Just Tell Me Why Part Two: The Cut of His Jibcomments
john posted in politics & culture on August 4th, 2008
The first part of this post back in September lamented that a friend, who is a level-headed sort of fellow, will still vote Republican even though he highly disapproves of the Iraq Mess and most of the other Bush Administration boondoggles, fiascoes, and self-imposed disasters. The disconnect between his policy views and voting seems surreal to me, and yet as I said, he is a wise and kind fellow.
Reading over this I am struck by the notion that I am arguing with myself and my political friends here. I’ll bet your average cynical campaign strategist will see the points I make below as trivially obvious and the need to discuss policy as naive. So yes, I need you to bear with me as I try to figure out why mere tactics win elections, even though they are juvenile, even demagogic. And after the last eight years, that does sound like a naive argument.
Political science courses will teach you that the vast majority of voters in national elections, sadly about half the adult population, vote according to party rather than platform. Only about ten percent consider themselves independent of party, and are willing to vote for either party in a national election. (these percentages may be in flux) But being independent in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Presidential election means being unable to choose between very different parties and policies. It’s as if you can’t decide whether you want to wear a hawaiian shirt or a shirt and tie. This seems bizarre on the face of it: the people who care about policy stick to one party no matter what it does, and the people who prefer to choose a candidate across parties don’t care much about policy. Plus, there is a huge group of the indifferent who stay away altogether. Yet there are still many voters who watch debates avidly and soak up speeches, policy, and commentary.
This seems crazy!
Do registered Democrats think that health policy should be radically overhauled, or do people who think so register as Democrats? And what about the fringe candidates who claim that both parties are essentially the same, isn’t that a view echoed widely among non-voters? What could possibly motivate independents, who are wavering between two very-different alternatives lately? Are they idiots who can’t make up their mind? If so why do they vote at all? And why then does the basic demographic makeup of parties sometimes go through a seismic change?
What we all agree on:
Let’s start with the facts we pretty much all agree on. First, we have the voter groups given above. Let’s stipulate that lately the parties are quite different and highly partisan. Parties do change their basic make-up from time to time, and yet voters usually prefer allegiance over policy.
Here are some theories:
It’s not rational.
Never mind what voters say, the vast majority vote on something other than policy.
Tribalism.
They vote on tribalism: trying to match an atavistic standard of tribal leader against current fashion and available candidates.
It’s personality.
Voters belong to parties and sometimes to personalities ( see tribalism ) rather than policy.
Some are just louder.
Some voters, the intelligentsia, vote on policy. Because their voice is far louder - bloggers, policy wonks, special interests - they seem to be a larger group than they actually muster.
Just tell me why again:
Well my friend is not much involved with personalities, he would see attraction to personality as childish and naive. He’s seen a lot of politicians come and go, and has a jaundiced view of them. But he identifies with the daddy-party, the Republicans. Voting Democrat is too union, or female, or black, or pro-welfare … just too mommy.
Maybe policy wonks have it all wrong:
Just for a minute, let go of your attitude that Republicans stand for this and Democrats stand for that. Step back and try to find a post WWII President who predicted what he would do in office and followed up by doing it. And before we list them, let’s acknowledge that many Presidents aren’t allowed to do much at all due to partisan gridlock in Congress.
Truman:
The Kansas City machine pol becomes the ultimate straight-shooter, you knew just what you were going to get in 1948. Or not. You wouldn’t have known about the Korean War. When he was Vice-President it would have been hard to see him as an Internationalist or Cold Warrior.
Eisenhower:
The non-egghead, the military man. He started federally-enforced desegregation in the South and quite prophetically warned against the military-industrial complex.
Kennedy:
The handsome young guy with the best and brightest. Barely kept American and Russian hawks from starting World War Three, launched Bay of Pigs fiasco and Vietnam adventure.
Johnson:
The consummate underhanded back-room pol, election-stealer, Texas cracker, and Southern power-broker initiates the Civil Rights Act, the Great Society and the full-blown Vietnam war, and then quits in a fit of conscience.
Nixon:
The main street Republican who unpredictably started the EPA, went to Red China, plotted with Henry Kissinger of all people, installed wage and price controls, and then predictably indulged in paranoia, crime, and cover-ups. A Californian, he remade the Republicans into a party of disgruntled white Southerners.
Carter:
An odd small-town teetotaling guy who became an international diplomatic leader, after he fumbled at the presidency.
Reagan:
Unpredictably willing to negotiate with the Russians, oddly disconnected from a job he tried to get for years. Nancy’s influence may be underrated.
Bush Sr:
He was predictable, once you understood his compromise with the supply-side and fundamentalist wings of the party.
Clinton:
After the initial years utterly unpredictable due to the escalating battles with the Gingrich conservatives and with his own nature. A Democrat who balanced the budget and cut welfare ( which he said he would do).
W:
He was billed as the compassionate conservative, he hated nation-building and involvement in foreign wars. The Supreme Court appointments and foot dragging on financial regulation and environmental issues were predictable. A saber-rattling Republican who wallowed in debt. Well, that might have been predictable after Reagan.
So my point is these presidencies were overwhelmed by international events, fiscal crises, personal demons, partisanship, infighting, and court intrigue. They are often represented as unable to deal with two crises at once, and their staffs are over-worked and under-prepared. Frequently the President has only the power of the bully pulpit. The veto works if you don’t want government to provide services and manage the economy ( Republicans) and is clumsy or unusable if you are trying to get things done ( Democrats). It’s not such an outlandish idea to suggest that Presidents’ personality and instincts have more to do with their successes than their carefully crafted policies. True, ideologues don’t change position as much in office as pragmatists, but even the dogmatic Reagan and W changed quite a bit. And we have never had a left-wing ideologue: it’s easier to govern as a rigid right-winger because you generally want government to not do things on the domestic front.
It’s the cut of his jib:
Maybe the real path to understanding voters is to ignore all the platforms and just look at the personalities? Comparing Eisenhower-Stevenson, or Kennedy-Nixon, Nixon-McGovern, Reagan-Carter, Clinton-Dole, and Bush-Gore you can see sharp personality differences that in hindsight seem significant. But what about Johnson-Goldwater, Carter-Ford, Reagan-Mondale, Bush-Dukakis? The policy differs, but the personality isn’t so obviously in contrast.
Personality?
You may be countering here that personality, especially as the average voter sees it, is a superficial and heavily manipulated quality, indeed it may be entirely manufactured. Quite true, but what matters to this investigation is not what policy-wonks and historians think, but what the voters think. Since we can’t find a consistent policy thread behind voting, the Whats the Matter With Kansas problem, I think we have to look at the ineffables. Sure I thought Nixon was a crook, liar, and general scoundrel in 1968, but that clearly wasn’t obvious to the voters as a whole until later.
Policy counts after all:
But just using the Bush-Cheney administration as example, there is a vast difference between what we got, and what might have happened. On policy after policy, you can’t ignore the differences. Three trillion dollars and over a hundred thousand dead later, can you deny that Gore would have saved money and lives compared to Bush? The neo-cons came to office with an imperial agenda, and Cheney had his own agenda for vast Presidential power. The failed handling of 9/11 appeared to be personal incompetence, and for W that probably did signify, but we can now see that policy was behind the War on Terror. But its was a secret policy, unknown to main-stream Republicans and Democrats, perhaps that counts as yet another example of unpredictable outcomes that confuse voters. On environmental policy, the differences between what we got and might have had are obvious. But in 2004 you can argue that the reality of Bush-Cheney was in the open for all to see. A depressing thought, that.
Parties count too:
So I return to that undeniable difference between parties. In spite of what the Nader-nuts and the disaffected non-voters say, there is a difference.
| Issue | Vote for Them |
|---|---|
| Deregulation trumps regulation | Republican Red |
| Regulation is required for stability | Democratic Blue |
| Enormous effort against immigration makes sense | Republican Red |
| Laissez-faire prevention of immigration and some social services for illegals | Democratic Blue |
| Do nothing about healthcare | Republican Red |
| Try to do something about nationalized health care | Democratic Blue |
| Maximize defense spending using debt | Republican Red |
| Emphasize science, research, economic development over defense | Democratic Blue |
| Resist all attempts to involve government in environmental regulation, control, and planning | Republican Red |
| Start regulating the nation out of oil era | Democratic Blue |
| Emphasize military in foreign policy | Republican Red |
| Emphasize diplomacy in foreign policy | Democratic Blue |
and so on…
Judgment versus instinct:
Voters must be widely willing to give up their own analytic judgments, in favor of their instincts. Business Republicans can’t llike the anti-European, debt-burdened, do-nothing Bush-Cheney tenure, however much the financiers loved the hedge-fund and derivatives free-for-all. It’s clear the monkeys were in charge of the zoo, and the grown-ups weren’t watching.
Another factor may be that the personal outcomes of elections are often different from the civic outcome. People, like monkeys, will sometimes vote for what they see as civic welfare over their own. The twentieth century mass movement from farm to city life has left vast numbers of people stranded in economic and moral backwaters, unable to cope. In What’s the Matter with Kansas Thomas Frank argues that Republican voters ignore their own best interests and lash out against a straw target of liberal Democratic elites. Wall Street abhorred Clinton, but the 1990’s were a great time for Wall Street; they loved Bush, but they are hurting now.
It can be worked just the opposite too. People may say they are concerned about this or that abstract policy ( illegal immigration, reforming healthcare, free trade ) and end up voting their wallet first. Hence the no-new-taxes mantra of Republicans, and farm politics in general, where whole states of rugged individualists vehemently defend their federal hand-out.
Scandal is sometimes good, and I hate the Yankees:
So on certain well-publicized policies there are clear differences between parties, no matter what candidate is running. But on difficult and complex issues, particularly foreign-policy issues that suddenly appear - Muslim terrorism I am thinking here - the personality matters more. The electoral process does not lend itself to reasoned discussion or thoughtful, flexible policies - understatement alert - and neither does the current partisanship in Congress. However, while candidates strive for a homogenized image in the campaign, strategic crises in a candidate’s campaign, even if largely artificial and banal, may show up a candidate’s backbone. This is the only good thing I can see in the ridiculous length of American political campaigns. How the future President will react has a lot to do with the personality traits uncovered by these campaign crises. See some propaganda clips” I can’t remember anything I did wrong.”
Join the club:
Even if you feel that you are immune from the tribal-leader attraction, or emotional appeals ( I don’t believe you ), you can’t get away from the clubbiness inherent in being of one party or the other. Inside your party you can hang with people you like and loathe the status symbols and style of the opposite party. It’s easier to dump on the platform of the other party when you just plain hate they way they carry themselves.
It’s not so different from Cubs fans versus Yankees fans. Democrats are just not going to start liking Remington bronzes, big-haired ladies, and Hummers, and we’ll say it’s all because of that damn Milton Friedman. Republicans are not going to suddenly begin liking Red Grooms, Priuses, and Lightnin’ Hopkins, and its all because of those damn welfare cheats, foreign aid, and illegal aliens. So I think allegiance to the political club is even more important than the candidate’s personality. Party allegiance allows you to go with your gut and dress up the choice with the rationalization of policy.
Sometimes policy will trump clubbiness and personality, especially on hot-button issues. Crossover moments have happened, when there were re-arrangements of the party demographics. I am thinking Nixon’s Southern Strategy, and the subsequent alignment of blacks with the Democrats, and crackers with the Republicans. But even there you can argue that the style of the club changed- imagine if Steinbrenner bought the Cubs. Suddenly the Clarence Snopes of the south migrated over to the party with hate-Negroes code words, and the Democrats started talking affirmative action.
Just Tell Me Why:
It’s just because those Republicans seem more like your kinda guy than those Democrats. Your talk about policy is like the eternal complaints about Steinbrenner and his over-paid prima donnas of the diamond, yet you still remain a Yankees fan because they are fundamentally winners. No wonder it gets my blood pressure up - those damn Cubs will never win the Series, and those damn Yankees will again.
photo by Ashlie at 
photo by LAT