Take a while to look at these seven maps, as all seven show the same pattern. Specifically, these significant third party campaigns found their strength in the Western, Midwestern and Northeastern parts of the country, but were extremely weak in the South. Except for the regional, segregationist third-party movements of 1948-1968, the South is where third-party movements go to die. By contrast, from Perot to Wallace to Anderson to Debs to Roosevelt, the Northeast, and especially the Midwest and West, offer tremendous support to third-party movements. Considering the ideological diversity of these third-party movements, there seems to be a large group of voters living mostly outside of the South who base their vote primarily on change and reform, regardless of the ideology pushing that reform.
While this group of voters would seem like a natural ally of liberals, since voting for change and reform is a liberal act, unfortunately right now the reformers are voting Republican. Granted, there is nothing fixed about this, especially since the MO of the block, voting for change, is inherently liberal, and they can be brought back. Further, because the reformers can be swung, this group also holds the balance of power between the two coalitions. For example, in 2000, Gore only received 27% of the 1996 Perot vote, according to exit polls. In the 1984 and 1988 elections, I have little doubt where the majority of the1980 Anderson vote went. If Gore has received an equal share of the Perot vote in 2000, the election would have been a blowout in Gore's favor. If Dukakis has managed to acquire an equal share of the Anderson vote, 1988 would have been a toss-up. The 50-52% national Republican majority exists primarily because Republicans and conservatives have managed to bring the majority of the non-ideological reform-minded voters into their coalition. Aptly, the reformers hold the key to change this situation.
The observation about Gore and Perot voters is particularly on target, given the detailed analysis of how Republicans wooed Perot voters to takeover Congress in 1994 in Three's a Crowd: The Dynamic of Third Parties, Ross Perot, and Republican Resurgence. The "Contract With America" was deliberately crafted with Perot voters--not Christian conservatives--in mind after Clinton essentially sold out on NAFTA, and Gore was uncharacteristically personal and nasty in debating Perot on the issue. Of course, the GOP's real interests lay elsewhere, as can be seen by the fact that it steadily lost House seats it gained outside the South, while replacing them Southern seats from 1996 to 2004:
But the GOP double-cross of reform voters hardly mattered, since they got what they wanted: power. And with that power they continued doing a good-enough job stringing reform voters along, even as they catered more and more to their Southern "Christian" conservative base.
All that changed with the eventual conservative crackup of the Bush Administration, giving the Democrats an historic opportunity for political realignment. Obviously, if Obama had actually delivered on "change you can believe in," if he had sided with Main Street instead of Wall Street, and not stuffed his administration to the gills with insider detritus, the liberal/reformer coalition would have pretty much been cemented for the next 40 years or so. If the Democrats had delivered for reformers the way that Republicans had not, there would have been no turning back. In addition to cementing this coalition among older voters, Democrats would have consolidated their advantage among younger voters as well. It would have also been the epitome of "pragmatism," both politically, and in terms of actually solving major problems that severely threaten the future of America--and the world.
Furthermore, the reason this strategy would have been successful is directly rooted in the reality-based nature of the coalition Chris proposed. Reform is what's needed to break up the special interest power that's got us locked into patterns that work for special interests, even as they destroy America. And liberalism is what's needed to guide the long-term purposes of such reform--to expand security and opportunity for all. This applies to the financial sector's hijacking of the American economy, leading to the accelerated decline of the American middle class. It applies to the no-value-added private health insurance sector, which prevents us from getting anywhere close to First World standards of aggregate health outcomes, while keeping costs far higher than anyone elses. It applies to the fossil fuel/nuclear hijacking of American energy policy, preventing us from saving ourselves from the multi-faceted catastrophe of global warming. And it applies to the Cold War dinosaur military-industrial complex, with it's mania for a 50+ year "long war" in the Middle East and South Asia--thus giving Osama bin Laden precisely what he wanted out of 9/11.
Breaking up the power of all these special interests would have opened up opportunity for the nation as a whole--as well as for much of the rest of the world. Part of that would have manifested itself in the form of market opportunities operating much closer to the free market ideal than the special interest/monopoly capitalist model that dominates America today. The prospective "green economy" is an example of such potential. The libertarian delusion lives on in the belief that that one aspect of expanded opportunity is actually the whole story. The liberal/reformer vision understands quite clearly that free markets have an important role to play in the larger picture, but that they are only part of the story, part of the solution--and indeed, they would inevitably become part of the problem over time, if the other parts of the solution were to be neglected, downplayed or forgotten.
The Liberal/Libertarian Crackup
The disintegration of a proposed liberal/libertarian coalition was neatly summarize by Ed Kilgore in early February ("Liberals and Libertarians Finally Break Up"). First he summarizes the rise of the fantasy:
One mini-saga of the past decade in American politics has been the flirtation-with talk of a deeper partnership-between progressives and libertarians. These two groups were driven together, in the main, by common hostility to huge chunks of the Bush administration's agenda: endless, pointless wars; assaults on civil liberties; cynical vote-buying with federal dollars; and statist panders to the Christian right.
This cooperation reached its height during the 2006 election, in which, according to a new study by David Kirby and David Boaz, nearly half of libertarian voters supported Democratic congressional candidates-more than doubling the support levels from the previous midterm election in 2002. (As Jonathan Chait noted after the first Kirby/Boaz study of libertarian voting, their definition is overly broad, encompassing 14 percent of the electorate.) At the time, left-wing blogger Markos Moulitsas hailed the influx of "libertarian democrats" into the Democratic coalition. Soon, even the Cato Institute's Brink Lindsey was proposing a permanent alliance of what he called "liberaltarians."
But now, not so much:
Well, you can say goodbye to all that. The new Kirby/Boaz study reports that libertarian support for Democrats collapsed in 2008, despite many early favorable assessments of Barack Obama by libertarian commentators. Meanwhile, the economic crisis has raised the salience of issues on which libertarians and Dems most disagree. And there's no question that during Obama's first year-with the rise of the Tea Party movement and national debate over bailouts, deficits, and health care-libertarian hostility to the new administration has grown adamant and virtually universal. But what progressives need to understand is that the end of this affair is actually a good thing
And, Kilgore argues, that's probably all to the good. There were certain affinities, to be sure:
In terms of a deeper bond based on philosophical congruence, it's true that modern liberals and libertarians share common ideological roots in eighteenth and nineteenth century Anglo-American liberalism. Both believe in a world of rational actors, and both consider the promotion of individual autonomy to be a positive good. With the emergence of the "neo-liberal" and "New Democrat" movements of the 1980s and 1990s-which lauded capitalism, technological progress, and free trade-the potential for overlap only increased.
What's more, these groups have a sociocultural affinity. Secularism, prevalent in both liberal and libertarian circles, makes them more comfortable with each other in an era of culture wars. (In my own Washington think tank years, the two camps often coexisted on panels and over lunch or drinks-the sort of professional and social interaction that rarely if ever occurred with the Christian warrior wonks of the Family Research Council.) Plus, people on both sides of the "alliance" undoubtedly enjoyed the psychic rush of breaking bread with someone from "the enemy camp" who could quote Thomas Jefferson and rage against the Iraq war and corporate welfare.
But in the cold hard light of day, not so much:
Yet this liberal-libertarian lovefest was doomed. As Jonathan Chait argued in his 2006 essay, true "liberaltarianism" would require progressives to give up their core goals of smoothing capitalism's rough edges and delivering economic security. Amid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, that ain't happening.
Moreover, with the arrival of the Tea Party movement, libertarians have acquired a kind of mass political cachet that they've never before enjoyed. As Nate Silver estimated last year, the early tea parties were "two parts Ron Paul/libertarian conservative--with its strength out West and in New Hampshire--and one part Sarah Palin/red-meat conservative--with its strength in rural areas, particularly in the South." This phenomenon has pulled libertarianism rightward: Despite some expressed concerns about the crudeness and cultural conservatism of many Tea Party activists, it has become clear that most self-conscious libertarians are willing to participate in, and cheerlead for, the Tea Party movement as though their political futures depend on it.
That, in turn, has torn open cultural rifts between libertarians and liberals. Progressives who previously fawned over the libertarians' Jeffersonian modesty are now exposed to the unattractive aspect of libertarianism that is familiar to readers of Ayn Rand: a Nietzschean disdain for the poor and minorities that tends to dovetail with the atavistic and semi-racist habits of reactionary cultural traditionalists. After all, it is only a few steps from the Tea Party movement's founding "rant"-in which self-described Randian business commentator Rick Santelli blasted "losers" who couldn't pay their mortgages-to populist backlash against all transfer payments of any type, complaints about people "voting for a living" instead of "working for a living," and paranoid conspiracy theories about groups like ACORN.
Certainly, few self-conscious libertarians have much tolerance for racism, but they are encouraging a point of view about "welfare" that has long been catnip to racists. And that's a problem for liberals. How can an alliance last in a climate where a progressive think tanker has to look down the rostrum at that nice Cato Institute colleague and wonder if he or she privately thinks the poor are "looter scum"; or if he's willing to get behind the Sarah Palin presidential candidacy that's so wildly popular in Tea Party circles?
To my mind the liberal-libertarian alliance was always a bad idea, simply because the things we have in common are relatively superficial, and tend to favor the libertarians, whereas the things that divide us are deep, and favor liberals. This makes the proposed alliance far more appealing to political operatives than to voters, much less flesh-and-blood people who might well decided they have nothing to vote for if liberals would rather hang out with libertarians than pay attention to them.
Kilgore's analysis is itself skewed by insider-itis. Who else would say "Certainly, few self-conscious libertarians have much tolerance for racism"? The libertarians one encounters on the internet have always been tone-deaf at best, and more often downright hostile to the needs, interests, grievances and values of racial and ethnic minorities. Racist assumptions are commonplace, and a certain percentage have always been overtly racist in a rather crude throwback way. The same can be seen among the backers of Ron Paul (more on that momentarily.) But rather than quibble over this further, let's simply look at how explanations for black's lower levels of economic success correlate with attitudes toward government social spending. As far back as Free and Cantril's The Political Beliefs of Americans: A Study of Ppublic Opinion (1967), it's been known that attitudes toward government spending produce a much smaller hard core of "operational conservatives" than those who either self-identify as conservatives or agree in principle to broadly-worded conservatives principles. Thus, the truest picture of actual hard-core libertarians--those who really don't want government doing much of anything at all--comes from looking at attitudes towards specific spending items.
The charts below use a combined measure of six such spending items: solving problems of big cities, improving nations education system, improving & protecting environment, welfare, improving & protecting nations health, and improving the conditions of blacks. Those who have negative views of blacks--blaming them for their lower economic status--are far more likely to oppose social spending. First we compare those who think that lower black economic status is due to discrimination versus those that do not:
Operational libertarians are 3.7 times more likely to think that discrimination is not to blame rather than think that it is. In contrast, operational liberals (those who think we're spending too little on 4-6 items) are 1.5 times more likely to think the reverse--that discrimination is to blame, rather than not.
Using another atttitudinal measure, blaming blacks' lower economic status on lack of willpower, yields similar results:
Operational libertarians are 1.8 times more likely to think lack of willpower is to blame for black's lower economic status, rather than to think it is not to blame. Operational liberals are 1.9 times more likely to believe the opposite.
Combining these two measures together produces an even more striking difference:
Operational libertarians are 7 times more likely to blame internal factors for black's lower economic status, rather than to blame external factors. Operational liberals are 1.9 times more likely to believe the opposite.
This is the broader general population picture of libertarian racism. It's not that every libertarian is a racist, or even that most are, consciously. But libertarians as a whole are far more likely to have negative views of blacks, and to blame them for their lower economic status. That's racism, pure and simple. Or more precisely, it's white supremacism. And it only gets more intense if you look at the activist core, the way Robert Farley did at Lawyers Guns and Money recently:
It's a Core Part of the Movement...
....
Every now and then folks like to pretend that the Rand/Ron Paul wing of the Republican Party is somehow less loathsome or dangerous than the Mitt Romney wing. This, of course, is a mistake; the Pauls do espouse certain civil liberties protections, but the source of these views is embedded in a vision of the state and of the relation of the state to society that is deeply racist and quite violent. In short, the purpose of the militia movement and its associated right wing terrorist element is not to eliminate or reduce coercion, but to replace state sponsored coercion with private or communal violence. The Federal government, in this vision, acts primarily in the interests of racial minorities; by limiting state power, private terrorist groups can install and preserve the "correct" racial hierarchy. That this vision is particularly popular in the South, which has a long history of state-ignored terrorist violence against racial minorities, is hardly surprising.
Whatever the Paul's private attitudes towards race and violence, both have happily accepted the support of white supremacist organizations that have anti-statist views, and that see attacks on federal power as code for the defense of white supremacy.
The link above is to a post at Barefoot and Progressive with a YouTube video and transcript of a militia leader speaking alongside Rand Paul at a recent "2nd Amendment" event. Here's a brief excerpt:
The treasonous left wing socialist politicians, and their lapdogs in the press, have gotten a wedgie here recently in their underpants over the tea parties. And a little broken glass (wink, wink). I sure hope they're out there today. If they read history, they should know and fear what came after those events over 200 years ago. This latest forced health care bill, which is really about people control, the same thing as gun control, is the modern day equivalent of the 1765 standback, its only more disastrous to our freedom living way of life, etc...
History it seems is ready to repeat itself. After a long and costly civil war that is eminent, and sure to be forced upon us, we are taking note of those who are responsible for the treason, and they will be held accountable. I advise the press to start getting it right from this moment on, and stop aiding and abetting un-American activities. Like the Tories of old, the worst shall be hung, most will be exiled, and I'm a contractor so I have a little bit of tar and feathers for those who are only partially guilty.
Now recall this passage, from Kilgore's piece above:
As Nate Silver estimated last year, the early tea parties were "two parts Ron Paul/libertarian conservative--with its strength out West and in New Hampshire--and one part Sarah Palin/red-meat conservative--with its strength in rural areas, particularly in the South."
In light of the evidence I've presented after quoting from Kilgore's piece, I think it's safe to say that there's a whole lot less difference between the Ron Paul and Sarah Palin factions than Nate imagines. And this is why the liberal/libertarian alliance was never more than a passing illusion, while the breakup is deeply real. Put simply, libertarians as a whole hate our guts, and some would gladly shoot us.
Of course, this isn't true of all of them. What's more libertarianism appeals in spirit to a significant group of voters who would also support a more activist government, if it were more open, transparent, and directly accountable to the people. These were many of the voters that Perot appealed to when he got 19% of the vote in 1992, as well as similarly-minded voters who've entered the electorate since then. Which brings us back to the subject of how to build that coalition Chris was talking about.
I will take that up in Part 2.
Update: Now available here. |
