Polarized
It would have been relatively easy for President Obama to divide the Republican coalition, peeling off less-partisan Republicans with genuine outreach. ~Michael Gerson
This would be an interesting point, except that Obama already did this during the election campaign. The Republicans and right-leaning independents he could reach have already been reached, and they are part of the 60-65% of the population who approve of Obama so far. The remaining Republicans who oppose him are for the most part all those Republicans who are quite partisan if not hard-liners. Andrew and Nate Silver have already made similar observations. What is completely missing from so many of the Republican responses to the Pew survey showing such great “polarization” is any acknowledgment that the roughly two-thirds of Republicans who disapprove of Obama make up not much more than a sizeable minority.
That doesn’t make their views irrelevant, but it does mean that they do not define the national response to the President’s first months in office. Neither can we primarily characterize Obama’s Presidency in terms of partisan polarization. Republicans have been clear from fairly early on that, at least when it comes to domestic policy and budget debates, they have decided on a course of pure rejectionism and the embrace of fiscal austerity. As the minority party, that is their prerogative, and there are good reasons to be skeptical of policies that are vastly increasing the debt (it would help even more to have alternative budgets that don’t invite mockery!), but if a party has opted to go down the rejectionist route it is silly to complain the President is having a polarizing effect as if this were a bad outcome.
If the GOP is to have any chance of reviving anytime soon, it will be by peeling off disillusioned and dissatisfied Obama supporters. Even if Obama were driving people away (so far, there is little evidence for this), the GOP still has to be able to attract them. At present, the GOP’s powers of repulsion remain far greater. So far, everything the GOP has been doing in Congress and in the media has reinforced all the habits that have pushed so many people into Obama’s arms. Shouting fascism and tyranny in ever-louder voices is not going to change this pattern, but will probably ensure that it keeps getting worse for Republicans.
No one outside the Beltway cares whether the post-partisan utopia has been realized, and many of us outside the Beltway understand that Washington does some of its greatest damage when the parties collaborate to give us the worst of both worlds. In the GOP’s worst-case scenario, Obama will become even more unpopular among Republican rank-and-file while the rest of the country remains favorably inclined, which means that Obama will technically become a more “polarizing” figure by Pew’s odd measurements, but this will only widen the considerable gap between how the GOP sees the political landscape and how everyone else sees it. The real danger for the GOP is that the Democrats are in the process of turning the idea of positive polarization around on them, and they might then be able to divide the country and come away with the much larger portion on a more permanent basis.
Damn, Dr Larison, it’s a little early in the day for rationality.
Alfred Hitchcock once described his heroine in “Shadow Of A Doubt” as “living in her world, but it wasn’t the real world”. This would describe the current GOP to a T.
I’m pretty sure we all wish things were a little different….I, for instance, am in complete agreement with Dreher and Douthat on issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. But is it not clear that that ship has sailed? It may come back, but not in my lifetime.
The GOP made a choice a long time ago to play to it’s base…and not just it’s base, but to one vocal and voting section (Evangelists and, sometimes, observant Catholics). It worked pretty well for twenty years – but the demographics were against them from the start. Plus, like our Confederate ancestors, they have come down hard on the wrong side of the Guns v. Butter equation.
Yes, yes, you are right. My Democrats are no better….I see their stupid arrogance, our pompous assumption that those who disagree are motivated by nothing more than racism and jingoism…..but why does the GOP need to speak in terms that seem to bear out our worst caricatures?
One thing I’ve never understood about the Republican strategy is how limited the analysis of their situation is. In 93 they were riding a shift in voting habits in the south and west. Pure rejection could work because they were up against a president whose popularity was in the toilet in the area that they needed to pick up. Now, not so much.
It is generally better, in my mind, to think of American politics as pre-election coalition building. Where in other countries the coalition will be made at the top after the election when the various parties come together in order to form a government. In the US though each party has a pretty well set base of members. Its only when certain events come about that the coalitions will shift. The Civil Rights movement and Roe V Wade are two of them that helped the republicans. Not because there was a majority pushback on those policies but because if you can keep a certain part of the your coalition and add others then your going to build a larger party. The Civil Rights movement pushed the south into the republican column because of the history of race based voting in the south. The reaction to Roe V Wade, I believe, was an attempt to peel off disaffected evangelicals and Catholics by the republicans and an attempt to solidify Democrats amongst women.
That taking of the south is problematic historically for any party. The democrats were unable to produce consistent vote majorities for a number of years because the political culture in the south is so different from much of the other country. Only with the advent of the great depression which allowed for much of the differences between the south and the north to disappear under the rug for a while allowed the democrats to create consistently large voting blocks.
Unless the republicans can figure out a way to appeal to groups outside of the south without giving a chance for the democrats to be competitive they are in for a long minority.
One thing to think about, the republicans have never been able to take the south to the extent that the democrats did for so many years. Does that make it actually harder for Republicans to create broader coalitions outside of the south? If your party is made up of hard core revanchists in the south without a total lock on their votes can you move away without alienating them?
Daniel, what I have not understood through your whole series of similar threads on this subject is what exactly you would recommend as a plausible alternative to rejectionism. Yes, the GOP and the base should reconsider foreign policy. Yes they should back up their populist rhetoric with some actual populist policies instead of acting like a bunch of country club corporate stooges.
But don’t we already have a word to describe Republicans who work with the Democrats? They are called RINOs. McCain was one of them. Rejectionism to me seems a positive development. I wish they had rejected some of Bush’s nonsense. Now it won’t do any good long term unless they come around to the understanding that on spending Bush was only marginally better, but calling Obama a socialist is a start. (Actually I believe technically he is a social democrat.) There is no way you get to the understanding that Bush was a social democrat and both parties are social democrat without first going through the Obama is a social democrat stage. I welcome (I think) this radicalization of the language.
I mean what exactly do you have in mind?
Well, you begin to make my point for me. Rethinking foreign policy, instead of cowering in Gingrich’s shadow and whining about Obama’s “apology tour,” would be an interesting first step. Rethinking trade policy and coming out against Obama’s Transportation Dept. when it proposes to revive the Mexican truck pilot program would not be a bad idea, either. Obviously, Obama’s mistake of raising immigration this year more or less automatically works to their advantage.
But who’s talking about working with them as a general rule? I’m not calling for bipartisanship–this is why I think the complaints about polarization are so foolish. Work with some of them (i.e., Blue Dogs) when they share concerns about fiscal irresponsibility, illegal immigration or trade agreements, and otherwise push the ideas that have been floated before. Payroll tax cuts and proposals to reform Medicare/Medicaid would be a start in addressing economic stimulus, the tax burden on lower-middle and middle class voters and the overwhelming liabilities created by entitlement programs. Re-establish credibility on fiscal and economic issues by doing something other than pushing for income, corporate and capital gains tax cuts! Reiterate and explain opposition to the bank bailout. The best way to stop acting like corporate stooges is if they…stopped acting like them, but for the most part I haven’t seen it.
Make limiting and reducing national debt and a related defense of the dollar, combined with a critique of insane debt-monetizing Fed moves, key parts of an agenda aimed at winning back right-leaning independents and fiscal conservatives. As part of defending the dollar, craft trade policies that reduce our over-reliance on imports and try to find ways to close our yawning trade deficits. Instead of simply moaning about our dependence on Chinese debt purchases, do something to reduce the need for these purchases.
Put together a budget that is actually, well, a budget plan rather than a series of general ideas. Any of the above would demonstrate that there is some thinking going on, and then I might not mock them quite so regularly. Then, in tandem with these ideas, they could also push back against the White House and the majority and have something credible to offer instead.
In my view, I don’t see how anyone right of center looks at the shabby performance of the GOP and sees anything very satisfying. I don’t know how their performance is going to improve if they aren’t subjected to conservative criticism, and I think it important for the country that their performance improve quickly and dramatically. Simply voting nay on the stimulus and the omnibus budget bill is evidence that there is no learning going on rather than a rediscovery of first principles, because the form it has taken is so completely unimaginative and fails almost entirely to address the reasons why the public turned against them.
I don’t think the GOP understands how badly they have been played by Obama. His transitional bi-partisan outreach to the GOP was widely applauded, and it left the GOP with only two options: 1) compromise with Obama and essentially join him in an effort at national unity, in essence becoming a more moderate party of common sense and common purposem and thus a moderating influence upon Obama’s policies, or 2) become a nosebleed opposition party positioning itself in the rarefied air of doctrinal purity and rejectionism. Although it might appear there was a choice here, at least to the public, anyone who knows the GOP realizes it could only choose the latter, self-destructive path. And Obama seems to have understood that. I’m not saying his outreach was disingenuous, but it was clearly a win-win proposition to him, and I don’t think he’s displeased with how it has turned out. The effect is to so completely marginalize the Republican party that they are in danger of becoming completely irrelevant as a national policy party, essentially reduced to the status of a relatively large third party that represents little more than a protest vote. Obama is crying all the way to the electoral bank.
“Work with some of them (i.e., Blue Dogs) when they share concerns about fiscal irresponsibility, illegal immigration or trade agreements, and otherwise push the ideas that have been floated before. Payroll tax cuts and proposals to reform Medicare/Medicaid would be a start in addressing economic stimulus, the tax burden on lower-middle and middle class voters and the overwhelming liabilities created by entitlement programs. Re-establish credibility on fiscal and economic issues by doing something other than pushing for income, corporate and capital gains tax cuts!”
But will people buy this sort of stuff from Republicans, even if it is offered? We already see that Obama has a modest tax credit to offset payroll taxes. We also see that most people don’t really buy the whole “punishing success” stuff coming out of Republicans in regards to raising taxes on people with higher incomes. After all, Obama didn’t just sneak these policies by them; in fact he openly highlighted raising taxes on himself and others in his tax bracket. Even the capital gains tax being raised I or rather, allowed to lapse in its altered state) hasn’t produced as much heat as one would presume. Even the “death tax” hasn’t caused problems.
The argument is that the spending side of Obama’s equation will ruin him because he’ll have to raise taxes eventually, which will be political suicide. But he already HAS, and got elected for it. As long as the number of people he raises taxes on doesn’t equal the majority, I doubt he, or other Democrats will care.
And the sanctity of Medicare/Medicaid lay in the fact that whomever kills the entitlements will inevitably have to deal not merely with the political consequences, but the widespread social problems caused by it. I just can’t see how private solutions will reasonably deal with the chronically ill (either physically or mentally) in a way thats profitable, without harming the patient or their own financial stability. Insurance companies seem pleased enough to be offering add-on plans to Medicare and Medicaid, because frankly. most of them don’t WANT that population. Who would?
It’s really hard not to laugh when we have Gerson and Karl Rove whining about polarisation. Rove is universally considered one of the most divisive figure in American politics and indeed the author of much of it. So, apart from convincing the already converted the rest of the electorate laughs at the incongruity of it. The configuration of the GOP is essentially the consequence of 25 years of using polarization as a political strategy. It has turned out to be a massive miscalculation because it has essentially put the GOP in the control of various factions who harbor extremist views, or at least extremist in the judgement of a comfortable majority of Americans. And it’s at every level of the party: congressional representation, pundit class, party officials, think tanks, you name it. If I list a set of propositions:
Universal healthcare
Invading Iraq was a bad idea
Increased financial regulation
Free choice on abortion
Stem cell research
Rapprochemont with allies
Reduced income inequality
Greater assistance with further ed
Price controls on drugs
Separation of church and state
Evolution
Immigration reform
Banning torture
Etc etc
There are comfortable and in many cases massive majorities in favor of all these propositions but the Republican party is opposed to all of them to a greater or lesser extent. Even worse the opposition is usually being voiced by spokesman who vary from the merely inane (Palin) to the totally demented (Limbaugh, Beck) although it’s largely an act for money in the latter case. The consequence is a party heading for marginalization nationally. Without a Southern weighting that leans Republican imagine what those polls would look like. I really see no way out at present, I think it just has to play itself out with some more electoral setbacks which will ultimately involve tacking back to the center and at some point the Democrats will start to succumb to hubris but they are a long way away from it at present. They are also led by the most formidable political talent I’ve seen in my lifetime. Which is our other mistake. The country loves this guy at the gut level, they also by comfortable majorities have confidence in what he’s doing, so what we gain by trivial and in some cases bizarre personal attacks I have no idea but we’re married to them as is obvious if you read or see any Republican politicians or pundits.
“If the GOP is to have any chance of reviving anytime soon, it will be by peeling off disillusioned and dissatisfied Obama supporters. Even if Obama were driving people away (so far, there is little evidence for this), the GOP still has to be able to attract them.”
The big problem is right now, the people Obama is losing after those to the left (like me). I am not really a disillusioned Obama voter, but I am a highly dissatisfied one from the left. But there’s obviously no way for the GOP to attract me and he’s not losing anyone else.
I can see that the majority of people are in favor of Universal Healthcare…but Immigration Reform? I don’t know what is meant by “comfortable” but huge majorities of the US population are ambivalent about legal immigration, and legalizing illegal immigration (immigration reform) is to an extent unpopular. Also, what thing does evolution have to do with the GOP platform?
A lot of people would end up disillusioned with Obama when he finishes following Geithner and especially Summers, the fraud. The GOP looks a bit crazed at the moment. They have to become a bit more rational and like Daniel states, start proposing reasonable policies that does not involve tax cuts. Especially god spare me, corporate tax cuts!
I present myself to Mr. Gerson as Exhibit A. I was a GOP voter from 1968 until 1994, even holding my nose and voting for Nixon in 1972. Middle aged getting on for elderly, middle class, graduate degree in business, daughter of a military family: I used to be a classic Republican supporter. And guess what? I will probably be voting GOP again when elephants fly, now that the Republican base has been reduced to Richy Rich, Daddy Warbucks and Elmer Gantry.
To be sure, my perception of Republicans is highly colored by the repulsive lunatics running the party here in Colorado. As Exhibit B, I present State Sen. David Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, who voted against a bill requiring pregnant women to be tested for HIV, not for any principled reason like invasion of privacy but because it would wrongly protect women and their unborn children from the consequences of “sexual promiscuity.” “We do things constantly to try to remove the negative consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly,” he said. In other words, punishing women trumps saving newborn babies from misery and death. Yuck.
Also, what thing does evolution have to do with the GOP platform?
What it has to do, and one reason (fairly close to dedicating economic policies to 5% of the population and corporations) Republicans have lost the reality based community, is that anti-evolution is in the GOP platform. Republican leaders, including Bush II and all but one of the last would-be presidential gang, would privilege creationism over, or at least equivalent to, evolution. Which is, among other things, a marker for the fact that the GOP is the party of the irrational, has lost and will continue to lose the educated voter (other than the small chunk that is both wealthy and greedy).
nyx, on April 9th, 2009 at 6:40 pm Said:
….You’re totally wrong about Geithner and Summers. The banking system has clearly been stabilized and is on the way to being fixed. You also need to include Bernanke in your criticisms because this is very much a joint action by the three of them. You may not like how it’s being fixed but it’s being fixed. They are also fixing the economy, it will be on the mend by next spring and they and Obama will get the credit
nyx, on April 9th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
There were majorities for McCain/Bush’s proposals not as large as on something like healthcare. Equal time for creationism is included in the GOP platform and religious fundamentalism is perceived to be a central part of Republican belief systems. However, if you don’t agree take them off my list….it’s still leaves plenty of popular stuff that is opposed by the GOP.