Democrats Vote Against Economic Interests Too
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Democrats, EconomyI didn’t want to rehash the Barack Obama “bitter” comments again, but Dan Schnur makes such a dead-on point in a New York Times editorial that I can’t resist discussing it. Schnur comments on Obama in relation to the Thomas Frank book What’s the Matter with Kansas which seeks to explain why a large percentage of blue collar and rural voters don’t vote for the economic policies of Democrats.
The mistake that Senator Obama and Mr. Frank both make is that they assume that only the values of culturally conservative voters require justification. An environmentally conscious, pro-stem cell bond trader who votes Democratic is lauded for selflessness and open-mindedness. A gun-owning, church-going factory worker who supports Republican candidates, on the other hand, must be the victim of partisan deception. This double standard is at the heart of the Democratic challenge in national elections: rather than diminish these cultural beliefs as a byproduct of economic discomfort, a more experienced and open-minded candidate would recognize and respect the foundations on which these values are based.
Yes. He’s right. When Frank’s book came out, I was living in Washington, DC just a few blocks from an extremely wealthy area with an extremely large number of liberal bumper stickers and house signs. I remember commenting at the time that those people surely weren’t voting their economic interests either but no one was saying they were being duped by Democratic social issues.
A willingness for the well-off to pay higher taxes is seen as a sign of sophistication. A willingness of the less-fortunate to forgo a few government handouts in favor of gun rights and abortion controls is seen as ridiculous. This is a view that permeates the left. In the past, Obama has made a good effort in combating such elitist notions and his recent comments may have been little more than an off-the-cuff aberration, but it’s still a point-of-view embraced by many in his party. And I personally think it’s one he shares at least in part.
The problem is, what do Democrats do about it? The party is very pro-choice. The party is quite negative towards guns. The party is very in favor of strong church/state separations. It can’t change its principles. And, in fact, those principles win them a great number of votes from wealthy people who might otherwise opt to vote their economic interests (i.e. Republican).
I think all Democrats can do is try their hardest not to condescend towards those with whom they disagree. Democrats don’t like it when Republicans insinuate that liberals’ foreign policy views make them traitors. Well, Republicans don’t like it when Democrats insinuate that conservatives’ social views make them idiots. They don’t want to be told they are clinging to their values because they are bitter about their economic status. They want to be told they can have prosperity AND their guns, economic success WITHOUT abortion clinics, stability WITH public prayer.
The Democrats can’t exactly deliver that, but they can sure work harder at not making such dreams sound foolish.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 and is filed under Democrats, Economy. 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.
April 16th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Great post.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Mr. Schnur is half right in his column “Right Fight, Wrong Word”, in which, as a communications expert, he focuses almost entirely on the ‘word’ rather than the ‘fight’.
Yes, ‘words’ and “emotional connections”, as Schnur references, between candidates and the vast majority of working-class people (which includes the 90% of the population who earn more through their work than investing their wealth), are very important in ‘normal times’. This is exactly why a candidate like George Bush in the 2000/04 campaigns, who used words like “good folks” and was universally characterized by the vacuous press corp as, “the kind of fella you’d enjoy having a beer with”, had a great advantage (in normal times) over the more formal, ‘stiff’, and elite-appearing Gore and Kerry. [As an aside, it was also reported by the press that the famous depression era bank robber Willie Sutton was they type of guy that you would enjoy laughing over a beer with]
However, Mr. Schnur’s rationale seems to be limited to the kind of ‘linear thinking’ that is predicated on an unconscious assumption of staying in ‘normal times’. This limited vision is evidenced by his own reference to, as he says, “voters known as “the silent majority” in the 1970s, as “Reagan Democrats” in the ’80s, and as “values voters” during the last two election cycles” continuing on in a ‘normal times’ linear manner into the ’08 election. Such a linear ‘normal times’ assumption will be deadly in 2008 for the following reasons:
During the Bush years of steering the economic and military policies of the ruling ‘corporatist Empire’, which may well be the only ‘working’ job he has every really held, a ‘quantum change’ has shifted our country, and that vast majority which Schnur talks of, from a ‘normal times’ mode of accommodating thinking about “guys they would enjoy having a beer with” to a radically different ‘crisis times’ mode of protecting their own interests. As it becomes strikingly and more painfully clear to this vast (90%) majority, what was earlier clear to Nobel economist, George Akerlof, when he said, “what we have in the Bush policies is a form of looting”, then the majoritarian attitudes toward voting will radically change, or as an elitist might say, “adjust to their changing socioeconomic environment of ‘crisis times’”.
Roughly speaking, the Bush regime has transferred, through the vehicle of Middle East oil-wars, almost $1T of common-wealth from the United States public to the oil and weapons ‘faction’ of the ‘corporatist Empire’ hiding behind this façade of a ‘Vichy’ government. However, to be ‘fair and balanced’ the figurehead ‘Vichy’ government is now beginning an accelerating a transfer of our common-wealth directly through the ‘anything goes’ investment-bank-discount-window of the FED, which at approximately $30B per week will bring the speculative finance ‘faction’ of the corporatist Empire up to rough parity by the time this idiot boy-emperor leaves the thrown. While many people joke that the disasters of the Bush administration in foreign wars and domestic economic crisis look like a “train wreck in slow motion”, it is becoming increasingly clear to 90% of Americans that the Bush administration is really like looking at “a train robbery in slow motion”.
And here we can see the quickly escalating change from linearly predictable ‘normal times’ mode to a quantum leap into ‘crisis times’ mode. As America enters GD II (great depression two), and realizes that the searing economic pain of personal and national bankruptcy was caused by an un-elected ruling-elite corporatist Empire (which rules through both ‘Vichy’ front parties, the dynamic of that vast majority will dramatically shift from the ‘words’ that Schnur ascribes with importance, instantly to the ‘fight’ that he characterizes as the “right fight”.
Yes, Obama has cracked the door slightly toward understanding the ‘frustration’, ‘anger’, and ‘revolt’ against one figure-head of the corporate Empire that is currently looting and destroying life as we knew it in America —- but Obama and the Democratic wing of the Empire are merely the second-string, placating, and empathizing ‘Vichy’ party façade for enabling the same ‘corporatist Empire’.
No, Obama is opening the door to that “Right Fight” not only with the “Wrong Words”, but without the seriousness of purpose to actually take on the corporatist Empire in completion of our Second American Revolution. The vacuum of courage and commitment that Obama creates in opening that door will need to be filled by a president and a multitude of ‘democracy advocates’ to fully engage the right fight against empire, and for regaining our lost democracy.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:40 am
“A willingness for the well-off to pay higher taxes is seen as a sign of sophistication. A willingness of the less-fortunate to forgo a few government handouts in favor of gun rights and abortion controls is seen as ridiculous.”
Its ridiculous because they are hurting themselves and they don’t have much to go on. Thats the difference. The well-off can afford to pay higher taxes, to them voting against their economic interest is a luxury. For a person working two jobs and still can’t afford his mortgage payments or health-care for his kids, voting against his economic principles for the sake of wedge issues like gay-marriage, is not only ridiculous but irresponsible.
Please don’t try to frame these “less-fortunate” as martyrs for some grand cause. Guns, gays, death-penalty, and abortion are issues that will always be controversial, but hardly worth starving your family for. Its the Rights ability to enrage their supporters around these issues that has enabled the theft of their healthcare and retirement. To keep voting for this daylight robbery is as you put it ridiculous indeed.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Missing the point.
The premise that blue-collar republicans hurt themselves by choosing values over “economic prosperity” is flawed in that it infers that the “economic prosperity” is attainable only by the policies set out by democrats. According to the left, conservatives are doomed to ignorance and poverty, unless they subscribe to the left’s “enlightened views” when in fact the opposite is true.
That, by far, is the biggest issue conservatives have with liberals. The left like to purport its philosophies/policies as smarter, sane, kinder and more legitimate than conservative ideas. By the same token anyone who doesn’t buy into them is characterized as stupid, crazy and hateful.
Moreover, when wealthy liberals vote “against” their self-interest is b/c they attempt to assuage their guilt and come across as benevolent toward the masses.
I live in one of the most liberal states in the country, and have yet to see a lib willing to pay more taxes. Instead, what they do is increase the burden on us.
Thomas, fyi, quit blaming conservatives for the healthcare and retirement. It is the democrats who will rob the whole country of both, again, if they get into power. We don’t need liberals to over-tax us so they can fund their own stupid programs like “universal healthcare.”
If one of the dems gets in the WH, healthcare will go down the toilet and our taxes will skyrocket.
No thanks. I prefer to do without those “economic benefits.”