Taiwan’s political map is divided into two camps, just as the United States’ political map is divided into red and blue. Blue represents a state that supports the Democratic Party, mainly on the north-east coast and the West coast, whereas the Republican Party dominates the Midwest and the South.
A stereotype describes the difference between the two parties: Democrats are typical of the yuppies of the Upper West Side of Manhattan, drinking lattes, while the Republicans are from the working towns.
However, ideologically, the comparison is between a center-left Democratic Party, who tend to be supported more by low-income people, and the Republican advocates of small government, who tend to be the rich.
If this description is true, then a typical explanation is that the Republican Party exploits the so-called value issues such as religion, guns, abortion and other issues such as that of the national flag, to distract low and middle-income voters from their real economic interests, and to forget that the Republican tax cuts and reduced social welfare are not in their interest. This is an approach typical of Marxism: religion is the opiate of the masses, and allows people to forget their real lives of oppression.
It is true that American politics over the past 20 years have entered a serious culture war, in which political differences center mostly around the above-mentioned issues or cultural values, rather than class issues. Some people even believe that the number of voters who go to church, more than incomes, forecasts political trends. The culture war was intense in the 90s after Clinton took office. Clinton, a son of the counter-culture, now aged 60, has become a rallying point for conservative opposition.
In 2000, President George W. Bush came to power after a court ruling, and the cultural war became a fiery battlefield, with the active exploitation of these values-issues, whether in the form of a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage, or the organized mobilization of the Christian right, in addition to anti-terrorism and national security, the political term used to heighten fear.
This culture war is real, but in the smoke of war, several myths obscure the truth.
One myth is that more poor people care more about values and religious issues than rich people. The fact is that at the beginning of 1992, with respect to using religious piety to forecast political attitudes of voters, those who go to church often are 15% percent more likely to vote Republican than those who do not. On the other hand, there is the myth that the main difference between the rich and the middle class and lower-income earners is that for those on low-income, the degree of religious piety does not affect political attitude.
The second myth is that today’s rich tend to vote Democratic. The fact is that the Democratic Party really from the beginning of the 90s has had an advantage in relatively wealthy states, and the blue-red split has come to characterize the political map. But in the post-war era, in both rich and poor states, the rich have been more supportive of the Republican Party; George W. Bush gained 60% of the high-income vote. However, it is interesting to note that the rich in the rich states tend to support the Democratic Party more than the rich in the poor states, mainly because they question the values of freedom and openness, and the Republican Party and their conservative values of conflict.
On the other hand, low-income voters are more likely than half a century ago to vote for the Democratic Party, because apart from the southern whites, they do not vote for the Republic Party based on value-relate issues. I have discussed this topic in my last column, in which I claimed that southern whites support the Republic Party because of racial politics after the 1960s.
Therefore, in the 2006 election for the U.S. Congress, the Republican anti-terrorism mandate expired, and as the Democratic Party pushed health insurance and the minimum wage, issues of people’s livelihood, the Republicans lost years of congressional leadership.
Although current U.S. political parties respond to short-term factors, of course, the issues that are important to the individual candidates remain at center-stage; for example, in the presidential election, it is clear that racial and national security issues will be at the forefront. However, if voters can satisfy their real needs through the political parties, then they will have won the ultimate victory.
Is there any lesson for parties in Taiwan that are always struggling over an independent vs. a Taiwan united with China?