Permanent Majorities: Ideal Or Curse?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General Politics, PollsFound an interesting post today on Political Animal. It talks about party identification and the crumbling of it for the Repubs during the Bush administration.
Basically, a recent Pew poll has shown that a dead even tie of Republican/Democrat identification of 42/42 in 2002 has now shifted to 35/50 this year. That’s a hell of a swing, and it speaks to how sick and tired people are of the way Republicans have been handling their majority over the past 5 years.
So then…are “permanent” majorities a good thing? Kevin Drum speculates as to how the Republicans went wrong…
[...] On the culture war side, as the Pew charts confirm, the problem is that America is getting slowly more culturally liberal as time goes by. Partly this is a generational thing and partly it’s just a continuation of the same slow march of social tolerance that’s been a hallmark of the past half century. Every year there’s one or two percent more of the country that doesn’t hate gays, doesn’t want to ban abortion, and would just as soon see the Ten Commandments stay in church.Both of these trends are only going to get worse for the GOP. As entitlement benefits grow, taxes are going to have to go up. Everyone knows there’s no way around this, and insisting otherwise will increasingly mark you as a fringe crackpot. Likewise, as culture war issues slowly become the province of a dwindling band of senior citizens and dead-end homophobes, arguing about gays in the military will seem about as relevant as attacking the tin trust.
The GOP isn’t dead, and Democratic victories in future years are hardly assured. But there’s not much question that Republicans are going to have to find a new schtick. The combination of Grover Norquist and James Dobson had its day, but that day is fading fast. If they want to stay relevant, they’re going to need some new ideas.
I can see this new wave in the Giulianis and Schwarzeneggers of the world. They preach fiscally responsible agendas, but talk about socially tolerant ideals.
In fact, Dennis had a great post about this recently and some sage advice…
There are many in California who are mad that Schwarzenegger isn’t acting like a “true Republican,” which I guess means, not hating the Democrats enough, pretending global warming isn’t real, and not hating gays. The funny thing is that some of the most ideological Republicans don’t really do anything. I think right now at this time, people want things done and if the Republican party wants to have a decent future, it might want to focus more on finding conservative solutions to problems and less on trying to pin people like myself and my partner as the bearers of all that is evil in the world.
Well said. Long live permanent moderate majorities. Heh.
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 24th, 2007 and is filed under General Politics, Polls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 24th, 2007 at 7:01 am
That is, of course, you believe that this is a permanent status.
March 24th, 2007 at 7:53 am
What permanent moderate majorities? If we look at the moderate trend of the graph, we find that those who declare themselves moderate bouncing back & forth between 11 & 14% over the past 17 years. That is a long way from a majority.
On the other hand, the overall trend is moving more to the left during that time. That means our perception of being a moderate is probably also moving toward the left. Or maybe that many who call themselves moderate are switching to the Demo0cratic Party.
Obviously the graph tells only a small part of the story. It doesn’t identify swing voters from either Party, which would be a better gauge of moderate voters. Using that measure, the moderates might be a small plurality, which would be about 17 votes shy of a majority.
March 24th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Ooops. Forgot to say the graph I refer to is in the link “Kevin Drum speculates”
March 24th, 2007 at 11:01 am
People, the permanent majorities thing was a joke. That’s why I said “Heh.”
March 25th, 2007 at 10:41 am
The Republicans need to get back to their Goldwater conservative roots and can the Rove hyper partisanship of the Bush administration. With the firing of the Justice department attorneys I’m not holding my breath but if the investigation does lead to Gonzales resigning then maybe Rove will see his influence decline, like Cheney before him.
March 26th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Monday numbers: Party identification
A recent Pew poll reveals some pretty dramatic reversals in party identification within the last few years. The public was split 43/43 in Republican/Democrat identification in 2002, but Democrats have now taken a significant lead with 35/50 split this…
March 27th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
From what my friend the history professor has told me, societal beliefs tend to run in cycles, trending from conservative to liberal and back again over the course of decades. Fortunately, the centerpoint of those cycles tends further and further towards the liberal over time, as antiquated ideologies are trounced by better education and greater access to media and information.
That having been said, we are obviously at the end of the conservative cycle now, so I expect things to run liberal for at least a decade or two now (crosses fingers). The best news is the more conservative the cycle, the more extreme and long the corresponding backlash cycle is likely to be, and this cycle has been about as conservative as they get. Hopefully it has happened soon enough to avoid drowning half the coastal cities of the world from global warming.
My biggest concern is the control over the media that the conservatives have managed to accumulate – unless that trend is halted, conservative disinformation and propaganda will have a far bigger voice in our society than it has in all but the worst of fascist dictatorships, and could easily derail the march of progress(ivism).