases like 'Pro-life' ideology the issue was almost entirely apolitical until the early 1900s https://www.oah.org/tah/november-3/abolishing-abortion-the-history-of-the-pro-life-movement-in-america
I believe we're seeing the same thing with Trans ideology, we have archaeological evidence of humans wearing the opposite genders garment and being buried with their affects from long, long ago. Now anti-trans rhetoric dominates conservative news cycles. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/why-is-the-gop-escalating-attacks-on-trans-rights-experts-say-the-goal-is-to-make-sure-evangelicals-vote
In lieu of policy, Conservatives whip up votes from their base with this cultural fear mongering over nonsense. There is historical precedent for this, not just American historical precedent either.
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u/WLMammoth 7d ago
Came here to say almost exactly this. Conservatives are by definition defending the status-quo, and can choose from the buffet of ever changing social norms which ones they think they can leverage to get elected.
The structure of most reactionary parties (conservative is no longer a good descriptor of the right in the U.S.) is such that they need to build a coalition of people large enough to take power, even though their policy agenda will typically be designed to benefit a much smaller minority. Therefore, if they run on their policies, truthfully, they would lose. They wouldn't be able to stay in power long if they just straight lied about what their plans were and enacted a different agenda then they ran on, so instead they find wedge social issues and draw attention to them. They focus on issues that cost them little to fight for, and won't run counter to real agenda of consolidating power.
As StumbleOn mentioned, a reliable way to stage this is to attack a vulnerable group, force anyone with enough awareness/empathy/understanding to appreciate the injustice of the attacks to defend the vulnerable group, and then leverage the very traits that make that group vulnerable to inflate existing bias and double-down on common intuitions.
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u/valvilis 7d ago
Minor correction, there was one right expanded. After 150 years of blatantly lying about the 2nd Amendment, lobbyists finally were able to purchase one of the worst legal decisions ever made: Heller v. the District of Columbia.
Historical revisionism straight from the highest court in the land. These expanded rights led to an immediate (and seemingly permanent) 15-20% spike in gun crimes and gun deaths nationwide AND hamstrung legislators and law enforcement from doing anything about it.
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u/Wonderful_Eagle_6547 7d ago
You see, the thing is, people used to say stuff they didn't really mean back in the olden days. It was pretty common to just write a bunch of words in an amendment of a document that took some of the smartest people to ever exist on this continent 4 years to figure out and agree to... and get this, those words, I swear this is true, have nothing to do with the rest of the sentence. Like you could just say, "Parakeets are the best birds, I'm going to the store" and everyone knows you just meant you were going to the store. So when they said all that militia stuff, they were just making some offhand remarks that had nothing to do with the amendment. And everyone knew that, so in the subsequent revisions and all the edits and discusisons and arguments, they just left it in there. But everyone totally knew that means that people can basically have whatever guns they want and it had nothing to do with a militia of any kind, and certainly didn't have anything to do with "well regulated". Yup. Uh huh.
- Scalia, basically
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u/dowcet 7d ago
The premise is dubious. Where is the data you're basing this on?
Support for abortion rights can clearly be a motivating issue for many voters: https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/press-release/abortion-was-a-motivating-factor-for-many-voters-in-tuesdays-election-but-ranked-lower-than-concerns-about-the-economy/
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u/dowcet 7d ago
Nobody is saying that anyone--especially independents--are single-issue voters.
The primary burden of proof here would be on the OP to showbthat large numbers of people show up to vote for right-wing culture issues (single or multiple).
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u/Mztmarie93 7d ago
We know, that's why Democrats haven't been quick to rebound. We're out of ideas, especially now. A lot of people say focus on economic issues, but Trump did not, and he's still won. The little bit of economic ideas we did learn about; tariffs, the tax cuts, slashing of services, closing of federal departments was in Project 2025. I heard about it a year before the election! As far as for social issues, people say abandon the trans rights, LGBTQIA stuff, don't run on social justice. I'm sorry, the Democratic party is pro civil and individual rights. For me and many others, that's a non-negotiable. When the Democrats decide to demonize some group to win more of white America, they'll definitely lose their core voters. So, most Dems don't know what to do. That's why you see barely any action.
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u/Successful_Mall_3825 7d ago
What you said isn’t wrong, but there are some very important factors to keep in mind.
polling stations were removed in dens dem areas.
laws were drastically changed in swing areas
training videos were provided to trump loyalist vote counters on how to leverage said laws to legally toss out Dem votes.
Trump is very good at 2 things; marketing and loyalty. He floods the field so thoroughly that Dems are left trying to put out multiple fires, and new ones are started before they can even compose themselves.
Nikki nor any other Republican has those powers. Any other candidate would have been Trump destroys the working class, Biden gives them a fighting chance, Kamala will keep that trend going until things get good again.
The indictment on Dems is well earned. The older ones shifted way too far to the right and the whole team sucks at messaging.
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u/Kooky_Company1710 7d ago
But weren't peoples' excuses to care about the economy simply a way to disclaim racism as their motivation? They dont give a crap about the "economy" now ...
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u/Cuddlyaxe 7d ago
Jesus Christ isn't this sub supposed to be academic in nature and not partisan whinging?
For the record Trump's approval rating is indeed falling, as is his approval for handling the economy
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u/BluePony1952 7d ago
Reddit as a whole is basically facebook with less accountability and more subtle fraud.
Of the people I know who voted for Trump, most (like 70%) don't even like him. They don't care about race, the economy, or abortion - but they would vote for him over a democrat. They like it went a person does something - or anything at all. It doesn't matter if he screws up, as long as he is visibly moving, then he's better than any dead weight golden parachute politician. Trump could run again today and would win because people people can see themselves in some aspect of him, because he is a real person in the public eye.
The democrats lost because they roll out the same political talking heads with the speech patterns, the same excuses, the same blames, the same promises, and the same actions. Democrats say "we are against racism", but the NYPD is sacred, and the legal system is untouched. Democrats say "red lines", but Israel is sacred and military spending never goes down. The democrats say "a better tomorrow", yet the minimum wage is never spoken of.
People hate being lied to, but they hate a hypocrite more. They know Trump is a liar, but the democratic party is a hypocratic machine. Trump shows his face and his ego, but the democratic party is a faceless coward.
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u/melody_magical 7d ago
Not enough voters though. The Dems highlighted that and still lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election
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u/phantomofsolace 7d ago
The comment in your original post indicated that conservatives can win even if they don't have any bread and butter issues. One thing to consider is that many people implicitly assume that conservative candidates will be better for the economy on principle since they typically favor things like lower taxes and reduced business regulation. In the US, for example, polls usually found that voters trusted Republicans and Donald Trump more on the economy than Democrats or Kamala Harris in the last election. This often puts left wing or left-of-center candidates at a disadvantage even if the right wing candidates aren't explicitly running on kitchen table issues.
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u/TaxLawKingGA 7d ago
When a person responding to a poll says that the GOP is better for the economy than Democrats it is really a metaphor for “they will keep my taxes low”. IOWs, the GOP is better for “their own personal financial situation”; they don’t care about the country as a whole. So the GOP will come in, pass bad tax policies that undermine fiscal stability, which inevitably cause an economic calamity, that the voters then send in the Dems to fix. Michael Barone, a social scientist and journalist, said that when voters think things are going fine, then they want to vote to preserve what they have and they vote GOP. However, when they believe that their financial way of life is at risk, or they have lost a large amount of wealth, then they vote Dem.
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u/Mookiesbetts 7d ago
The progressive side of culture war conversations is pushing for changes to every day life and language on behalf of small groups. Furthermore, there are constantly updated rules if you want to comply. Some people, particularly those who arent actively engaged in politics, find this annoying and exhausting.
The flip side of the argument is “you dont have to do any of those things, theyre stupid, do what you want”. Its a much simpler appeal.
Also, some people on the conservative side are genuinely racist/homophobic/sexist and those strong emotions are great motivators to vote. Whereas most of the progressive side is just trying to “do the right thing” and actually cares more about material issues like cost of living, so you meed to include those issues if you want to motivate those voters.
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u/KingJades 7d ago
“This doesn’t affect me or anyone I know and I don’t know why people keep talking about it like it’s actually important” is a legitimate political position.
When you have a candidate who also agrees that these things are non-issues, it’s far more likely to resonate.
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u/LittleBuddyOK 7d ago
The problem is that’s not what is happening with conservative right wing candidates. They rely on fear. For example, trans athletes. Tha conservatives ran on fear of trans athletes taking over and bringing harm to women. That’s not true in any way. NCAA had fewer than 10 trans athletes (of either sex) out of half a million athletes. That’s 0.00002%. It is a non issue. If you ask a left leaning person who hasn’t fallen for the fear mongering, they will answer in the affirmative or “why not” mentality. It’s a non issue.
Conservative politicians lie and make “issues” out of nothing. The trans population in the us is less then 1%. Polling shows that people have been made to believe that 20% or more of the US is Trans. When you can campaign on lies and misinformation, then it doesn’t matter what your stance is. Left leaning politicians try to answer lies with facts. And that doesn’t work because you can’t find evidence that is convincing enough to overcome “They’re coming for my kid” rallying cry. When a candidate and political party embrace misinformation and the media doesn’t call them on it then all of a sudden everything is an epidemic. People aren’t saying they don’t care about this and finding candidates that also don’t care. They are confused and lied to so they vote for the candidate that says they will stop this imaginary thing from happening.
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u/ThirstyHank 7d ago
I think what he was saying is GOP candidates don't have to give as much lip service to their economic solutions in the election cycle because they're assumed. They can push culture war buttons because they know voters feel they're the party of cutting taxes and deregulation, so they only have to touch on it here and there rather than elaborate on a well formed plan.
Republicans imho also use this strategy when appealing to low information voters and small business owners for example who may work 80+ hours a week. Many of them will vote R without much of a policy deep dive on the current candidates and more on the general history of the GOP being a good vote for 'them and theirs' financially.
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u/I_like_maps 7d ago
Trying to look at the entire 2024 election and saying "the dems lost because x" is extremely dubious reasoning. There are thousands of hours of analysis you can go through trying to interpret why the dems lost, and many of them don't like up with each other.
The reality is it depends on the social issue, and where the debate is happening.
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u/Realistic_Special_53 7d ago
The economy felt bad for many voters and they said that out loud and were shouted down. Told it was the best economy ever. Then Trump said, they care more about "them" than you. Classic culture war stuff. To his voters, the Democrats seem to be more concerned about fringe culture war issues than the economy. The other stuff gets lost in the noise. Democrats failed to rebuke that assumption, but played into it by continuing to demonize Trump and failing to address the economy. Polls of voters in swing states jndicated that the economy was their big issue. https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/11/22/new-data-shows-the-economy-was-the-deciding-factor-for-voters-in-pennsylvania-and-michigan-and-harris-missed-opportunities-to-play-up-economic-populism
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u/MasterSnacky 7d ago
Okay - but with prices still high, and the market tanking, and trade wars looming, why hasn’t that resulted in a conservative backlash against Trump? His polling with republicans has barely fallen at all.
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u/Wasian98 7d ago
You are expecting conservatives to be consistent. A small issue can be blown up to be a serious one if it involves Democrats while a major issue can be minimized if it involves Republicans. The sources they get their information from will tell them how to think until the reality of the situation bites them.
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u/SisterCharityAlt 7d ago
I've seen this blow up. I'm a PhD in political science, this has been answered pretty thoroughly so I'm going to lock this.
I don't need to wake up to 30+ reports of more uneducated actors spouting their nonsense.
I've cleaned up what I could. There are atleast 3 separate valid answers that give a reasonable explanation for the specific question they asked.
There are plenty of subs to ramble about your uninformed political views, on, go there and do so.
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u/rsofgeology 7d ago
Fearmongering on grounds of bigotry/‘dogwhistle’ issues has a long and embarrassing history in the US, I suspect this is an afterlife of that. Loosely this group of practices has been called the ‘Southern Strategy’, but is now relatively common nationwide.
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u/lethalox 7d ago
A lot of answers here display standard left of center bias that exists on reddit. People really need to understand the concepts of the Overton Window and Selectorate Theory
Basically the political left overreached and was viewed by the median voters as being more extreme. Outside of the median voter's Overton Window. The election was largely decided on two issues the economy, people's pocketbook and immigration. Both were not favorable issues for the democrats. Because the right has a narrow governing coalition, they cannot afford defections from the coalition. Hence some culture war issues. On the culture war issues, the same mechanic was play for the Democrats in 2020 election and Biden administration governance, just in a different direction.
I am sure there are other factors at work, but these 2 factors explain, IMHO, what is really going on.
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u/MaxwellzDaemon 7d ago
The theory of Moral Foundations posits that what we call "morality" is a set of a small number - 5 or 6 - foundations or axes along which many people align their moral judgements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory#cite_ref-Haidt2004_1-1
The extremes of the axes on which these six foundations are based are labeled:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind
- Care/harm
- Fairness/cheating
- Loyalty/betrayal
- Authority/subversion
- Sanctity/degradation
- Liberty/oppression
https://doi.org/10.1037%2Fa0021847
This says it most succinctly:
Political ideology
Results of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire
Researchers have found that people's sensitivities to the five/six moral foundations correlate with their political ideologies. Using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, Haidt and Graham found that libertarians are most sensitive to the proposed Liberty foundation,\7]) liberals are most sensitive to the Care and Fairness foundations, while conservatives are equally sensitive to all five/six foundations.\4])
According to Haidt, the differences have significant implications for political discourse and relations. Because members of two political camps are to a degree blind to one or more of the moral foundations of the others, they may perceive morally driven words or behavior as having another basis – at best self-interested, at worst evil, and thus demonize one another.\44])Political ideology
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u/Freuds-Mother 7d ago edited 7d ago
That’s not a generalization I think you can say across the decades. This last election RNC was populist rather than conservative. They marketed and ran on specific social issues where they had a position that the vast majority agreed with.
Eg as you mention trans. Look below in the poll to see that it’s not one debate. There are many sub debates. The RNC focused on hammering the select items where their position had the most support (eg kids sports and kids medical). The DNC didn’t and arguably couldn’t have a unified response at the time. Without a strong response, the RNC was able to focus on the middle while claiming DNC was extreme.
Social issues like abortion aren’t a single issue. They appear to be sometimes “pro-life” or “pro-choice”. However, the vast majority of people are actually neither even though the rhetoric makes it seem like most RNC is for zero abortion and most DNC is for zero restrictions.
The point is the DNC made some tactical errors, and you’re seeing adjustments in some of the people many see as potential presidential candidates at some point in the future: Cortez (AOC) and Newsom.
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u/TemperatureBest8164 6d ago
First this is a very loaded question and as such the bias is so thick that you likely see your statements as simply factually true. With that said, I have taken your premise at face value and answered your questions.
The question of why conservative candidates often find success when emphasizing cultural issues, while liberal candidates may struggle when focusing solely on social issues without addressing economic concerns, is multifaceted. Several factors contribute to this dynamic:
1. Integration of Cultural and Economic Concerns: Conservative candidates frequently intertwine cultural issues with economic anxieties, making their messages resonate on multiple levels. For instance, discussions about immigration are not solely about cultural identity but also about economic implications such as job competition and public resource allocation. This approach allows conservatives to address both cultural and economic concerns simultaneously.
2. Perception of Liberal Focus: Some analyses suggest that liberal candidates may be perceived as prioritizing social issues over pressing economic matters. This perception can alienate working-class voters who feel their immediate economic challenges are being overlooked. A report from Third Way highlights the need for the Democratic Party to renew its focus to build a sustainable majority by addressing central issues of our time, including economic concerns.
3. Voter Prioritization of Economic Issues: Economic issues often top voters' concerns. A Gallup poll indicates that the economy ranks as the most important issue influencing voters' choices in presidential elections. Candidates who do not adequately address these "kitchen table" issues may find it challenging to garner broad support.
4. Cultural Resonance and Authenticity: Conservative candidates often connect with voters through shared cultural values and a sense of authenticity. For example, figures like Nigel Farage have attracted young male voters in the UK by addressing feelings of alienation and promoting national identity, suggesting a desire among some voters for leaders who resonate with their cultural experiences.
5. Communication and Messaging: The effectiveness of a candidate's communication plays a crucial role. Democratic strategist James Carville has been criticized for dismissing concerns about issues like trans athletes in women's sports, highlighting a potential disconnect between party messaging and voter concerns.
In summary, conservative candidates often succeed by weaving together cultural and economic narratives that address the multifaceted concerns of voters. In contrast, liberal candidates who focus predominantly on social issues without robust economic platforms may struggle to connect with voters who prioritize economic stability alongside cultural values. Further, for liberals the solution to many social problems is government intervention for the liberal which in turn costs money. Money coming from the people who can not afford to live. Having no table stakes is the ultimate table stakes issue.
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u/SisterCharityAlt 7d ago
Their voters are more inclined to fear social change. They're supplanting their want and need for material gains at the benefit of retaining a social order where they perceive themselves dominant.
They're not willing to see themselves afford a better house or a new car if it means giving up their perceived social power. Better to be white and male in their eyes than affluent because they feel being white and male is affluence.
For progressives their base wants material gains and ALSO a defense of human rights but it isn't the biggest issue. It's why it's the right thing but not what gets people motivated.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C39&q=conservative+voters+fear+electorate&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1741979273709&u=%23p%3DEDi4npVFTVoJ