Blue Dogs like to say that they are fiscal conservatives. In fact, "fiscally conservative" is the first way that Blue Dogs describe themselves on their website. That description is right next to a deficit clock, because I guess reducing the deficit is their number one priority.
Fortunately for the Blue Dogs, there is a health care bill in the House right now that the CBO projects to reduce the deficit in both the near term and long term. From the CBO:
CBO and the staff of JCT estimate that, on balance, the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting H.R. 3962, incorporating the manager's amendment, would yield a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $129 billion over the 2010-2019 period. (CBO has not completed a comprehensive estimate of the legislation's potential impact on spending that is subject to future appropriation action.) In the decade after 2019, the bill would probably result in slight reductions in federal budget deficits.
Great! Reducing the deficit is what Blue Dogs are all about, right? This should be a slam dunk for them!
The number of Blue Dogs leaning toward or committed to "no" votes could be in the 30s, according to members, although Blue Dog leaders stress that they've done no whip count.
"I've been spending a lot of time with my members who are kind of going from pillar to post saying, 'Look, we don't need this; we can't afford this,' " Taylor explained.
Truly, only fiscal conservatives like the Blue Dogs would argue that we can't afford to reduce the deficit.
Political scientist Boris Shor has a blog post premiering results from a forthcoming paper (pdf) where he goes to town mapping the ideological distribution of state legislators from 1996-2006. The post is titled, provocatively, "Scozzafava is a Conservative Republican (in New York)", and his reasoning is fairly straightforward: although the right is so upset with Scozzafava for being far too liberal that they may well be handing NY 23 to a Democrat, they aren't looking at the context:
Despite the laundry list of liberal issue positions held by Scozzafava, my research with Princeton's Nolan McCarty on ideology in American state legislatures shows that the Assemblywoman is actually a conservative Republican. Wait for it. Wait for it... In New York.
Her ideological "common space" score is 0.02. These scores, similar but far superior to interest group ratings, put state legislators around the country on the same scale with each other, as well as with members of Congress. Liberals have lower scores; conservatives higher ones....
Scozzafava's score puts her in the 58th percentile of her party, which makes her slightly more conservative than the average Republican legislator in Albany, so she's a conservative in her party. For example, she's more conservative than James Tedisco, who lost a special election to succeed Kirsten Gillenbrand in the 20th District (score: -.22 and in the most liberal fifth of the party). In the legislature as a whole, she's in the 83rd percentile, which makes her a conservative in Albany in general
Here's his chart of all the partisan state legislatures (Nebraska is officially non-partisan):
However, in the comments someone manages to throw some serious water on the claim, given that it appears Scozzafava has shifted ideologically while in office--a relatively rare phenomena in politics. So maybe the diary title is not really on the mark after all--but the larger point remains: there's an enormous difference in where Republicans and Democrats fall ideologically depending on the stat that they're from. You can see it simply by noting the lack of overlap between the bulk of Democrats to the left of the left-hand vertical grey line in states like California, New York, Washington, Wisconsin and Utah, and the bulk of Democrats to the right of that same line in state like West Virginia, Nevada, South Carolina, Arkansas, etc. A similar visual comparison can be made for Republicans as well.
It is a truism in politics that there are more swing voters in the middle of the electorate--self-identified moderates and Independents--than at the edges. However, exit polls indicates that is not necessarily the case. In fact, from 2004 to 2008, Democrats appear to have gained more votes from self-identified liberals than from any other ideological group.
In 2004, according to exit polls, 17.85% of the electorate were self-identified liberals who voted for Kerry
In 2008, according to exit polls, 19.58% of the electorate were self-identified liberals who voted for Obama.
From 2004 to 2008, exit polls estimate that the Democratic Presidential nominee improved his overall vote percentage by 1.73% entirely through self-identified liberals.
By way of comparison:
In 2004, according to exit polls, 24.84% of the electorate were self-identified moderates who voted for Kerry.
In 2008, according to exit polls, 26.40% of the electorate were self-identified moderates who voted for Obama.
From 2004 to 2008, the Democratic Presidential nominee improved his overall vote percentage by 1.56% entirely among self-identified moderates.
So, according to exit polls, Democrats actually gained more from 2004 to 2008 among self-identified liberals than among self-identified moderates. Conservatives were not far behind, either:
In 2004, according to exit polls, 5.44% of the electorate were self-identified conservatives who voted for Kerry.
In 2008, according to exit polls, 6.80% of the electorate were self-identified conservatives who voted for Obama.
From 2004 to 2008, the Democratic Presidential nominee improved his overall vote percentage by 1.36% entirely among self-identified conservatives.
Swing voters from 2004 to 2008 were spread fairly evenly across the ideological spectrum, with liberals, moderates and conservatives all making up significant portions. Although it is within the margin for rounding error, exit polling actually suggests that liberals were the largest swing voting block of all.
If elected officials primarily consider themselves accountable to voters who can potentially change their voting habits, and thus change the results of elections, it would be unwise to focus solely on the middle of the electorate. Roughly one-third of the swing voters that put Democrats in office are liberals, and as such Democrats need to keep those voters happy. Further, even apart from votes, the partisan and ideological base drives resources--donations, volunteers, positive messaging to family, friends and co-workers--which can in turn be used to acquire votes from non-base groups.
As such, while some Democrats may think there are no repercussions for using the partisan and ideological base as either a foil or a corner in a triangulation scheme, there are good reasons to think that that dissing the base is an extremely dangerous electoral strategy. While the 2000 election should have already made this obvious, these numbers further show the liberal vote is not static. The liberal vote can change in ways that can result in Democrats winning, or losing, elections.
On health care, Obama's willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party's liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done.
My response to this quote is more value neutral than most other bloggers. The progressive netroots and other supporters of the public option will only be "kicked to the curb" if kicking us to the curb is the most politically expedient option available for the White House. By contrast, if the White House does not feel it is possible to kick us to the curb on health care and still maintain what it considers an acceptable level of political viability, then we won't be kicked to the curb. To put it another way, we will only be kicked to the curb if we can be kicked to the curb.
There is no reason to expect that people who have managed to rise all the way to the White House will stick by their ostensible policy allies just out of principle. It would be nice if that were the case, but it isn't. Don't expect people who have risen to perches of extreme power to give up that extreme power just to be nice to you. That might be the sort of thing you expect from family members, or your best friend. To think that an elected official will do the same is to mistake that elected official for a family member or best friend.
I wish it wasn't all about too many politicians being more concerned with maintaining acquired power than with following through on principles, but oftentimes it certainly seems to be. For decades, throwing progressive under the bus has consistently proven be the most expedient option for Democratic elected officials. This is why it keeps happening. If all we can do is sit around and worry about whether or not Democratic leaders will throw us under the bus, then it is guaranteed we will keep being thrown under the bus. However, if doing this to progressives consistently causes an unacceptable level of political damage to elected Democrats, then it will stop happening almost immediately.
I don't like talking about politics this way, but progressives often get walked over because they can get walked over. By contrast, Moneyed interests and large corporations don't get walked over because most politicians don't think they can walk over them. That is a power dynamic we need to reverse.
Republicans understand opposition politics: when you're in the opposition, you don't smile bipartisanly, you gnaw at the ankles of the ruling party. Nothing they do is right, everything they do is wrong.
Generally Ian is spot on, and he's right in terms of the burnt earth style of Republican opposition to Obama/Democrats but I'm going to quibble on this one because I've detected a dog that is not barking, and I think the silence of this particular hound says a lot about the utter sham and fraud that is movement conservativism. Namely, where is the conservative/Republican opposition to the Democratic proposal to enforce individual mandates to purchase health insurance?
Over the past month, I have been wondering if, given the current structure of our federal government, it is even possible to have the federal government operate to the left of national public opinion in the way that it often operates to the right of national public opinion. More specifically:
Considering that where 60-votes are required to close debate on most pieces of legislation in the Senate;
Considering the amount of money behind the right-wing corporate PAC and (especially) lobbying complex;
Consider the incredible effort necessary for large Democratic majorities to even pass overwhelmingly popular ideas like the public option (supported by 60%+ of Americans);
Considering these four things, the amount of organization that progressives need to do in order to pass any left-wing legislation that is opposed by 51% or more of the country is almost unimaginable. Can Congress ever pass legislation that is even slightly to the left of the country?
During the 75 year history of public opinion polling, there are virtually no examples of Congress passing left-wing legislation into law against the wishes of the majority of the country. The only example of unpopular, left-wing public policy orchestrated in during 2009 was the federal takeover of the auto industry. That move was both unpopular (39% favored it, 53% opposed) and very left-wing (government and worker ownership of a major industry). However, even that wasn't actually passed through Congress, at least not directly.
There aren't many examples further in the past, either. I was talking with a friend about this last night who the Civil Rights Act as a possibility, but only a few months after signing it into law LBJ was re-elected with a still-record 61.05% of the popular vote. The tax hike on the wealthy in President Clinton's first budget is a possibility, but I have never seen a poll showing income tax increases on the wealthy as unpopular.
Are there any examples of Congress passing left-wing legislation against the wishes of 50% or more of the country? That I can't point to even one makes me wonder if, given the structural difficulties I described above, if it is even possible. If anyone can think of examples, please post them in the comments.
While logically fallacies are still a fresh topic in my mind, allow me to take issue with another one that has always annoyed me. Specifically, I am referring to the idea that Democrats, a partisan organization, are interchangeable with ideologically left-wing organizations:
"The President discussed how the current tone and culture in Washington made it more difficult than it has been in the past to work in a bipartisan fashion. In particular, he singled out Republican Senators who are trying to work in a bipartisan fashion even in the context of a vocal minority in their party who doubt that the President was born in the US. In this context about the less productive tone of the debate in Washington, he said he didn't like to see 'left wing groups attack fellow 'Democrats.'
Since President Obama isn't actually asking any of the left-wing organizations running ads against Democrats on health care to stop doing so, I find this irritating primarily on a logical level rather than on a political one.
First, if President Obama assigns such high value to non-partisanship, why does he wish that left-wing groups would stop attacking "fellow Democrats?" Attacking "fellow Democrats" would be a non-partisan act. As such, one would think that President Obama would praise it, rather than wish it would stop. Make he only values bi-partisanship, rather than non-partisanship.
Second, partisanship is not interchangeable with ideology. Just because a group is left-wing does not make them a Democrat, and just because someone is a Democrat does not make tem left-wing. Many of the Democrats being targeted by left-wing ads would agree. Check out the Blue Dogs explaining the etymology of their name:
The 52 conservative and moderate Democrats in the group hail from every region of the country, although the group acknowledges some southern ancestry which accounts for the group's nickname. Taken from the South's longtime description of a party loyalist as one who would vote for a yellow dog if it were on the ballot as a Democrat, the "Blue Dog" moniker was taken by members of The Coalition because their moderate-to-conservative-views had been "choked blue" by their party in the years leading up to the 1994 election.
It is hypocritical for Democrats who describe themselves as "conservative and moderate" and who attack the Democratic Party for choking them blue to say that they should be exempt from attacks by left-wing groups on the grounds that both they and the left-wing groups are all Democrats. If Democrats want to be exempt from attacks by left-wing groups, then at a minimum those Democrats should at least describe themselves as left-wing. Otherwise, a double-standard in simply being invoked.
Leaving the logical nitpicking aside for a moment, one thing I do like about this story is that President Obama is offering vocal support to a center-right position (getting left-wing groups to stop attacking conservatives and moderates), but then not doing anything to make that center-right position a reality. It is nice to see that he sometimes only offers symbolic support to center-right wing positions, too.
The public is becoming increasingly antsy as they wait for the stimulus to have an impact. The number of people who think it has had no effect on the economy is actually rising as time goes on:
CBS News Poll. July 9-12, 2009. N=944 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.
"So far, do you think the federal government's stimulus package has made the economy better, made the economy worse, or has it had no impact on the economy so far?"
Date
Worse
Better
No effect
July 12
15%
21%
60%
June 16
15%
32%
48%
As more people think the stimulus has had no impact, the more people think using government spending as a means of stimulating the economy is not worthwhile (from the same CBS poll):
"Which comes closer to your own view? The federal government should spend money to stimulate the national economy, even if it means increasing the budget deficit. OR, The federal government should NOT spend money to stimulate the national economy and should instead focus on reducing the budget deficit."
July 12: Reduce Deficit 61%--33% Stimulate economy
June 16: Reduce Deficit 52%--41% Stimulate economy
No matter what you think of the wording of that question, the trendline is still important. An increasing number of Americans do not believe that the stimulus has had any impact on the economy. As such, an increasing number of Americans are turning away from the idea of using increased government spending as a means toward economic improvement. It is a perfectly rationale response, even if it demonstrates a lack of patience.
All of this underlies a larger point about how, even though the legislation that has been signed into law in 2009 has been, due to a variety of factors, much more moderate that progressive, the success or failure of that policy will still determine the public perception of the efficacy of progressive policies and ideology for a long time to come. Whether or not the Democratic trifecta actually passes progressive legislation, the legislation that is passed and the policies that are followed will still be perceived as progressive. We simply can't avoid that.
For example, right now the stimulus package pretty much equals left-wing economic philosophy in the eyes of the American people. If it doesn't produce results, we are all going to see our ideas become discredited in the eyes of the American public, even if we thought policies of the Democratic trifecta did not go nearly far enough. The country is never going to say "well, that idea didn't work, so let's try a more extreme version of it." People just don't think that way in America.
Many conservatives felt the same way under the Republican trifecta, and are now roundly mocked for arguing that conservatism can't fail, but people can fail conservatism. I imagine that if the economy doesn't turn around, many progressives will sound quite similar in their critiques of the Obama administration. Problem is, we will sound just as silly as they will. Whether we like it or not, progressivism is on the hook for the success or failure of the policies passed under the Obama administration and the Democratic trifecta.
There is an almost overwhelming argument from the "mainstream" political punditry, led by David Broder, that both the Democratic and Republican Parties have been taken over by "extremists." It is one of the fundamental tenents of Village philosophy that the extremists are ruining America, especially on the left, and must be shunned at all costs. However, it turns out that the so-called "extremes" are actually the ones who feel the most left out, not the "middle."
According to a recent Gallup poll, 25% of Americans feel either than the Democratic Party is "too conservative" (8%) or that the Republican Party is "too liberal." (17%) Both of these positions would generally be considered "extremist," at least within national American politicsl discourse. 25% is a fairly sizable "extreme," but so be it for the purposes of this post.
Since comments to Quick Hits are not working and fedupliberal wanted to post a reply to something I posted, I think this is something worth talking about. I'd normally reserve this for the weekend, but I plan on being out of town with sporadic internet access and I do plan on having a series of diaries about third party politics.
I posted a Quick Hit noting that in a recent Gallup poll, only 8% of respondents said that the Democratic Party is too liberal. Doing the math, if we assume that few Republicans would say that, then 10% of independents feel that way and 15-20% of self-identifying Democrats think so, with most of the other Democrats being satisfied with the party as is. I suggested that this is evidence that the ground isn't as fertile for a third party challenging Democrats from the left as some here would hope.
The past year has revealed a comprehensive philosophy of government championed by conservatives and moderates when they oppose major progressive economic reforms. I call it "crime and reward." The philosophy is summed up as follows:
The flaw in progressive legislative proposals is that they don't give enough money to the corporations that caused the problem(s) which overall legislative effort is supposedly trying to solve.
It applies in all major cases. Check it out:
The way to lower health care costs is to give companies that have increased health care costs even more money: As Olympia Snowe and many others have articulated, the problem with a public option is that it lowers the cost of health insurance rather than increasing the amount of money private health insurers generate in revenue. While one would think that the purpose of health care reform legislation is to lower the price of health insurance, it appears that for many the purpose is actually to make sure that the companies ratcheting up health care costs receive even more money from the process (ie, through mandates to buy their over-priced insurance and no lower priced, public option).
The way to fix climate change is to give the companies that are the main cause of climate change even more money: As Collin Peterson and Claire McCaskill have articulated, the problem with climate change legislation is that it doesn't give enough money to the energy and agricultural conglomerates that are primarily responsible for global warming.
The way to fix the financial crisis is to give the financial institutions that caused the financial crisis even more money: This one is pretty straightforward and has been covered extensively. From the Wall Street bailout program itself, to making sure that Congress doesn't pass laws restricting executive bonuses out fear that financial institutions won't take our money, the government's solution to fixing the financial crisis is to give the people and companies that caused the financial crisis even more money. The progressive alternative, temporary nationalization, should be opposed because it wouldn't make enough money for shareholders.
On the three major areas of public policy that were addressed by the federal government over the last twelve months--health care, climate change, financial crisis--the "moderate" solution has consistently been to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the corporations that caused climate change, the financial crisis, and skyrocketing health care costs. It is a crime and reward ideology. When powerful private sector companies cause major national and global problems, the "moderate" solution is to give those who caused the problem hundreds of billions of dollars.
Crime and reward. Through a conservative-moderate alliance, it is the system of government under which we live, even in the era of the Democratic trifecta.
In a joint interview with his energy policy team yesterday, President Obama positioned the climate change bill that passed through Congress as the moderate position:
So I think that at the end of the day this bill represents an important first step. There are critics from the left as well as the right; some who say who doesn't go far enough, some who say it goes too far.(...)
[T]he final legislation that emerges is probably not going to satisfy the Europeans or Greenpeace. On the other hand, I think that when you've got corporate leaders like Jeff Immelt, legislators from coal regions like Rick Boucher, and Al Gore all agreeing that this is worth doing, that's a pretty good coalition to work with.
The mention of Greenpeace is noteworthy, given that they came out in opposition to the bill believing that it was too flawed. It is highly likely that President Obama is aware of Greenpeace's opposition, and was briefed on it as a means of selling the climate change bill as a moderate position.
This rhetorical move, positioning himself to the left of either real or caricatured left-wing positions, is emblematic of Obama's style. Consider comments he made in 2006, even before he was a Presidential candidate (more in the extended entry):
After several years of trying to "retake" the Democratic Party and make it more progressive, today I am giving up and becoming a conservative Democrat. Upon careful consideration, the benefits packages are simply too heavily tilted toward the corporate wing of the party. Check it out:
Being a conservative Democrat also makes you far more likely to receive a major cabinet appointment. Not even counting the Republicans, New Democrats outnumber Progressives in President Obama's cabinet by 7-1.
Finally, if one of those crazy progressives decides to challenge you in a primary campaign, if you are a conservative Democrat you can also count on the endorsements of 95% of your congressional colleagues, the entire party leadership, and virtually every progressive advocacy organization. They will stand by you.
So really, why would anyone be a progressive Democrat given the different bonus packages that are on offer? I think my move makes a lot of sense. Every Democrat should be a conservative.
Over the last two months, I have spent a great deal of time pointing out that political rhetoric over "big government" is one of the most dishonest, and utterly phony aspects of American political discourse. For example, the difference between long-term social spending proposals in a the FY 2006 budget, which self-proclaimed right-wing ideologue Tom DeLay declared was "peak efficiency," and that proposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, was only 3.21% of GDP. Further, most of that difference actualyl caem from increasing health care costs and more people receiving unemployment benefits. The actual proposed differences are under 2% of the economy.
Yesterday, two self-proclaimed proponents of "fiscal responsibility," House Republicans and the Blue Dogs, did a good job of emphasizing just how dishonest and phony this debate really is.
1. Sotomayor Cruising Toward Confirmation Another poll came out today showing Sonia Sotomayoor cruising toward confirmation. The AP / GfK poll shows 50% of the country favoring Sotomayor's nomination, with only 22% opposed. This is the third poll asking a direct question on Sotomayor's nomination, all of which have put her in safe territory.
A comparative look at the first three confirmation polls on the four Supreme Court nominees since 2005 show just how safe Sotomayor really is:
First Three Polls, Last Four Supreme Court Nominees Roberts: +27.3% (Confirm 51.0%--23.7%, AP, ABC and Newsweek)
Sotomayor +23.4% (Confirm 49.7%--26.3% Not Confirm, Rasmussen, AP and Gallup)
Alito: +11.4% (Confirm: 37.7%--26.3% Not Confirm, AP, Newsweek and Fox)
Miers: +8.0% (Confirm 36.7%--28.7% Not Confirm, Pew, Fox, AP)
Public opinion on confirming Sotomayor is far closer to Roberts territory than to Alito or Miers. Roberts sailed through the nomination process, and it is a solid bet that Sotoamyor will sail through as well.
Update: Rasmussen has just released a widely outlying poll on Sotomayor today, showing the public favoring he confirmation by only 41%--36%. Even if that was included in the average, replacing the orginal Rasmussen polls, Sotomayor is still at 47.7% confirm--28.3% Not Confirm, far ahead of Alito, and still closer to Roberts.
However, consider that Rasmussen also has consistently claimed that Republicans are winning the generic congressional ballot, a finding that has consistently been repudiiated by every other pollster on the subject. They also find a lot more Republicans in the country than any other polling firm. In 2009, they are consistently skewing Republican.
2. "Strict Constructionists" Not in the Majority In looking through old supreme court polling to compile this post, I came along this interesting nugget:
ABC News/Washington Post Poll. July 21, 2005. N=500 adults nationwide. MoE ± 4.5. Fieldwork by TNS.
"Do you think the U.S. Supreme Court should base its rulings on its understanding of what the U.S. Constitution meant as it was originally written, or should the court base its rulings on its understanding of what the U.S. Constitution means in current times?"
Cuurent Meaning: 50%
Originally Written: 46%.
Unsurer: 4%
In the same vein, a Quinnpiac poll from July 2008 showed a 52%-40% majority in favor of "current realities" over "original intentions," while a Fox poll from August 2005 showed a 47%--36% plurality for "framer's intent" over "meaning in today's world." The questions were all phrased differently, but no majority ever appeared for what conservatives call the "strict constructionist" position. In fact, in two out of three polls, the "living document" argument was in the majority.
This is relevant because I can't remember a single politician ever arguing that we need judges who will interpret the Constitution in a way that is relevant to our own times, even though it appears to be the more common viewpoint among the American public. About all we ever hear from Republicans and Democrats alike is how we need strict interpretations of what the founders intended. I guess it isn't surprising that a piece of conservative rhetoric dominates our political discourse even though it is a minority position. This is hardly the only example of that happening.
I spent a lot of time during the transition criticizing many of President Obama's choices for top appointments as too centrist. Eventually, I dropped the argument, realizing that arguing over abstractions like "centrist" versus "progressive" rarely, if ever, leads to new knowledge. The arguments just never seem to go anywhere.
However, I am going to break the seal on these arguments today, now that there is growing evidence that, at least when it comes to LGBT rights, many key Obama appointees are, in fact, to the right of the American public as a whole. For example, take his senior military advisors on Don't Ask, Don't Tell:
Supporters of the repeal in recent days have pointed out that Obama's senior military team has not been in line with the president's decision to overturn the policy known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
"So far his senior military team is not on the same page with the president and has not aligned with him yet," said Aubrey Sarvis, the executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), a nonprofit organization dedicated to repealing the ban.
"Or if they are, it is certainly not apparent," he added.
Every poll, not matter how it is phrased, shows that only a minority of Americans oppose repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. There is a wide variation, but those opposing repeal are always under 50%:
Quinnipiac University Poll. April 21-27, 2009. N=2,041 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 2.2
"Federal law currently prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the military. Do you think this law should be repealed or not?"
Should repeal 56%--37% should not repeal
CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. April 23-26, 2009. Adults nationwide.
"Do you favor or oppose the policy sometimes called 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' in which the U.S. military does not ask new recruits whether they are gay or lesbian, but prohibits gays and lesbians from serving in the military if they reveal their sexual orientation?"
"Do you think people who are openly gay or homosexual should or should not be allowed to serve in the U.S. military?"
Should 81%--17% Should Not
Why are President Obama's senior military advisors aligned more with the conservative minority on this one? Even if you think that the evenly divided 48%-47% poll is the most accurate one, surely a Democratic President, representing the nation's center-left coalition, should have advisors that represent the center-left position. Otherwise, there is no way to ever hope that progressives can become senior leaders within the military apparatus.
Now, I know that one reason for this is that progressives have not done as much successful organizing in the military area as they have in, say, labor and environmental matters. Generally speaking, one should expect more progressive appointments in areas of policy where progressives have done more successful organizing. However, Democrats did retake Congress in 2006 largely because of a military issue (Iraq), and President Obama won the Democratic nomination largely for the same reasons. After all that, it is still extremely frustrating that there seems to be no way to win in areas of military policy.
Conservatives are crying "identity politics" over Sotomayor's nomination, as they would have if Obama had nominated anyone except a white male. The lack of self-awareness in these charges is pretty extreme, but also not surprising. Here are just some examples of conservative identity politics:
"America is a Christian nation." Arguing that American government should be largely based on a particular religious identity is identity politics.
"Democrats are socialists." Calling an opposing political party "socialists," when even the left-wing of that party is proposing directing only 3% more of the economy to public social spending, is pure identity politics rather than a charge with any intellectual merit.
"Marriage is between a man and a woman." Given that marriage has taken on numerous forms throughout history, and still takes on numerous forms throughout the world today, this is not an actual historical argument but instead one based on identity preferences.
Mocking people because of what they eat, including arugula, is pure identity politics.
Calling America "the greatest nation on earth" is also pure identity politics. If such claims were simply quantitative, ie that America has the largest economy, or the largest military, that would be one thing. However, abstract claims about qualitative "greatness" are entirely subjective and identity based.
"Traditional values." Oh yeah, that's identity politics, rather than a historical re-enactment.
And these are just some examples. Much of conservative politics, like all politics, is heavily based in cultural conceptions about identity. This is largely unavoidable, given that how one conceptualizes the world necessarily requires a conceptualization of how oneself fits within that world. To put it a different way, everyone has an ideology, and you can't have an ideology without an identity.
Identity politics are kind of like linguistic accents: everyone has one, but not everyone realizes it. What is frequently distinct about conservative identity politics is its own inability to view itself as identity politics. From such a viewpoint, women, minorities, homosexuals, and non-Christians have identities, but men, whites, straights, and Christians do not. Note how you have never seen a conservative claim a president is engaging in identity politics when he has nominated a white dude for an important government position.
Even beyond this, the least self-aware aspect of the conservative "identity politics" charge is how consistently making that claim has helped push Republicans into minority status. Conservatives have demonized every growing demographic group in the country: non-whites, non-Christians, and the LGBT community. Collectively, these groups vote over 3-1 Democratic, and will compose well over 100% of the population growth in this country over the next few decades (it is over 100% because straight white Christians are actually shrinking in overall number). That a political party could get crushed in two consecutive elections, find itself in a bigger congressional deficit than Democrats have faced in 80 years, and still think that attacking growing demographic groups is a good idea politically is utterly perplexing.
It leads one too think that American conservatism doesn't actually care about winning either elections or policies, and that attacking people with different cultural identities is the entire point of contemporary American conservatism.
Give the media and blog play the new Pew Survey on political values and core attitudes seems to be getting, I find it necessary to offer a further rebuttal to the usefulness of the insights provided by the poll.
These are just some of the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,223 adults surveyed online between March 6 and 14, 2007 by Harris Interactive®. Other findings include:
A 71 percent to 15 percent majority of adults do not think "it is necessary to increase taxes to reduce the budget deficit". Large majorities of Republicans, Democrats and Independents feel this way;
Even if taxes "had to be raised", very large majorities oppose raising the estate tax (64%) gas taxes (82%), income taxes (81%), the social security tax (83%), and the Medicare tax (87%);
The only two taxes on the list shown to those interviewed which would be acceptable to majorities of adults ("if taxes had to be raised") are taxes on cigarettes and beer and alcohol, with 73 percent and 72 percent of adults respectively saying these so called "taxes" should be increased;
When it comes to cutting government spending, there is little support for cutting any substantial programs. Given a list of twelve federal government programs and asked to pick two which should be cut ("if spending had to be cut") space programs top the list by a wide margin (51%). Significant minorities, all under 30 percent, pick welfare programs (28%), defense spending (28%), farm subsidies (24%), environmental programs (16%), homeland security (12%) and transportation (11%). Hardly anyone would cut Medicaid (4%), education (3%), Social Security (2%) or Medicare (1%).
By throwing around terms like "socialism" and asking vague questions about political values, we can pretend that there are major policy differences in America. However, when people are actually asked about government programs, the bi-partisan, status quo nature of America is truly revealed.
Miniscule percentages--less than 5%--of the country want to make cuts to Medicaid, education, Social Security and Medicare when given a choice between those and other programs. The percentage of people who want to cut defense spending is down, too. In addition to unemployment, these programs account for roughly 80% of government spending, and very few people want to cut them.
On the other side of the coin, it seems that the only tax increases people favor are taxes on the wealthy, and also cigarette and alcohol taxes. Everything else is pretty unpopular.
The simple fact is that the overwhelming political advice from the American is to maintain the status quo. And so, our politicians do just that. I've said it before and I'll say it again: right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats are only arguing over 3% of the economy. We could bother to point that out to the country, but it seems a lot easier to call each other names and pretend that our abstract self-identifications actually constitute large policy differences.
Despite the current façade of a grand ideological argument over the future of capitalism in America, the truth is that the right-wing of the Republican Party and the left-wing of the Democratic Party are only differ from each other on how to manage 3% of the national economy. Both sides agree that about 22% of the national economy should be devoted to public sector social investment spending (schools, roads, health care, pensions, etc), while about 75% of the national economy should be left to private enterprise / spending and other government functions (military, police, interest on the debt, etc). The disagreement is whether the remaining 3% should be devoted to public sector social spending, or toward private enterprise / spending and other government functions. Toss-in the degree of government regulation, and whether or not there should be private Social Security savings accounts, and you have the entire policy difference over the economy in mainstream American political discourse.
And yet, despite this remarkable similarity, differences between self-identified Democrats and self-identified Republicans have never been higher when it comes to answering abstract ideological questions in polls. The Pew Center for People and the Press documents this increasing division over abstract ideological questions in a major survey released today (more in the extended entry):
Many of the arguments about the Obama administration that have played out among pundits and activists alike are based on whether or not the Obama administration is living up to the abstract vagaries of Obama campaign rhetoric. Is President Obama changing the government enough? Is he being bipartisan enough? Is he really avoiding ideology? It was an intentional part of then-Senator Obama's campaign strategy for these terms to be vague, thus allowing voters to read their own hopes and desires into Barack Obama. That we are still arguing over these terms is a testament to the success of the execution of that strategy.
Personally, I am tired of these arguments, because they don't seem to ever lead to new knowledge. Instead, I now find it much more interesting to actually try and quantify how much the federal budget has changed from the Republican trifecta (FY 2002, 2004-2007) to the Democratic trifecta (FY 2010-2013). This way, we can develop a quantitative metric for understanding what our electoral fights in this country are really all about. What sort of change really takes place from strong Republican control of the federal government to strong Democratic control of the federal government? Rather than arguing over vague abstractions-which essentially means we don't even know what we are arguing over--let's put a price tag on change.
I have already done some work on this front. Two weeks ago, the total spending difference from the 2009 to 2010 budget, broken down by federal department, were listed here on Open Left. Also, earlier this week, I was able to quantify the difference in total social spending between the Republican trifecta, the Democratic trifecta, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The overall results were surprisingly minimalist: shifting from Republican to Democratic control of the federal government resulted in a shift of about 2% of the national economy away from what might loosely be termed "private enterprise" and toward "social investment" in things like education, energy, health care, infrastructure, and pensions. Lest people think this is only an issue of the wrong type of Democrats being in charge, my research also showed that if the Congressional Progressive Caucus was running the show, the difference would have been 3% of the national economy instead of 2%.
Apart from these big-picture analyses, it is important to catalogue all of the differences on a more specific level, as well. For example, yesterday, the Huffington Post took a look at the differences between spending on the "drug war" from 2009 to 2010. Again, the results were minimal (more in the extended entry):
