Vox just published an interview that Zack Beauchamp conducted with Samuel Goldman, a professor of political theory at George Washington University. It’s worth reading in it’s entirety, but I particularly like this following segment where Goldman explains why the really angry Tea Party/Trump bloc of the Republican base is so frustrated.
One of the difficulties is what you might call the Trump bloc. I’m using this to refer to a silent majority that isn’t a majority and is not particularly silent: whites, generally older, generally less educated, although of course with exemptions for all of those generalizations.
[This group] is a very, very awkward size. It seems to be somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of the electorate, which is big enough that it feels like a majority but small enough that it isn’t actually a majority.
That’s a very uncomfortable place to be, politically, because smaller groups I think come to appreciate, not immediately but eventually, that they have to compromise and form coalitions. Larger groups can just win.
But this group doesn’t seem small enough to compromise or big enough to win. That makes people very angry. I think some of that anger is reflected not just in Trump’s campaign but in the sort of rhetoric you see around the rallies. And everyone has seen footage of people who are just hopping mad in a way that I suspect is alien not just to the journalists who cover them but also to movement conservatives who have claimed to speak for them in the past.
Goldman discusses this same theme elsewhere in the interview, referring to “the story of a minority that thinks it’s a majority.”
I think we can do a lot with this basic insight. For starters, it really illuminates the problems John Boehner encountered as Speaker, where he kept trying to explain to both his own caucus and to the party base that they simply couldn’t impose their will on the president because they didn’t have the votes. He simply was not believed. It seemed like even the suggestion was like waving a red cape in front of a bull, and it didn’t matter if they had a hundred thousand votes to repeal ObamaCare or only several dozen, the point would not be received or accepted.
Maybe the underlying problem wasn’t so much that people were ignorant of parliamentary rules and procedure or the separation of powers. Maybe the root of this conflict, which ultimately doomed both Boehner and his underboss Cantor, is that the base of the party is too big to realize that it has no choice but to compromise.
I think it’s true on the left too. People tend to assume that others think as they do. They’ll think “Everyone I know agrees with me.” The far left and the far right are both just slightly north of 25%. The coalition right, those who could vote for a Trump without too much concern, is probably about 40%. So his goal is both to suppress Clinton support as much as possible and reach out to those who don’t trust him (as in “What the hell do you have to lose?” — of course aimed squarely at white suburban women far more than the African-Americans purportedly targeted by the remark).
Parallax says Both Siderism!!
Wrong.
The right wing republican assholes in the House (ahem, Freedom Caucus particularly) have decided to obstruct everything 100%
The whiny brats (er, Ted “Penis Nosed Canadian” Cruz, Paul Ryan, et al) in the Senate have damaged, and continue to damage the US to no end.
Why? bc they like Eric Cartman the pissy bastards decided to say “screw you guys, i’m going home”
There is no both sides to this issue. There is no counter on the left to the republican bigoted obstructionist.
(And sort of related, thank GOD Supreme Asshole Antonin Scalia is still smoking where ever he is, but I’m guessing it’s next to Dick Cheney’s future, final resting place)
So, no.
I think there is a group on the left that is like what Parallax describes, but its waaaaaay smaller, and really probably not much of a part of the democratic coalition. Think Jill Stein’s voters. They sure as hell don’t have anyone in the the federal government now that Kucinich is gone.
It doesn’t fit into what Martin has outlined exactly, as they are plenty small enough to compromise, but not smart enough to.
That’s correct. I think the Democratic coalition is mostly evidenced based enough to avoid circular firing squads, though we’ve been guilty of that transgression in the past. Certainly in “68 and in “00, in a close contest, our internal divisions were enough to hand the White House to the boy blunder.
My guess is 25 to 30 percent of the population would line up squarely behind Sanders or someone like him. Another 10 to 15 percent would go along with it. Getting past 50 percent would require some heavy lifting. Of course if the candidate were super competent and charismatic, able to assert his or her message in a way that made it palatable to those easily frightened away, I could see a liberal getting elected. Obama was all of those things and it made it possible to elect a person of color, so why not a lefty? Obviously it helped to be following eight years of truly F’d leadership from the Rs.
Following your proposal at the beginning of this portion of the thread, this revision of BooMan’s conclusion actually works pretty well, as frequently evidenced by the anger from many in our community here:
“Maybe the root of this conflict, which ultimately hampers both Clinton and her underboss Sanders, is that the base of the party is too big to realize that it has no choice but to compromise.”
or
“Maybe the root of this conflict, which ultimately undermined both Obama and his underboss Reid, is that the base of the party is too big to realize that it has no choice but to compromise.”
This comparison has its strong limits, though. Because of the American corporate media culture, loosening of campaign finance laws, the radicalization of the conservative movement and the Republican Party, and the ways these forces have acted together to deligitimize Democratic Party leaders and other reasons, the Democrats have been less successful as an opposition Party.
There is also the legion of polls which show, over and over again, that strong majorities of liberal and liberal-leaning Americans are supportive of compromise, and strong majorities of conservative and conservative-leaning Americans are opposed to compromise. That’s a big problem as well, and it’s another area where the comparison I offer in the bolded sentences is an inexact one.
Many have decided that the primary problems with Democrats are not centered in these areas, and are instead centered on critiques of top Democrats’ ideologies, characters, rhetoric and policies. I simply disagree that these are the center of the problem.
The last thing I intended to do is give an impression of both-siderism. Just pointing out that a similar dynamic exists to an extent on the left. Yes, Republicans are way more extreme. Democrats have, for the most part, retained an ability to view the world through rational lenses. Now I have a few friends who plan to vote for Jill Stein whom, frankly, I’d like to spank and tell to grow the F up. But I’m sure this comment will just lead to more consternation around here.
You nailed it.
.
Now I have a few friends who plan to vote for Jill Stein whom, frankly, I’d like to spank and tell to grow the F up. But I’m sure this comment will just lead to more consternation around here.
Where do they live? Do they live in NY or CA, as two examples? Clinton should win both by 20+ easily. So why would you care if some voters in either voted for Stein? Is it Ohio, NC or Florida? Then yes, I’d hope your friends would realize what our present system requires. All the “Vote Hillary, or else!!” people apparently miss that crucial distinction. Given our system, it matters what state you live in whether 3rd party voting is a good idea or not.
Yes, I’ve thought of that. I’ve even said to one of ’em, “Well it’s a good thing you live in California so it doesn’t make any difference.” But the ignorance bothers me just the same.
Have you discussed it at length with them? Do they know CA is very safely blue? Especially with Trump the GOP nominee.
The thing about voting for Stein is that the way it’s done does make a difference even if the voter is in a safely blue or red state. If they just voted for Stein it wouldn’t make a difference. But when they say they’re voting for Stein because Clinton is “dishonest” or “won’t do anything progressive” then they’re catapulting the Republican propaganda, and that spreads to people they know in other states and other races. It also helps the Republicans cover up discussions of the real issues Clinton is trying to raise about wages, unionization, the right to choose, campaign funding, marijuana legalization, and addiction treatment, inter (many) alia.
This is where you are wrong.
And where the Tea Party analogy collapses.
Free public college tuition is FAR more popular than anything in the Tea Party Agenda. Single Payer Health Care is far more popular than anything in the GOP agenda.
Are ties to Wall Street in any way shape or form popular?
Exactly which position that Clinton has commands more support than Bernie’s. A no fly zone in Syria?
I can’t find one.
very much the right thing
thank you for posting it southern dem
there was a very large SRO interfaith service in Tulsa last night
This predates Trump and the Tea Party. I remember Republican leaders promising a permanent majority after the 1994 elections, and none of them dare back away from that promise.
I think that was a very different vision. Rove imagined Hispanics to be very much a part of that coalition. It could have happened if the Rs had been able to exploit fears of cultural change without alienating non-whites and non-Christians. Fundamentalism exists in all cultures; it’s essentially a backlash against modernity.
Maybe the root of this conflict, which ultimately doomed both Boehner and his underboss Cantor, is that the base of the party is too big to realize that it has no choice but to compromise.
The root is that they’ve been fed lies, whether by Fox News, radio talking heads or whomever, that they don’t have to compromise. That the Democrats are the obstructionist assholes and so on.
The foundational lie was Nixon’s “Silent Majority” who were opposed to opponents of the Vietnam War. And that rolled in the ethnic cultural characteristics of Kevin Phillips’ ethnic working class capture strategy from 1968. There is your original minority that saw itself as a majority.
Yes, and more recently, the Moral Majority of the Reagan coalition. That’s the one most of these folks remember when they think of this solid, silent backbone of Americana.
No — they’ve been fed the truth of the DC GOP. If Obama is for it, we’ll be against it and turn Obama into a one term president.
Then the GOP elites handed them a nominee that lost in 2012. So, they’re keeping the “just say no” strategy and junking the mealy-mouthed GOP elite candidates. They were smart enough to see that Jeb would be general election poison because big bro still doesn’t look good after eight years. Not smart enough to question what a president Trump would do without his foil, Barack Obama.
But as a political strategy you can argue obstruction is winning.
You can see the effect here – and everyone I talk to in the state parties says the same thing.
All of these position papers Clinton has – they are meaningless. We will not retake the House, and absent that what exactly is Clinton going to do that Obama couldn’t?
Even if we retake the Senate, Joe Manchin is going to resist anything progressive.
This is the theory I have had some in NH (VERY senior people) push for the lack of enthusiasm EVERYONE sees.
To be sure these are VERY pro-Clinton people pushing it – but I think there is something to it. It’s not just that Clinton is uninspiring – and for large portions of the Democratic Party she is – but it’s realistically there is little hope.
The alternative is to embrace the platform and try to use it to drive a larger win down ballot. I can assure you that isn’t happening: Clinton’s strategy of the steady hand may make sense for her, but it doesn’t do much at the House level.
Sure enough Clinton is on the air in New Hampshire with ads touting her ability to work with Republicans.
Which given the Tea Party take over of the GOP is delusional. The GOP isn’t going to compromise: why hell would they?
The position papers aren’t meaningless. That’s what will get done the next time we win the trifecta. If we don’t get it this time, we try again in 2020 and then 2024. The Republicans have figured this out – put out your positions and eventually the vagaries of politics will give you the power to implement them. It’s time we did too.
By the time we win the Trifecta they will be obsolete.
My point though was as a political document they are worthless as a way to win votes.
It is like the elbow-patched tweed set never noticed that the Southern Strategy brought in some rather weird characters.
Movement conservatism is an outright failure, or as Goldman puts it:
This is where Democrats could take it down like Reagan Republicans took down New Deal Liberalism, if they would. It is no longer cool to be considered a conservative, just like there was a point in the mid-1980s when it was no longer cool to be considered a liberal and the Republicans could turn the word “liberal” into a perjorative. (Now it’s the lefties who do that.) Movement conservatism is the God that failed and in failing failed the God of the religious right.
On racial issues:
This is why a full employment economy would be helpful on so many levels and why Mitch McConnell dug his heels in early. It is also why the debt anxiety that began in 2009 and swept through to 2011 was so devastating to the Obama presidency and brought us to where we are with Trump and with #blacklivesmatter. Yes, McCain allowing Palin to let that meme out during the 2008 campaign did set the table for the bigots. But the civil rights movement was able to claim objectives in the 1960s because the economy was booming and Reagan was not pushed to reverse it because the economy was not that bad. Dealing with this requires a compliant Congress if not a totally Democratic one.
So TD, if you were a leading strategist for the Democratic party, how would you frame a message to take down conservatism?
Laurie Penny has an article about the Republican National Convention on Medium in which she uses this phrase to describe the current political situation in the US with regard to the GOP:
That is what 52 years of movement conservatism has brought US politics to, not the high erudite debate between two ideological parties that William Buckley tried to stage on several occasions. It has brought us to operatives and politicians like Trump.
That’s it. What else has 52 years of movement conservative tugging and pulling contributed to the life of ordinary Americans? Peace? Prosperity? Can you think of anything?
An end to the Cold War? That’s their go-to. Harry Truman baked that into history with the architecture of the Post-World War II national security state and the network of forwardly deployed bases on the property of allies. And the Marshall Plan. And the National Security Act of 1947, the very things that are sucking the life out of the nation.
Trump and the rise of the racist, misogynist, xenophobic alt-right and Trump are the Pruett-Igoe of movement conservatism. They are how you know that that approach has failed.
Look at every bit of infrastructure that was left from the New Deal through the 1960s. The amount of deferred maintenance backlog is staggering. The siphoning off of funds from public services to private profits is one of the largest heists in history.
For all of the yammering about government spending. what movement conservatism has delivered is the F-36 a trillion-dollar aircraft program that will not fly and cannot do what existing aircraft cannot already do.
Is America in better shape than it was 52 years ago when the movement conservatives asked to run things? Is America more free than it was then? Is America more unified than it was then?
What exactly has movement conservatism done besides extract money from the rest of us for their privileged lifestyles?
Yes, that’s true. You indicated you had ideas about how Democrats should take down Republicans. I’m not seeing that strategy in your comment. Are there particular themes, slogans, strategies? What would appeal to those in the middle, the ones who don’t really pay attention to anything complex? What would grab them?
The problems they face are a result of a conservative promises that did not come true because they could not. And that unreality persists.
There is no ‘middle”. There are undecideds. Part of that undecision is between the candidates but most is whether to vote at all.
And not all of it is low-information voters. There are some voters who are not voting because they see the issues but not the fact of conservative failure.
Total free market cannot deliver prosperity; on the contrary.
Only spending on military and police for infrastructure gets you more war and more police killing of unarmed citizens — and an expensive incarceration state.
Calling out the failure of conservatism as an accomplished fact instead of as a prediction of results is new. Pointing out why is new. You get what you pay for. Interested people do not suddenly become disinterested when not regulated.
For a while now many republican politicians have been completely unwilling to compromise on anything, but I think it is for reasons other than that they are a minority that think they are a majority.
Given how the right (and the right wing media in particular) have been dehumanizing everyone on the left for several decades (at least) is it really any surprise that the republican unwillingness to compromise looks and sounds very much like the oft-repeated foreign policy mantra of “we don’t negotiate with terrorists”?
If Clinton is elected, how are republicans going to be able to work with (ahem, compromise with) someone who is a crook who should be locked up? That sounds just as bad as trying to work with a foreign-born Muslim president.
This problem only goes away (temporarily) if Clinton wins in a landslide that has huge down-ticket coattails. Current polling data discourages such optimism. Sigh.
I share your frustration. Obama tried to tell them. He tried to reason with the GOP leadership, but to no avail. No doubt because they saw riding that tiger of resentment as their path toward a majority. It worked so one could say it was smart in the short term if not particularly ethical or sound long term policy.
At this point, assuming a Clinton win, we’ll have to see how the Republicans react. Most likely more of the same. But perhaps they’ll start to weigh the cost and the long-term implications. Seems unlikely but Trump in “16 following on the “12 autopsy just might begin to shift minds and hearts. If Trump win, all bets are off. I don’t know if anything will be left of the R party in four years, or for that matter of the country itself, but without question he will own it (or at least hold a long-term lease).
You are right — they painted themselves into a corner where their only option was to obstruct (lest they lose a party primary). And they are painting themselves right back into the same corner.
I can’t wait for the next vote to raise the debt ceiling (March, 2017 iirc). That will be very telling.
If only the vast majority of Americans weren’t too stupid to notice or remember.
As we said from the start. It wasn’t going to work.
Quite frankly after tangling with the President early on in the televised Blair House Summit the GOP realized that they could not even appear to be working with a black man that was obviously smarter than they were.
Their lies and frauds could be too easily exposed.
Why compromise when your whole premise is that government is the problem and you have the means to prove government doesn’t work?
Booman: Sometimes when I am feeling low about politics. I think about heaven. I think about a heaven where every year on July 4th George Washington kicks the ever-loving shit out of Ronald Reagan. It never fails to make me feel better…
O/T but Oklahoma does the right thing
http://www.newson6.com/story/33160895/press-conference-held-at-tulsa-county-courthouse
Tulsa Police Officer Charged With Manslaughter In Terrence Crutcher Death
Which continues, was to assume that this ever was a political movement and not an unprecedented scam to fleece this helplessly stupid but relatively prosperous cohort. This won’t change so long as there is a dollar to be had from contributions to political action groups, the sale of guns, gold coins, survival seeds or red gimme hats. Not to mention passing the collection plate around at the the local mega-church.
They are wrecking the republic for profit and are happy to net ten cents of every dollar wastefully burned in destructive and polarising activity.