Wedge Issue - Wedge Politics in The United States

Wedge Politics in The United States

Both the Republican and Democratic parties have been accused of using social issues as wedge issues to divide the opposing voting base. For example, some Republican strategists have hoped that African Americans, a traditionally Democratic voting bloc, yet also one that possesses some of the most conservative views on matters of homosexuality, may be more inclined to vote for the Republican Party because of their opposition to gay marriage. Likewise, Democratic strategists have hoped that the issue of stem cell research could be used as a wedge issue against the right, since some Republicans support the research while others are morally opposed to the use of embryonic cells in research. The well known mantra "God, guns and gays" typifies Republican wedge strategy crafted along other famous wedge issues beginning in the Nixon era which aided winning the South from the Democrats.

Reform of the laws regarding illegal immigration to the United States operated as a wedge issue in 2007. Some Republican legislators, with the backing of President George W. Bush, sought to address the dual issues of ongoing illegal immigration to the United States and the illegal status of an estimated 12 million people currently living in America. Other Republicans bitterly opposed any "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, out of fear that their constituents were unsupportive of immigration reform. Some Democrats pitched in to keep the issue alive as they recognized the issue was deeply dividing the Republican party between advocates of reform and advocates of the status quo. The result was a bitter division in Republican ranks and a stalled bill in Congress; columnist Peggy Noonan wrote in January 2008 that President Bush had "destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other", by pushing immigration reform, as well as other wedge issues for the Republicans.