Another way of articulating David Frum’s point might be to say to the Republicans and their base that (in the fight over the budget) they can destroy the economy but they cannot win. They were able to force a deal in 2011 for two reasons. They had won a mandate from the voters in the 2010 midterms and the president was worried about being reelected and was willing to cave in order to protect the economy. This time around, they have no mandate, having lost the elections even worse than the results imply. And the president, while still protective of the economy, doesn’t have to worry that a recession will cost him his job. The last time the Republicans shut down the government, in 1995, they had a mandate and they still lost the political fight very badly. They also had a clean slate, having not controlled the House of Representatives for 40 years at the time. If they do it again, things will go very badly for them, even in many of their seemingly safe seats.
I am not even talking about the debt ceiling and defaulting on our debts. That would be armageddon for the party, and I doubt Speaker Boehner would allow it. I am talking about refusing to appropriate the funds needed to keep people’s Social Security checks flowing and our National Parks open. David Frum is correct. The time to force major cuts to government programs is when the economy is healthy, unemployment is low, and after the Republicans have had a good election cycle. Until then, this kind of strategy is a suicide mission. It’s terrorism.
Also, in 2011, they hadn’t suffered two massive political/public opinion thrashings at the hands of “the only adult in the room.” As they move into Round 3, the public, media, and opinion leaders already blame them for their irresponsible behavior in July 2011 and December 2012, and there is no question where the blame will fall.
So I’m sure most of the people here are familiar with Altemeyer’s on-line book “The Authoritarians” – which was written after Altemeyer’s work was cited extensively in John Dean’s bestseller “Conservatives without Conscience”. If you haven’t read it google it now – it’s on-line.
One of the key examples from that book was a study using a simulation game where participants acted as leaders from different countries throughout the globe and they were confronted with various problems and opportunities throughout the game. The simulation had been constructed to study how people interacted to address problems.
Altemeyer, who’s research focus had been on RWAs (right-wing authoritarians – read the book for the definition as “right-wing” isn’t the same as the way we use the term, although in practice the people are basically the same), learned of the simulation and asked the people who ran it to conduct some simulations, some with a group consisting solely of RWAs (as identified by his extensive questionnaire developed over years of research) and another with a group including no RWAs at all.
The results were striking. The no-RWA group did the best ever on the simulation, with extremely high cooperation and effective problem solving. The RWA group destroyed the world twice – after the first world destruction, which was in record time, the people who ran the simulation explained what happened and allowed the participants to go back in time and fix the problem. They did avoid that particular issue but their general combativeness and refusal to address common concerns with others meant that they destroyed the world at the next opportunity.
I think at this point we can agree that RWAs and Tea Party and Good Germans are all the same people from the same part of the population – and Altemeyer would agree (his web site has a 2010 observation on the Tea Party movement). And that at this point in US history the RWA movement has the greatest funding and infrastructure of any RWA movement in history.
At some point, hopefully not too late, the leadership of the Democratic Party may come to realize this. That there is no hope for negotiation with an RWA movement – that the most effective strategy and tactics for dealing with an RWA movement is to focus on destroying its power base. There is no “get along” with this group of people … and there is danger whenever they have any power at all. They use the term “reaching across the aisle” the same way they use the term “teach the controversy” – they have no interest in compromise, these are just foot-in-the-door slogans designed to fool the centrists.
I’m not sure what Obama’s best strategy is for the debt ceiling fight, but I’d like him to think beyond just the 2014 election and towards a long term strategy of turning the centrists against the RWAs, the same way the centrists were abhorred by the southern racists in the 1960s. That may mean letting the GOP cause serious damage with the debt ceiling if they can find a way to get even the centrist media types to recognize who is at fault.
Thanks for this post. I wasn’t aware of those simulations, but fully appreciate how they relate to our current situation. “Both sides” are not even remotely the same.
Let’s just say the vast bulk of Boner’s Boneheads won’t be “listening to David Frum”, ha-ha. They WANT to see explosions, mayhem and destruction. They’re dying to see things seriously damaged, they love chaos and hysteria, which they see as “progress” to their radical goals. They think the “traditional Americans” are with them, and they may be right. Lord knows they have no fear of re-election difficulties after the Great Repub Gerrymander of 2010, whatever they do.
If the Dem leaders are aware of what they are actually dealing with, they are clearly afraid to call it by its name, knowing they will receive absolutely no help (only harm) from the corporate media. And, in any event, the Hitler movement obtained power democratically despite a very hostile press….
And, in any event, the Hitler movement obtained power democratically despite a very hostile press….
With something just over 1/3rd the popular vote as I recall.
There is something about the right wing that is very good at getting power with a minority of the vote. The current right wing government that is hellbent on destroying all of Canada (I guess health care is off the table, but only because that might wake the centrists) won with, what, something under 40% of the vote? The destruction of the UK is being waged by a Tory party that captured only 37% of the popular vote – with all other parties far to the left of them.
And for some reason there are always centrists willing to go along with the charade, perhaps fooling themselves. The Liberal Democrats in the UK should never get a single vote ever again, and hopefully won’t. Or perhaps the LD leadership, like Blair and Lieberman, were secretly being supported by the far right and playing a role for the cause (google Blair and Murdoch to get some of the story – or google who supported Lieberman in his campaign to oust liberal GOP senator Wiecker).
In a deliberative body, like the Congress, there is no way to avoid negotiation. That’s the rub.