Good news or bad news?

Thomas Edsall has a piece in the New York Times in which he discusses research on the relationship between values and political views.  By "values," I don't mean things that get called "values issues," but general views of life as measured by questions that don't have any obvious connection to the political issues of the day.   Edsall talks about two measurements of values, but I will focus on the analysis by Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler, who compare people with "fixed" and "fluid" worldviews.  (Some people have used "authoritarian" for the same thing, but I think that "fixed" and "fluid" are better terms).  They are measured by four questions about which qualities it was more important for a child to have:  "Independence or respect for elders", "curiosity or good manners", "obedience or self-reliance", and "being considerate or well-behaved".  When the questions were first asked in the American National Election Study (1992), answers had little association with party identification, but in 2016, they had a strong association. 

What I found most interesting was that Edsall assumed that this split by values was bad news for the Democrats.  He says the work raises "a warning flag for the Democratic Party — that the rightward movement in contemporary politics is neither evanescent nor trivial."   But there is a movement towards "fluid" values.  I show the percent who chose the "fluid" side on each question in 2000 and 2016:

                               2000             2016
Indep                     22.5%           26.3%
Curious                 37.6%           35.9%
Self                       40.4%           52.6%
Considerate          63.4%           66.9%

This movement is almost certain to continue, because people with more education are more likely to choose the "fluid" side and average educational levels will continue to increase because of generational replacement.  So like a lot of other splits (ethnicity, urban/rural, education), the tide is running in favor of the Democrats.  But what about now?  Over the four issues, the average is about 40% for the "fluid" answers and 60% for the "fixed."*  Isn't it a problem to be the choice of the minority group rather than the majority group?  Not really.  Suppose we start out with a small group (20%) and a large group (80%).  At first, both are evenly split between parties A and B.  Then something happens and the small group aligns with party A while the large aligns with party B.  Here is one possible result:

                     A                          B
Small          14 (70%)               6   (30%)
Large          28 (35%)             52   (65%)
Total           42                        58

The change has been bad for party A.  Here is another: 

                    A                          B
Small          16 (80%)               4   (20%)
Large          36 (45%)             44   (55%)
Total           52                        48

The change has been good for party A.   It's possible to get a majority even when you're aligned with the minority group and the other side is aligned with the majority group.  In fact, when you think about it, that happens all the time. 

So the growing split by values helps to explain which people voted for Trump, but doesn't explain (at least not directly) why Trump did as well as he did (or as poorly, depending on how you look at it).  It also doesn't explain why he appeared in 2016, rather than at some other time.  In fact, it suggests that the potential support for someone like him is lower than it used to be. 

So why did we get Trump in 2016, rather than some other time?  I proposed an explanation in April 2016, and I still think it's about right. 


*The relative sizes may depend on the exact way the questions are asked.  For example, if the first question had given the "fixed" alternative as "respect for parents," or "respect for authority," it would have measured the same general attitude, but the numbers choosing those options might be different.  But I'll assume that "fluid" values are a minority, since the general point applies even when one group is definitely smaller than the other.