The empty quarter

Last week Ross Douthat had a column proposing that "that a real center-right majority could be built on economic populism and an approach to national identity that rejects both wokeness and white nationalism."   He asks us to "imagine that [Trump] followed through on Steve Bannon’s boasts about a big infrastructure bill instead of trying for Obamacare repeal . . . tilted his tax cut more toward middle-class families . . . bullying Silicon Valley into inshoring factory jobs . . . made lower Medicare drug prices a signature issue rather than a last-minute pre-election gambit."  His terminology is misleading:  what he's talking about would not be "center-right" but left of center on economics and right of center on "social issues."  However, he raises an interesting question.   In the general public, opinions on economic and social issues are pretty much uncorrelated.  That is, you have a lot of people who are to the left on economics and to the right on social issues, or to the left on social issues and right on economics.  But electoral politics is dominated by a right/right to left/left dimension:  there are no prominent politicians who offer the combination that Douthat wants (and many ordinary people seem to want).  Why do things stay that way?  A left/right vs. right/left alignment seems just as reasonable in principle--maybe even more reasonable (because fewer people would be "cross-pressured" by education and income).

It seems that there are two possible answers.  I offered one last year--that once a pattern is established, it's safer to play to your "base" rather than trying to change things.  If Trump tried to do the things that Douthat talks about, a lot of congressional Republicans would revolt.  Maybe he would win some Democrats over, or the proposals would be so popular that reluctant Republicans would have to go along, but maybe he would fail, lose the trust of Republicans, and look weak.  That's probably more likely, since Democrats wouldn't want to help him.  So why risk it?

 Another possibility is that the left/left vs. right/right dimension has some psychological basis--that the combination of supporting both legal abortion and redistribution toward the working class (for example) is more natural than the combination of opposing legal abortion and supporting redistribution to the working class.  There have been a number of arguments along these lines, all saying that the line of division is something like sympathy for marginalized people vs. support for rules and authority (an example from a few days ago).  It might seem like these are refuted by the lack of correlation between economic and social attitudes.  But you can say that it would be present only among people who think about politics.  The problem is that people who pay attention to politics are likely to pick up the conventions:  if I'm a liberal, I'm supposed to favor legal abortion.  So in order to evaluate the idea that there is a "natural" pattern, you need to consider attitudes that aren't part of normal political debate.

The General Social Survey has a couple of possibilities.  One is "What is your opinion about a married person having sexual  relations with someone other than the marriage partner? [Always wrong, almost always, only sometimes, or not wrong at all].  This isn't a political issue in the sense of something either party proposes legislation on, and there are no obvious partisan or ideological differences in the behavior of prominent politicians.  Another one is closer to a political issue, but still not part of standard partisan debate:  "Do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly
disagree that it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard, spanking?"

The correlations of opinions about extramarital sex with opinions on some standard political issues, comparing people with and without a college degree (since the GSS doesn't have a good measure of political knowledge or interest).

                                                                                                       Not Grad      Coll Grad
Redistribute from rich to poor (EQWLTH)                                      .003                    .108
Gov't help people with medical costs (HELPSICK)                        .076                    .140
Allow gay man teach in college (COLHOMO)                               .125                    .125
Prayer in schools (PRAYER)                                                           .094                    .192
Abortion if doesn't want more children (ABNOMORE)                 .200                    .297

It has substantially higher correlations among all items (except COLHOMO, where it's the same) among college graduates

The correlations of opinions about spanking with opinions on the same issues, comparing people with and without a college degree:

                                                                                                      Not Grad        Coll Grad
Redistribute from rich to poor (EQWLTH)                                     -.012                   .167
Gov't help people with medical costs (HELPSICK)                        .054                    .189
Allow gay man teach in college (COLHOMO)                               .100                    .120
Prayer in schools (PRAYER)                                                           .139                    .234
Abortion if doesn't want more children (ABNOMORE)                 .050                    .202

For all questions, it's higher among college graduates. 


Note that redistribution goes from essentially zero to comparable to the other questions in both cases.  My interpretation is that there is something to the idea of a psychological affinity among positions on economic and social issues.  Of course, a left/right or right/left combination is not logically inconsistent, but it's less likely to appeal to people who are interested in politics--that is, the people who might be leaders or advocates for a position.