(no subject)

[eirias]

I have heard some say recently that what the Democratic party needs to do in the next four years is to reassert a coherent stance on progressive principles. Move back to the basics, these people say. We need to find our voice again, they say, so that candidates will have something to stand for other than "Anybody But Candidate Z."

The difficulty with this is that it is unsupported by data. Here is a long list of breakdowns of exit polling data along just about all conceivable lines. Each row lists a sector of people; the columns to the right indicate what percentage of that sector voted for each candidate. If you scroll down to "Vote by Ideology," you'll note that Kerry won the liberals over pretty well - and that he also took the majority of moderates. Bush, on the other hand, did predictably poorly with liberals, didn't do so hot with moderates - but swept the conservatives. The reason this gave him the election is that conservatives comprise an ever-increasing segment of the populace.

I have done a simplistic analysis of what would happen if Kerry had won over different percentages of liberals and conservatives, extrapolating the CNN data to a hypothetical population of 200,000,000 voters. It is posted here. There are some assumptions that go into this - like the already-discredited assumption that exit polls are an accurate way of gauging the voting trends of the population, and the dubious assumption that changes to party platform necessarily are met with predictable changes in voting habits of individuals. But as a thought exercise, I think it suggests that in the short term, becoming more progressive is not how the Democrats will succeed. Criticism welcome, if you think my math is wrong.

On the other hand, thinking about long-term goals, it may be the case that the Democrats will need to pursue a more progressive stance just to give their party some reason to exist beyond "we're not the Republicans" - and to decrease the market share of conservative ideology. The difficulty is that my gut says this will take a decade or two, maybe an entire generation, to have a real effect on the culture. That's a long time for people to feel powerless. Will the party even hold together that long?


EDIT: Fixed the formatting on the second link.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

Many people believe that the worst of the anti-homosexual attitudes will die off within a generation. I think that's quite likely. When the current 50+ people die and thus stop voting and affecting things, I think things will get much better. But - they will indoctrinate many young people tot ake their place. Not as many as there were in their generation, but it'll still happen. And that's a long way off.

Homosexuality has an advantage over racism - your kids will have a chance to go to school with gays and discover that friends of theirs they knew since childhood are gay. Whereas people don't suddenly realize they or their childhood friends are Black... or Jewish... or Irish...

So, I think in the long run, on that issue, things will improve with time. But that's a long time. So, uh, yay.

[rms10.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of things Democrats could do -- I think they should focus on social justice issues and the like. Why didn't Kerry point out that abortions increased under the Bush administration, because of bad economy? Well, okay, I can think of two reasons: the war in Iraq overwhelmed all the political discussion, and the pro-life movement doesn't care about reducing the number of abortions, they just want to ban it outright. No amount of reasoning with them will change that -- and believe me, I tried when my pro-life aunt dragged me into an email argument she was having with another cousin of mine.

I don't know, I lived in a small conservative town for ten years and I still haven't figured those people out. That was a mostly upper-middle class town, though -- I certainly don't understand why poor Republicans are Republican. Somehow we have to convince people that the Democratic party is truly for the people -- but if we're including all people, like gays and women who get abortions and the prisoners in Guantanamo, we're going to lose a sizable fraction of the population.

[kirin]

I think there's another assumption in your data - that the current exit polls are an even sample of the populance.

You conclude from the data that "conservatives comprise an ever-increasing segment of the populace", but I'm inclined (perhaps selfishily, so I could be wrong) to suspect that conservatives comprised an increased segment of current voters this time around. I think the 11 anti-gay amendments had a lot to do with this, and a lot to do with why Bush won.

Of course, if progressives can pour millions into get-out-the-vote campaigns through institutions like MoveOn and ACT and still lose the GOTV battle to conservatives playing a fear-and-bigotry card, that's not exactly an encouraging sign either. :|

[ksledge.livejournal.com]

thanks for the link. I really liked seeing the exit polls.

[darlox.livejournal.com]

I would posit two things about your analysis here. First, basing anything on the CNN numbers, especially the exit polling, is questionable at best -- if you watched CNN's coverage on election night, they spent significant amounts of time trashing their own data. The methods were arguably sloppy, the sampled areas more urban than not, and the results out of line with observed reality by the pollsters themselves. The numbers not only failed to mesh with the outcome, but also failed to factor in the substantial number of voters who refused to answer upon exit -- and what limited data there is suggests that the "no answer" voters tend to be mainly either far-conservatives, or the sheepish & private fence-sitting moderates. As they are the most "interesting" data point to study, it would seem exit polls are skewed to unduly weight data from people further to either side, with (if anything) a slight tip to left, and thus end up effectively as rubbish in forming a real picture of national voters.

But, to my main point: I would propose that the problem with the Democrats' acceptability to an American majority is not that they need to become less progressive, or differentiate themselves further from Republicans. The problem is that a large portion of Democrat policies are, effectively, Socialism with a gentler name.

Second, while I fully agree that both sides spewed MASSIVE amounts of misinformation and outright lies during this election, I will say that anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that the Democrats RELIED on that misinformation to carry their votes. Staunch conservatives had their issues of abortion and the war and nothing was going to change their mind. But, even in my social circle, staunch liberals trotted out the "Bush sneaked bin Laden's family out of the country during 9/11" and "There's a 'secret plan' to increase taxes on dairy farmers after the election" -- not to mention the half-truths in Fahrenheit 911. Considering that those points were adequately debunked, and yet they still came up as major talking points, I can't think of any blunter way to say that Democrats DID rely on the knee-jerk emotionalism and blatent ignorance of many voters.

Fundamentally, Americans are a self-centered people, and will always look out for #1 in the end. Capitalism works, and capitalism is completely incompatible with Socialism. Rail against it at will, but even in the most Democrat-supportive areas like Unions, the Union in Fleet MI will fight tooth-and-nail against the Union in Avon OH to make sure that the next line of SUVs is built in their plant. There doesn't exist the same selfless solidarity here, such as with the Unions in France, for instance -- and in my opinion, there never will -- and thus a cohesive national socialist agenda will never take hold.

IMHO, the problem with the Democrat agenda is that it's 125 years out-of-date. Aspersion casting aside, we don't have 19th century robber barons forcing the downtrodden to take scrip at the company store. The Republican agenda is, in my opinion, about 75 years out of date -- and the ultra-religious overtones of it are it's largest liability as far as I'm concerned. Still, by rough approximation, the Conservative style of management is still about 50 years more relevant than the Democrat one.

If a major Democrat figure would solidly emerge with a fiscally conservative agenda, and a present but not overwhelming religious backing, they'd win by a landslide even if they were the most socially liberal person on the planet. Hell - I'd vote for them! But as soon as a Democrat says the words "National Health Care" or "Increasing Taxes to take the burden off the backs of the Working Class Citizen", they've lost my vote -- because first, it's bunk, and second, it goes entirely contrary to the Capitalist doctrine that DOES keep this country on top.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

I know that this is why you disagree with Democratic fiscal policies, but I don't think that your explanation for widespread disagreement is compatible with the data. I'm sure the exit polls were pretty flawed (you can see that in the erroneous predictions of victory they made early on!), but it's hard to connect "many people are socially moderate but terrified of progressive taxation" with the fact that only 5% of those polled mentioned taxes as the most important issue in the campaign. Despite the overpolling of urban areas, not known to be conservative Christian strongholds by and large, over 20% of those polled said that "moral values" were the predominant issue for them, and 80% of those voted for Bush. (Me, I vote on "moral values" too, with a large helping of foreign policy, but my moral values point me in a somewhat more liberal direction.) No; many people vote their identity more than they vote issues, I think, and a lot of folks just don't identify with what the Democrats are putting forward. (Except me, but you know, I'm one of those effete, elitist intellectual heathens, so I obviously don't count. :P )

[darlox.livejournal.com]

Heh...

Well, just to point out, I don't surmise that tax policy is the issue, since 9 out of 10 people couldn't interpret tax policy with an assault rifle pointed at their heads. The broader umbrella of economic policy, however, is far more accessible. Whether they consciously classify it as a major issue or not, there is an undeniable comfort in the status quo... I see no data that indicates people are wholesale willing to risk their own lot in life to better their fellow man.

Taking last year's grocery strike in California as an example, the Unions were being asked to accept a premium increase to a figure LESS than what Clinton/Gore had proposed as a per-patient contribution in their single-payer health plan only a few years before! (Harvard study (google cache) (http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:Z-Tfu3dckuYJ:post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/dcutler/papers/cg_final_paper_7-05-01.pdf+single-payer+Gore+health+care+%22would+pay%22+%22per+month%22&hl=en)) As a nebulous idea, people SEEM to support such policies, but when push comes to shove, they fight the actual performance mercilessly.

I agree that people vote identity. However, that identity is largely defined by what people believe others think about them, and if you're a working-class person listening to the Democrats, you haven't heard anything for the last 20 years except "You're just not good enough to make it on your own, so we're going to step in and help you." or "Your company is raping you blind, and you need to stand up for your rights!" It's a fine argument when things are going well and you see your boss buying yachts, but when the company is bankrupt and folding around you, it's sort of hard to reconcile how they could be stealing you blind, and still dying at the same time! That wholesale disregard of people's self-worth and self-respect is the Democrats' Achilles heel. How often can you kick a dog before it finally bites back??

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I think there are two things the Democrats could use:

1) Coherence. Or message, if you will. I think it matters somewhat less which message, but the party's such a big umbrella that it doesn't seem to stand for anything any more. I mean, what's Kerry? "Anyone but Bush"? Huh. That, as policy, is pretty lame. And it doesn't attract anyone that you didn't already have.

2) An aggressive attack on an unexploited split in the Republican party. The Republicans aren't coherent either; there's a vast gaping chasm between the evangelical, lifestyle-driven wing and the fiscal-conservative, foreign-policy (quasi-libertarian, if you will) wing. Actually, these sets of people have nothing in common. The Republicans, with their current policies, keep the latter set only because the Democrats have nothing better on offer. Given Bush's spending, if he keeps it up, the Democrats in four years will have a trivially easy time of painting themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility and completely rewriting the electoral map.

Mind you, it will take a very clever person to meld the fiscal responsibility idea with the "...and a pony" social program impetus behind a lot of Democratic voters. (Then again, it takes a very clever person to meld a quasi-libertarian with an evangelical, and the Republicans managed it. Surely there's a Karl-Rove-evil genius of the left.) But Clinton showed us that it's possible to have fiscal responsibility together with outside-the-box social policy, and all the warm-'n'-fuzzy rhetoric we expect of a Democrat to boot. I don't think the party is going to find another Clinton -- I think, in fact, many of its current problems are Clinton's fault; he was too good; when he stepped down he created a vacuum and there was only detritus for it to suck in -- but he's a proof of concept.

Of course, I'm probably just saying this because a party of fiscal responsibility *and* creative social problem solving would actually be able to excite me about politics, and that'd be an interesting change.

But the part about the gaping fracture of Republicanism? That part's true.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Of course, I'm probably just saying this because a party of fiscal responsibility *and* creative social problem solving would actually be able to excite me about politics, and that'd be an interesting change.

Heh - actually I'm surprised you even read this entry; the lj-cut was primarily for your benefit ;).

You're right about the Republican chasm - the difficulty is that as long as the Republicans are pushing tax cuts greater than what the Democrats are pushing, what incentive will there be for fiscal conservatives to vote Democrat? I don't know Kerry's fiscal record that well, to be honest, but my impression was that he was more responsible than Bush, and he still lost. (Maybe it was the health care plan that scared off fiscal/foreign-pol conservatives? Or maybe they just didn't trust him to run the war?)

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Homosexuality has an advantage over racism

Yes. Yes it does. I would much rather have a gay child than a racist child. ;)

(But I know what you meant, and I do have hope that you're right.)

[cynic51.livejournal.com]

I am not quite sure that tax cuts necessarily equal fiscal conservatism. I think they would prefer more that the books balance and that money not be spent on stupid shit that does not belong in the realm of government. There are times when tax cuts, however desired, do not help balance the books, so saying that a fiscal conservative always votes for the bigger tax cut seems incorrect to me.

You could even argue that in a perfect world a rigidly controlled, perfectly targeted tax increase would be supported by fiscal conservatives if it was designed to pay a specific essential function that could not be funded by further cuts to nonessential programs. Of course, this is not a perfect world, so this probably farfetched to imagine.

Fair notice: I consider myself a fiscal conservative, although I probably do not take it the extremes darlox portrays himself as.

[eldan.livejournal.com]

I agree with your general point, and I think there's a related example that's much more likely to happen: fiscal conservatives objecting to spending increases, because there's a deficit that needs to be reined in.

[eldan.livejournal.com]

There are two fundamental problems with a statement as simple as "capitalism works"

You're not specifying on what criterion it works. I don't think anyone can argue with the statement that economic growth, as measured by aggregate statistics is best served by capitalism. I also don't think there are many people (the Earth First crew are the only ones I've encountered) who would argue that economic growth is inherently a bad thing, but it's not self-evident that the kind of growth fostered by capitalism benefits everyone. If you live in a one-industry town, and that one industry is shutting down, what does capitalism give you?

I think there is still a good argument to be made for capitalism, along the lines that a growing economy also increases the number of jobs, so it increases the chance that sooner or later there will be a new employer in town, but have you tried arguing this with someone who's been unable to get a job above minimum for the last few years? It's very difficult, and this is the second problem with the idea that America voted for capitalism this week: most shop/factory floor people just don't believe in it. I find it hard to believe that people went out on Tuesday and voted en masse for an idea that a fairly large proportion of people don't believe in.

[cos]

I think we had a discussion about this last year. One of the big reasons I thought it would be harder to beat Bush with an establishment Democratic candidate (like Kerry) and an establishment Democratic party campaign, is that they'd do exactly what it looks like you're doing here: looking at the electoral playing field as is, and trying to figure out how to squeeze some more votes from it. I said a Kerry vs. Bush campaign would essentially be a replay of Gore vs. Bush, something we could win but which would take a lot of work and which we could also lose.

It turns out we did win the election we thought we were having - the 2000 re-match. We got blindsided by a huge turnout of fundamentalist Christians, probably about 4 million more than had ever voted before. Without them, we'd have won solid but narrow victory, with contours pretty similar to the 2000 and 2004 results.

The real way to win, and win big, was always Dean's way: Not to keep re-playing on the same field, but to transform the field. The Democratic strategy for the last several election cycles, of looking at what voters seemed to want and trying to please them just a little bit more, has led to both short term and long term failure. The Republicans get to completely dominate the national debate, and choose the issues and framing for all of us. The trick is not to look at what issues the voters said they voted on in the last election, but to pick the issues we want them to be discussing for the next election, and change the conversation.

That is something Kerry was never going to do, so I put my time and energy into the effort to win the re-match. We'd be on much better footing (and have defeated Bush) if we tried the other approach, I believe. And it's high time to give it a try.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Awww, how sweet of you, with the cut :). It's OK, though; while I like to avoid politics in general, there are specific people for whom I occasionally make exceptions ;).

Anyway, as has been pointed out, fiscal conservativism isn't just about tax cuts; it's about balance. Bush may be pushing tax cuts, but he's also pushing a level of spending we haven't seen since WWII. The Economist endorsed Kerry; what more proof do you need that Bush isn't appealing to the fiscal conservative vote? Yup.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I'm from WV, undoubtedly poor, historically Democrat, but tending Republican in recent years (and it went for Bush in this election). And I've spent a fair amount of my life wondering why the state is Democrat at all; it doesn't make any sense.

Here's why it has been Democrat:
* being very conservative (in the sense of "inertial"), people vote the way their parents voted, and their parents voted Democrat;
* being a massive coal state, it really needed the unions, and the Democrats were the party of the unions;
* we have a few high-seniority, high-pork Democrats in office, and we aren't getting rid of them any time soon (*cough* Robert C. Byrd).

However, the coal economy has been dying for a generation, so the unions have been waning. (I wouldn't go so far as to say "they've become not-powerful", but they're not all-encompassing the way they used to be. And the state is definitely going through an economic transition; it's clear there will not be one monolithic industry, hence one monolithic union, at the end of it.)

And, fundamentally, the people of WV are conservative (as in inertial) but also conservative (as in socially). Hunting is huge; they like their guns and distrust people who want to take them away. It's not the Bible belt, but abortion is bad, gays are weird, God is good. It's not such a very high-crime state, but the proper response to crime is swift and harsh.

And it's rural. Look at those electoral maps, particularly the county-level ones; rural folk vote Republican. Democrats, the party of effete liberalism, are necessarily the party of the cities. And, when Democrats talk about poverty, they're talking about urban poverty. It's different from rural poverty. Actually, rural poverty is pretty much completely ignored, but at least those Republicans seem to know something about farms and ranches -- not, mind you, that WV has any of those, but at least they're out in the country.

In short, The Kind Of People That Republicans Are belong to the same species as West Virginians, whereas The Kind Of People That Democrats Are don't. Republicans are culturally recognizable to West Virginians; Democrats might as well be from another planet. We'll keep electing our old-school, pork-bringing Democrats until they die, because we're quite clear that our entire economy is Robert C. Byrd (and frankly I don't think the state looks to either party for economic development; I don't think anyone has any hope of that). And we'll keep being random about our governors because they run on more local issues. But I think you'll see WV voting Republican for a long time to come, because the opposite makes no sense.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

I think you're wrong that we've defeated Bush. I think that this strategy may be a way for Dems to succeed, if they get their PR machines in gear and take a long hard look at the cultural issues that ukelele talked about above, the ones talked about by Thomas Frank (http://www.henryholt.com/holt/whatsthematter.htm) and David Brooks (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/BROOKS-BIO.html) (although interestingly, the latter culture-war pundit seems to think something else was in play in this election - don't know that I buy it, but it's an unusual position for him to take). To the extent that people vote by identity, the Democrats are going to need to reform such that more people identify with them. But that's going to take more than four years, I predict.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Huh, I think something got cut out of my first sentence and I have no idea what it meant. Sometimes my mouse highlights entire lines and makes them go away. Anyway, what that line was supposed to say is "I think you're wrong that we would've defeated Bush [with the other approach]."