Dr. Rahe, Call Your Office -- Again
A colleague of mine at the Hoover Institution during his final years, the great sociologist and political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset was always a fierce champion of our political parties. Because the United States possessed only two principal parties, and because most voters remained loyal to one or the other most of the time, Marty argued, the country proved especially stable, avoiding the disruptive swings from left to right that marked many other democracies, including those, for example, of Italy, France, and even, particularly during the nineteen-seventies, Britain.
What would, I wonder, would Marty make of the situation today?
Partisan identification has been dropping for decades, but seems to have accelerated over the last decade or so, with Independents now outnumbering both Republicans and Democrats. Lurches from left to right? First Independents moved en masse to Obama. Now they’re swinging en masse to the GOP.
The ballast, in a word, has broken loose. The ship of state lists now to port, now to starboard, heeling in every wave. This is a lousy way to sail.
Which brings me, once again, to Dr. Rahe.
The present political moment delights you, Paul--of course I know that. But taking the long view—the view, let us say, not of the six weeks until election day but of the nine decades until the turn of the next century--don’t you find the erosion of the two great parties just a trifle queasy-making?
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Aug '10
Re: Dr. Rahe, Call Your Office -- Again
The Republican party rose from the ashes of the Whigs. I am hoping for a similar new birth of freedom in a re-focused party that is not indistinguishable in its actions from the other. Maybe in this case, the muddled middle will shrink and the volatility will abate.
I have sympathies with the arguments from other threads that if you don't get elected, however pure your thoughts, you aren't in the game, but why should we get excited about taking back the House or Senate if ultimately the same policies are pursued?
Jun '10
Re: Dr. Rahe, Call Your Office -- Again
I think hard times, once they take hold, once they seem long-lasting, are actually a stabilizing force in politics. When the economy is in the dumps, the people who aren't normally interested in politics--including unemployed people with lots of time on their hands--start being very interested in politics and economics. And the more they learn, the more their voting decisions will be motivated by principle, and not fashion. That's my theory. So in that limited way, hard times can actually benefit political life. For example, I don't see the Tea Party Independents lurching back the other way. Not anytime soon.
Re: Dr. Rahe, Call Your Office -- Again
Peter, I don't think the comparison to other democracies is compelling given that we don't have a parliamentary system. We don't have to cobble together a coaltion to form a government. We may have to cobble together coalitions to pass this or that piece of legislation, but wasn't that always the case (eg, 1970s coalitions between Republicans and Southern Democrats)?
As far as lurching left and right, my own view is that independents are not necessarily right, left, or center: they are looking for a coherent philosopy. If they can be convinced that conservatism is more coherent than statism, they'll vote GOP, even if they don't self-identify with the party.
Sep '10
Re: Dr. Rahe, Call Your Office -- Again
I don't understand why the shifting of self-identified independent voters between the two parties is a lousy way to sail, given that we're not actually sailing, but freely pursuing our own chosen lives and goals. Both parties are committed to vast government, corruption, waste, and rot, so I personally am not made queasy at their erosion, even if the consequences of it are unpredictable. Not being familiar with the writing of Mr. Lipset, I don't see how the stability of voter identification with one party benefits anyone but bureaucrats, politicians, and permanent welfare recipients.
May '10
Re: Dr. Rahe, Call Your Office -- Again
But, Peter, there was more than just political ballast, there was also social and moral anchors that one party has consciously cut away from itself and the ship of state.
The Democrats of my parents generation saw nothing wrong with the Hayes Code and never exhibited open hostility toward the church or the nuclear family. The old time Democrats believed, as did their Republican counterparts, in American Exceptional-ism, the goal of assimilation and the idea that politics ended at the water's edge.
Today's Democrats are about American Guilt, Moral Relativism, Group Identity and Internationalism. They are rowing one way and we another.
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
Aug '10
Re: Dr. Rahe, Call Your Office -- Again
As long as we act in such a way that this opinion gains currency, why shouldn't the middle grow?
Edited on Sep 22, 2010 at 11:16amAug '10
Re: Dr. Rahe, Call Your Office -- Again
Peter,
Don't you sense that the momentum is mostly an invention of the press trying to isolate the tea party and the GOP at the same time ? Neat trick, but the highlights of the last couple weeks have been on the RINO purge, the Beck/Krauthammer/O'Reilly rifts, and the unattributed putdowns of the tea party winners and none of them ring true. Republicans and Tea Party people aren't that far apart,it's that everybody is far apart from Democrats, as represented by Obama and Co, and the press and academia are sitting out there with them clutching at the straws of whatever cred the press had and the bully pulpit of degreed experts whenever they get asked which way the wind is blowing. Tea Party is an amorphous blob reacting to the Democrats run amuck. Stuff about the Fed will fade like Ron Paul or Ross Perot.
Working people still aren't home to answer the phone when the pollsters call.
May '10
Re: Dr. Rahe, Call Your Office -- Again
Time was when the parties were also strongly associated with one's social class (plus religion and ethnicity), profession or region. These loyalties were cemented by the patronage system and strong local organizations. Some of this persists, but the class distinctions have reduced, and local party "machines" are few, which I hold to be a good thing. People feel free to swing support from one party to another whose grandparents would never have considered it.
I'm less sure that a loss of party stability is such a bad thing. One impact of too much "stability" is a party that stops listening to the people, which gives rise to the Tea Party, or other insurgencies. I kind'a like seeing the parties forced to earn those votes.