The Party That Forgot Its Base
How the GOP has failed white America
For decades, white Americans have voted Republican in large numbers. They donate, they volunteer, they show up in midterms. They defend the Constitution, talk about free speech, wave the flag without embarrassment. They are, by every measurable standard, the party’s backbone. And yet, if you look closely, something strange has happened. The Republican Party has built an entire political identity around defending “fairness”, “colorblindness”, and “American values”. But when you examine the actual results of its strategies, one question keeps surfacing: who, exactly, is being defended?
Take affirmative action. For years, Republicans denounced it (rightfully) as discriminatory.1 They framed it as a moral outrage against meritocracy. But when they made their case publicly, they rarely spoke about discrimination against white applicants. Instead, they foregrounded Asians as the primary victims. The charitable interpretation is that this was strategic: argue on universal principles, avoid language that sounds like racial self-interest, and once race-based preferences are dismantled, everyone benefits equally. A colorblind system emerges. Merit wins. But in the end, the outcomes didn’t follow.
After Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, elite admissions did not suddenly become purely race-neutral in spirit. The Asian share rose dramatically. Black and Hispanic shares remained stable. White representation declined. As Helen Andrews noted:
Since the ruling was issued, the share of Asians in Harvard’s freshmen class has gone up, from 26 percent of the class of 2025 to 41 percent of the class of 2029, but the share of whites has gone down. White students were 47 percent of freshmen in the class of 2025 and approximately 31 percent of the classes of 2028 and 2029 (Harvard published percentages for every race but white for those years, and 8 percent of each class reported no race, making the white share a matter of inference). Black and Latino shares have stayed roughly the same, with small fluctuations.
So Harvard did not stop discriminating by race, it simply stopped doing so against Asians. Affirmative action continues, but now it is entirely at the expense of one race instead of two.
Harvard’s own internal modeling had suggested that in a truly preference-free system, whites would’ve comprised a slight majority of admits.
Instead of the colorblind meritocracy Republicans so desired, what we got instead was selective recalibration.
There’s another uncomfortable data point: nonblack Democrats2 show ambivalence and reluctance toward affirmative action when told it disadvantages Asian Americans. But when the same policy is framed as disadvantaging white Americans, support remains strong.
In other words, the coalition that supports race-based preferences does not oppose it as a general principle when framed as disadvantaging other groups. It adjusts its moral rhetoric based on the group affected. But worse yet, this strategy of using Asians as a political shield to achieve policy reforms is a bizarre internalization of the notion that Asians are “white-adjacent” on the part of Republicans. The reality is that Asians themselves want nothing to do with being associated with white people, considering that they see themselves as being more similar to people of color than to white Americans.
Given this then, the Republican strategy of shielding behind Asian plaintiffs to restore universal colorblindness was always naïve. It assumed that the other side shared the same end goal. It assumed good faith symmetry in a system built on asymmetry. That assumption failed, and the cost was borne by the party’s own base.
In a paper by Petsko & Kteily (2023), political dehumanization was measured along two axes: viewing opponents as “immature” versus viewing them as “savage”. Conservatives tended to see liberals as immature, whereas liberals were more likely to view conservatives as savage. Both sides roughly understood how the other perceived them. But here is the imbalance: liberals overestimated how much conservatives dehumanized them, while conservatives underestimated how much liberals dehumanized them. Additionally, the absolute level of dehumanization flowed more strongly from left to right than the reverse.
Another paper, Casey et al. (2023), conducted four studies and found a similar asymmetry in empathy. In both the U.S. and U.K., liberals were less likely than conservatives to extend empathy toward the suffering of political opponents. They judged opponents’ moral character more harshly and were more inclined to view them as actively harmful. These patterns held regardless of which party was in power and they were not explained by perceived dominance.
Consider what that means. One side tends to interpret those who disagree with them as lacking maturity. The other is more likely to interpret it as a moral threat. One side assumes bad judgment. The other assumes bad character. And crucially, the side that assumes bad judgment also tends to underestimate how much it is despised.
There is something admirable about extending the benefit of the doubt. About refusing to demonize fellow citizens. About believing that most disagreements are misunderstandings rather than malice. But politics is not a monastery. It is a zero-sum contest of interests. If one coalition systematically views the other as morally dangerous, and the other coalition systematically views its opponents as merely mistaken, the result is predictable. One side mobilizes with urgency. The other side moderates itself. And that pattern maps uncomfortably onto the broader Republican approach to race and identity.
If conservatives are inclined to assume that calls for race-based policy are rooted in good faith concerns about fairness, they will approach those debates cautiously. If their opponents view conservative racial neutrality as evidence of moral harm, they will not reciprocate that caution. If you assume that racial resentment is merely a request for inclusion, you will not anticipate demands for structural transformation and national debasement. If you assume goodwill while your opponents assume danger, you will always negotiate from behind. And if the voters most attached to the country’s existing framework are also the ones whose representatives are most inclined toward charitable interpretation, then it should not be surprising that they are being left increasingly unprotected.
The Republican Party speaks the language of race-neutral individualism. Judge people as individuals. Stop obsessing over identity. We’re all Americans. But it only works if it’s reciprocated. And it hasn’t been:
Survey data also shows that white Americans—across political lines—are more likely to say being “American” is central to their identity than being “white”.
For black Americans, racial identity ranks higher. For Hispanic and Asian Americans, race and “American” identity are roughly equal.
And this pattern persists across generations. It is not simply a first-generation immigrant phenomenon that dissolves over time. The idea that assimilation is rapid and automatic is false and overly generous (though that’s a longer conversation for another time).3
The practical implication is simple: if one group plays politics as individuals while others organize partly as identity blocs, the outcome is predictable. Restraint is admirable in principle, but if its advocates are not willing to adjust based on the existing reality they’re in, the practical outcome is surrender. Colorblindness is not a magic incantation. It is a social contract. And a contract requires multiple signatories. But the only signatory to this contract has been whites.
In recent experimental research on sentencing and pardoning decisions, white Republicans were the only demographic group that showed no measurable racial bias when evaluating black and white defendants. By contrast, white Democrats, black Democrats, and even black Republicans displayed significant anti-white/pro-black bias in their judgments.
For years, Republicans have insisted that their approach to race is principled: treat everyone the same under the law. But in this case, the data suggested that just one group in their own party actually behaved in accordance with that standard. There is a strange moral asymmetry in modern American politics. Being the only party bound by “fairness”, especially when the other side targets the main demographic group that supports you, is self-defeating.
Which brings us to something Republicans rarely interrogate: their fixation on building a “multiracial coalition”. But coalitions are not abstract art projects. They are built on shared interests. White Americans remain the only racial group that is consistently net Republican at the national level. Black voters remain overwhelmingly Democratic, even when they agree with Republicans on individual policy questions. Agreement on issues does not translate into partisan loyalty when identity and historical narratives run deeper. And even among minority voters who do identify as Republican, policy alignment is far from uniform. Large shares of black Republicans believe racial discrimination is a major problem facing black people. Hispanic Republicans are significantly more supportive of gun control and immigration amnesty than white Republicans. Among Asian Republicans, sizable percentages support affirmative action, increased gun regulation, and redistributive spending toward minority communities. According to the 2024 American Electorate Voter Poll, 81% of Asian Republicans support “making it easier for U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to sponsor their immediate family members for visas to immigrate to the U.S.”, while just 19% oppose it.
So what, exactly, is the party optimizing for? If the goal is to assemble a coalition, then it’s fair to ask what binds it together. Is it wise to incorporate into that coalition the very premises Republicans have spent decades resisting? Bringing them inside the tent does not dissolve the tension. It internalizes it. Much of what modern Republicans celebrate as civic virtues—constitutional reverence,4 national pride, free speech absolutism, skepticism of sweeping institutional redesign—are most strongly concentrated among white Americans. Republicans maintain congressional caucuses organized around minority identities. They court specific racial constituencies with tailored messaging. But when it comes to whites, the expectation is silence. Race must be irrelevant. Identity must dissolve into abstraction.
Perhaps the calculation is simple: whites will remain loyal regardless. There is no need for recognition because there is no risk of defection. And that loyalty which they have taken for granted all this time is quietly curdling into resentment. A party cannot simultaneously rely on its most consistent supporters, distance itself rhetorically from them, and assume the arrangement will endure forever. This neglect is increasingly looking more like outright ingratitude.
Speaking of civic virtues, there is another irony here, and it is one that Republicans rarely say out loud. When it comes to patriotism, whites are the most likely to feel ‘very patriotic’. And these differences are not merely a function of some other demographic variable, such as gender, age, and income. When these variables are controlled for, the difference in likelihood of giving a patriotic response with non-Hispanic whites as the reference group is -17% for Hispanics, -48% for blacks, and a whopping -89% for Asians. And free speech? That’s also very much a white American value:5
On constitutional questions, the gap sharpens further. Whites are the only racial group that rate the U.S. Constitution overwhelmingly favorably on net and most strongly oppose replacing it with a new foundational document. So dramatic are the differences that even the Cato Institute couldn’t run cover for this:
White Americans (61%) are also more likely than Hispanic Americans (39%), Black Americans (28%), or Asian Americans (24%) to feel very favorable toward the Constitution. Strong conservatives (83%) are also more than twice as likely as strong liberals (31%) to feel very favorably toward the Constitution. Similarly, Republicans (74%) are nearly twice as likely as Democrats (42%) to have strongly positive views of the Constitution.
And, from a different report by Cato:
A significant minority (44%) of Americans would be open to “writing a new American constitution to reflect our diversity as a people,” while 56% would oppose writing a new constitution. This builds upon the work of political scientist Eric Kaufmann who found a similar pattern of results.
Democrats stand out with 63% who favor writing a new constitution, compared to 16% of Republicans and 37% of independents. A majority (54%) of Americans under 30 also favor designing a new constitution. However, support drops among older cohorts including among those aged 30-44 (47%), 45-54 (40%), 55-64 (27%), and 65 and above (25%). Black Americans (73%) and Asian Americans (60%) also support designing a new constitution. In contrast, majorities of Hispanic Americans (56%) and White Americans (68%) oppose designing a new constitution
When Republicans talk about defending the Constitution, protecting free speech, and preserving America’s founding framework, they are speaking most directly to the group that already believes in those things most intensely. The first report from Cato cited also mentions that:
America’s youngest cohort of adults has the most skeptical attitudes toward the Constitution. Gen Z is the least likely (39%) cohort to say they are grateful for the founding of America, compared to 77% of seniors, or feel that the Constitution is extremely important for protecting their liberty (38% vs 73%).
Thus, it’s perhaps less surprising that a majority (55%) of Americans under 30 would support writing a new American Constitution “to reflect our diversity as a people.” In contrast, 40% of 45–54 year olds and 25% of Americans over 65 agree. Nearly a third (32%) of Gen Z would also support designing a new American flag compared to 25% of 45–54 year olds, and 11% of those over 55 years old.
Oh really now? The problem is ‘Gen Z’? You know what else Gen Z has a lot more of that previous generations didn’t? Nonwhites. Think it’s a generational issue and not a racial one? In the 2024 election, among just young adults, whites were the only group to have voted net Republican for Trump.
And while it’s true that in the 2024 election, Republicans made some gains with nonwhites, but, unlike with whites, that support did not last and has already reversed. If you build a coalition that includes large segments of voters who view the nation’s founding principles as deeply suspect, you create internal friction that no amount of messaging can smooth over. There is only one America. For many white voters, it is not just a country but an inheritance. A continuity. A story that binds generations. You do not maintain that story by pretending everyone relates to it the same way.
And then we arrive at immigration, the issue that exposes the Republican contradiction most clearly. For years, the mainstream conservative line was simple and can be boiled down to: “we’re not against immigration. We just want it done legally”. But legality is not a moral transformation. A visa is not an assimilation device. A green card does not alter cultural preferences, political attitudes, or group identity overnight. If immigration changes the country in measurable ways—economically, politically, culturally (all of which it in fact does)—then policy considerations should not hinge solely on paperwork status. The characteristics of immigrants themselves matter. National origins, human capital, assimilation patterns, political preferences—these are the real variables, not some legal technicality.
Some progress has been made, undeniably. The discourse has come a long way since the days of George W. Bush’s book Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants, which painted a rosy picture of immigrants and depicts them as a great source of strength contributing to American prosperity.
But the tension remains. For instance, the uphill battle for E-verify against the business interests who demand more foreign labor. But it’s not just policy. There is still much to be desired in mere rhetoric alone. After all, it was only two Christmas celebrations ago when Elon Musk championed the expansion of the H-1B visa. It was only just last year when Vivek Ramaswamy openly expressed hostility towards American culture as being insufficiently competitive or industrious.6 For someone that’s trying to run for governor in Ohio—a state that is three-quarters white—speaking as though their cultural inheritance is the problem rather than the baseline, one should not be surprised if skepticism grows. Even more recently, Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, initially made a post on X/Twitter which read “Welcome to the Indian Century” before deleting it. The contempt for white America may have simmered down, but it is still alive, and is waiting for the opportunity to strike in full force again.
If white Americans are the only group that consistently votes Republican, if they are the most attached to American national identity, if they are the strongest defenders of constitutional continuity, and if they receive little reciprocal political protection in return, then a question must be asked: what, precisely, is the Republican Party offering its own base? Political parties exist to represent interests. Not to manage appearances. Not to win applause from hostile commentators. Not to signal virtue while hoping for eventual equilibrium. The Republican Party has only ever had one demographic group it could reliably count on to keep it viable and to uphold its cherished values, and it cannot even articulate how its strategies tangibly serves them. To the contrary, they seem eager to forget about them and separate the abstract ideals from the very people who actually uphold said ideals. This sentiment is most clearly seen from the Heritage Foundation’s awful AI-generated commercial from just last month titled “America. The Beautiful.” The video featured a bunch of racially diverse families (many of which are interracial) sitting at the dinner table, with more nonwhite faces than white ones overall. It is unclear exactly what aspect of America, according to Heritage, is worth fighting to preserve in this video.
Awful messaging aside, we also have damning evidence from a poll conducted by The Argument which found that Trump supporters are more willing to platform a transgender rights activist, an anti-gay speaker, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, or a Palestinian statehood activist than a white supremacist on a college campus.
Just because the GOP currently remains the best hope for white America (if only because the Democratic Party is brazenly anti-white) does not mean white Americans should sit idly by and passively accept all of its failures. White people have the right and a moral duty to demand of them to deliver the full justice and representation in they have been denied for decades, and for the return of their national inheritance which is being expropriated.
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Unsurprisingly, black Democrats are truly dedicated fans of affirmative action. From the appendix of the report:
Consider also these tables from the appendix of the report:
We can use this to obtain roughly what the results for black Democrats are. Now, a few of the people in the “All Democrats” sample who are not in the “nonblack Hispanic White, Asian, and Latino Democrats” sample will not be black, but the vast majority nonetheless are, so it probably won’t change the results too much. Anyways, to do this, see the “yes” row with Asian frame, and calculate the difference between “All Democrats” versus “Non-Hispanic White, Asian, and Latino Democrats”:
No: 84 – 74 = 10
Yes: 71 – 45 = 26
Total: 155 – 119 = 36
Percentage against admissions preferences if it hurts Asians: 10/36 ≈ 27.78%
Percentage for admissions preferences if it hurts Asians: 26/36 ≈ 72.22%
There is something grimly ironic about watching Republicans elevate the Constitution—drafted for a nation of white, primarily Anglo-Protestant, men—into a symbolic substitute for a lost peoplehood, all in service of a colorblind experiment that has yielded little in return.
The logical implication from the signaling model of education is that striving and grinding culture is an extremely bad thing for society, with little gains to national productivity, and just exacerbates the negative-sum arms race to distinguish oneself for employers. Vivek and his supporters simply do not understand what actually makes America successful.
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The GOP is a party of cowardly and feckless grifters. They’re only a virtue is that the Democrats are so much worse. The Democrats are so powerful because they have learned to identify their party with specific pre-existing human groups. As you point out, GOP power depends entirely on white people, and yet all they can come up with is blathering on about values while absolutely refusing to stand up for or hardly even say the name of the one group who supports them.
We are our only hope.