In the realm of governing, large metro areas serve as a petri dish for democracy—sorting out what ideas sell best to a diversity of voters and which policies actually deliver the desired results.
In the early aughts, the Republican Party was still competing in that marketplace of ideas in big cities and states like California and New York, where the metros can dominate a statewide election. As The New York Times points out, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger secured the California governorship in a 2003 recall election, defeating Democrat Gray Davis by winning 45% of the vote in Los Angeles County and three-fifths of the vote in San Diego County. In New York City, GOP Mayor Rudy Giuliani passed the baton in 2001 to then-Republican Michael Bloomberg, who ultimately shed his GOP party affiliation in 2007 and registered as a Democrat in 2018.
But today, Republicans are so out of step with the times that they're not even viable in big-city races, not to mention the governorships in most of the country's large progressive states. Massachusetts' Republican Gov. Charlie Baker stands out as a rare exception, having won a second term in 2019. One could also argue that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is defying GOP norms, governing a state that is culturally southern but still far more diverse than most southern states—but Sunshine State politics, and even its diversity, are fairly anomalous. Democrats also run the 11 biggest metros in the country, although Republican Mattie Parker won a mayoral bid earlier this month in Forth Worth, Texas, the nation's 12th-largest city. Parker told the Times that part of her strategy was to subtly distance herself from the party's still-dominant figurehead, Donald Trump, even as her own party did the exact opposite at both the state and federal level.
“When I was asked about the president and the election,” Parker explained, “I would just say, ‘I operate differently.’”
Pre-Trump, Republicans were already on the path to irrelevance in the country's most diverse city centers and the increasingly diverse suburbs that ring the nation's largest metro areas. But Trump, both culturally and politically, managed to sever any ties Republicans still had to the reality most Americans are living today.
“It’s not the same Republican Party,” said Representative Donald McEachin of Virginia. “Trump chased off a lot of moderate Republicans, so it’s a much smaller party.”
The GOP's estranged relationship with cultural diversity has not only crippled its ability to compete electorally in city centers and their associated suburbs, it has also deprived Republicans of having any hand in governing the most innovative and productive economies in the country. Republicans’ laser-like focus on white culture is also the reason the party is beginning to lose its stranglehold on states like Georgia, where the region's biggest economic driver is a rapidly diversifying city like Atlanta.
“It’s not sustainable. It’s just not,” said Joseph Lhota, a former M.T.A. chair and the 2013 GOP nominee for mayor of New York. “There was a time when Republicans had a seat at the table when people talked about laboratories of democracy, and there’s no better place for laboratories of democracy than large cities and large states.”
So the next time you wonder why Republicans seem incapable of governing at the federal level, the answer is clear: Republicans have almost entirely given up on the complex task of governing anything but majority-white, low-density areas of the country. They’ve forgotten how to compete anywhere else, and so they have no solutions whatsoever for the problems that most Americans are facing in their communities.
In the early aughts, the Republican Party was still competing in that marketplace of ideas in big cities and states like California and New York, where the metros can dominate a statewide election. As The New York Times points out, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger secured the California governorship in a 2003 recall election, defeating Democrat Gray Davis by winning 45% of the vote in Los Angeles County and three-fifths of the vote in San Diego County. In New York City, GOP Mayor Rudy Giuliani passed the baton in 2001 to then-Republican Michael Bloomberg, who ultimately shed his GOP party affiliation in 2007 and registered as a Democrat in 2018.
But today, Republicans are so out of step with the times that they're not even viable in big-city races, not to mention the governorships in most of the country's large progressive states. Massachusetts' Republican Gov. Charlie Baker stands out as a rare exception, having won a second term in 2019. One could also argue that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is defying GOP norms, governing a state that is culturally southern but still far more diverse than most southern states—but Sunshine State politics, and even its diversity, are fairly anomalous. Democrats also run the 11 biggest metros in the country, although Republican Mattie Parker won a mayoral bid earlier this month in Forth Worth, Texas, the nation's 12th-largest city. Parker told the Times that part of her strategy was to subtly distance herself from the party's still-dominant figurehead, Donald Trump, even as her own party did the exact opposite at both the state and federal level.
“When I was asked about the president and the election,” Parker explained, “I would just say, ‘I operate differently.’”
Pre-Trump, Republicans were already on the path to irrelevance in the country's most diverse city centers and the increasingly diverse suburbs that ring the nation's largest metro areas. But Trump, both culturally and politically, managed to sever any ties Republicans still had to the reality most Americans are living today.
“It’s not the same Republican Party,” said Representative Donald McEachin of Virginia. “Trump chased off a lot of moderate Republicans, so it’s a much smaller party.”
The GOP's estranged relationship with cultural diversity has not only crippled its ability to compete electorally in city centers and their associated suburbs, it has also deprived Republicans of having any hand in governing the most innovative and productive economies in the country. Republicans’ laser-like focus on white culture is also the reason the party is beginning to lose its stranglehold on states like Georgia, where the region's biggest economic driver is a rapidly diversifying city like Atlanta.
“It’s not sustainable. It’s just not,” said Joseph Lhota, a former M.T.A. chair and the 2013 GOP nominee for mayor of New York. “There was a time when Republicans had a seat at the table when people talked about laboratories of democracy, and there’s no better place for laboratories of democracy than large cities and large states.”
So the next time you wonder why Republicans seem incapable of governing at the federal level, the answer is clear: Republicans have almost entirely given up on the complex task of governing anything but majority-white, low-density areas of the country. They’ve forgotten how to compete anywhere else, and so they have no solutions whatsoever for the problems that most Americans are facing in their communities.