Political Myths
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It occurred to me earlier this week that there is a Republican view that mirrors Thomas Frank’s puzzlement about why socially conservative people vote against their economic interests as if they were socially conservative, and it is based on just as much stereotyping and self-serving mythology. This is, of course, the argument made by many Republicans that Hispanics and blacks are “natural” Republicans because they tend to be social conservatives and therefore share the same “values” as the GOP, and indeed this is the logic of the never-ending “outreach” efforts that typically yield nothing except bad immigration policy. The mythology comes in when it assumes that people who have socially conservative views on abortion or homosexuality are therefore “natural” supporters of the party of corporate America; this wasn’t even obvious to white evangelicals thirty years ago, it still isn’t and it wouldn’t be the case except for judicial rulings, government social policy and the cultural radicalism of the left. That is a classic case of a party believing its own propaganda, even though this is the same propaganda that it uses to mobilise the social conservatives whose issues it doesn’t take very seriously, so you have the absurd situation of a party that has taken social conservatives for granted for three decades wondering why it can’t get minority social conservatives to join the party. Then there is the assumption that because people have “family values” that they therefore have the nuclear family, bourgeois definition of those values that entail a certain ethos complete with habits of pursuing middle-class respectability and a move away from tight-knit extended families. Further, there is the assumption that because people go to church and take Scripture seriously that they are therefore on board with particular social and economic policies. This is to treat an artifact of political coalition-building (the working alliance between pro-market and pro-business Republicans and religious conservatives) as if it were a coherent or logical combination of ideas, when there is a good argument to be made that the views of these two blocs are often opposed to one another and should clash much more often than they do. Fundamentally, all of the “outreach” efforts are based on the idea that the GOP has something to offer these voters with its economic and social policies, when these voters repeatedly and consistently affirm that it doesn’t. Just as Democrats have bought into their own myth (i.e., that they are the party that really represents and serves working class America), the GOP seems to believe its own, and both become very frustrated with those voters who refuse to endorse the myth.
The Thomas Frank lament, like the GOP “outreach” lament, sounds very much like the late 19th century Austrian liberal complaint that the mass political movements that competed with and eventually overwhelmed liberalism were “irrational.” In fact, liberalism failed in Austria in a democratic era for the same reason that it failed all over Europe in the 19th century, or else moved in a more activist and reformist (and, in many cases, nationalist and/or imperialist) direction: it represented a very small part of the population and did not serve the interests of most of the voting population. The complaint that political opponents have ”irrational” obsessions is the recurring complaint of political movements that cater to one particular set of interests and have no imagination or capacity for speaking to other constituencies in a language that they will find meaningful. Not really understanding these voters at all, activists and partisans substitute their own party narratives as the “correct” voting behaviour that should be happening, and then engage in a great deal of gnashing of teeth when the voters “fail” to adhere to a script they don’t even know exists and wouldn’t follow even if they did.
P.S. I should add that there is an additional level of stereotyping, especially of Hispanic immigrants, who are assumed to be like the family-oriented, toiling Catholic peasants of Poland, and therefore somehow magically a reliable vote for the GOP, despite the fact that most of the actual Polish Catholics who came to America, like virtually every other ethnic immigrant community, were Democrats for almost a century before any of them began to move to the GOP. In fact, even among church-goers, stable families are not necessarily the norm at all. So behind a lot of these arguments there is a preference for stereotypes over empirical evidence. Whether intended as flattering or condescending, the stereotypes may have once been true, or perhaps never were, but certainly are not today.
Filed under: politics
Both parties believing their own hype seems like a classic case of “blowback” to me, most likely because those instigating the lies left no instructions for those who would follow. Whatever party replaces the GOP, I would hope some attention will be given to prevent these issues in the future.
The dilemma faced by 19th century liberals is strikingly similar to the dilemma facing libertarians and paleoconservatives today. Classical liberals were right in the long-run – the alternatives of reactionary nationalism and socialism proved absolutely disastrous. But their political values always lacked the visceral appeal of more activist ideologies. Today, principles like veneration for the Constitution and limited government are popular in the abstract, but their pragmatic application is decidedly less so.
How many “working class” Americans would find themselves in broad agreement with the editorial staff of the American Conservative? Extensive social welfare programs are popular insofar as they directly benefit the middle and working classes. The failure of the Paul campaign demonstrates that there is no “silent majority” clamoring for a return of small government, Constitutional values, and Federalism. The Iraq War may be unpopular, but it’s doubtful that the conflict has caused large segments of the population to rethink the central tenets of American hegemony. The one issue does seem to attract widespread support is immigration, but its electoral track record is pretty mixed.
In short, how are paleoconservatives and libertarians any closer to the American mainstream than Democrats and Republicans? Your analysis implies the most logical political alternative to the status quo is a hybrid populism that combines elements of social conservatism and big government liberalism. I know that the point of your post wasn’t to outline a possible scenario for conservative-libertarian resurgence, but it can’t help but leave me wondering: What are we to do?
On a lot of things, I don’t know that we are “closer” to the mainstream. In many ways, we are much, much farther away, and as a matter of taking the right positions this is a good thing, because the “mainstream” is often profoundly wrong. That’s not a vote-getting slogan, though, and I don’t dispute that there’s a lot of persuasing to be done before the mainstream starts embracing more of our views.
On trade, immigration and foreign policy, I think paleos speak for a lot more of the country than the people endorsing the status quo policies, at least to the extent that large numbers of Americans are deeply dissatisfied with that status quo and are interested in a more paleo-ish direction in these areas. Full-on non-interventionism is not on the horizon, but there is certainly a desire for less entanglement overseas. Likewise, restrictionism in its most outspoken form is not going to win elections, but clearly a majority wants greater restrictions on immigration. Obviously radical decentralism and constitutionalism are not going to win elections, at least not until we can build up constituencies that have vested interests in decentralism and constitutionalism.
Socialism in the U.S.A. was dealt a great blow in the 80s, when the people of America realized that is didn’t work and chose Regan. Keynesian economics were defeated and so was the theory behind government planning and excessive intervention. In the U.K., too, Thatcher ended Socialism’s reign and set them on the path to economic liberalism.
The evidence is there, and most all of the current crop of politicians know that it hasn’t been forgotten. Socialism still lives on, yes, but i believe its days are numbered as its failures become more apparent to the working men and women of our country.
It seems that, especially during the depression and because of it, big government’s justification was a moral one for social conservatives, hence their democratic affiliation. But those days are behind us.
The case is being made now, with greater vigor and effectiveness, that free markets are, indeed, compatible with social conservative values. The appeal of such a view is, i believe, much more widespread today because of what happened in the 70s and 80s. We saw socialism fail, and we saw how it hurt people.
In short, i think the problem is awareness. Regan really was able to bring together social conservatives and the more libertarian conservatives. What we need is someone who can make the case for this union and use the logic of the social conservatives (i.e. “God made man free=free markets are most moral,” to give a crude example) and using evidence from the near past.
Ron Paul was the wrong man to do this, he’s too caught up in the ideology and exudes a craziness that social conservatives find off putting. Mike Huckabee, on the other hand seems to be the kind of charismatic, Regan figure that Republicans need in order to bring social conservatives into the party and strengthen the alliance.
We really turned things around with Regan and Thatcher. It brought social conservatives and economic liberals together, and I believe the combination is natural and can be complementary and even makes for, in an imperfect way, a more complete approach.