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This Isn’t an Electorate; It’s a Lit Match
And this cycle keeps getting weirder. From Phillip Rucker at the Washington Post:
Presidential candidates usually don’t run on promises to vacate the White House once they get in office, but that’s what Lawrence Lessig said he might do as he begins exploring a protest bid for the 2016 Democratic nomination.
Lessig, a Harvard law professor and government reform activist, announced Tuesday morning that he was launching a presidential exploratory committee to run as what he called a “referendum president” with the chief purpose of enacting sweeping changes to the nation’s political system and ethics laws.
…
In the interview, conducted by phone on Monday ahead of his announcement, Lessig said he would serve as president only as long as it takes to pass a package of government reforms and then resign the office and turn the reins over to his vice president. He said he would pick a vice president “who is really, clearly, strongly identified with the ideals of the Democratic Party right now,” offering [Elizabeth] Warren as one possibility. He said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whom he considers a friend and has drawn huge crowds in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, was another option.
Lessig said he would spend the next month testing the waters to determine whether he would have enough support and resources to wage a credible campaign. If he raises $1 million by Labor Day, he said, he will formally launch his candidacy. If not, he will return the money to donors and go home.
I doubt Lessig changes the Vegas odds, but, given the other news of the day, I’m no longer sure where the outer bounds of American politics are.
Item 1: Bernie Sanders drew a crowd of over 27,000 to the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena last night (ever seen an all-Prius traffic jam?).
Item 2: Donald Trump, whom the pundit class has confidently assured us has spent the past week imploding, hasn’t suffered one whit in the polls.
In his new USA Today column, Glenn Reynolds suggests that this is all of a piece:
Trump’s rise is, like that of his Democratic counterpart Bernie Sanders, a sign that a large number of voters don’t feel represented by more mainstream politicians. On many issues, ranging from immigration reform, which many critics view as tantamount to open borders, to bailouts for bankers, the Republican and Democratic establishments agree, while a large number (quite possibly a majority) of Americans across the political spectrum feel otherwise. But when no “respectable” figure will push these views, then less-respectable figures such as Trump or Sanders (a lifelong socialist who once wrote that women dream of gang rape, and that cervical cancer results from too few orgasms) will arise to fill the need.
But Trump and Sanders are just symptoms. The real disease is in the ruling class that takes such important subjects out of political play, in its own interest. As Angelo Codevilla wrote in an influential essay in 2010, today’s ruling class is a monoculture that has little in common with the rest of the nation.
And you don’t have to go the extremes of Sanders and Trump to see this revolt playing out. Last week, Democrats worked themselves into a froth (see what I did there?) over the idea that they might be able to get the CEO of Starbucks to compete for the presidency. On the Republican side, there are big surges right now for a retired neurosurgeon and a former tech CEO, neither of whom have ever held office before. All of which does, I think, reflect an essential loss of faith in government and the professional political class.
Here’s my question: How does this all end up playing out? Because the consensus among the talking heads right now seems to be that the voters just need to scream into a pillow for awhile — but that they’ll eventually come to their senses, nominate a couple of conventional candidates, and find their way back to equilibrium.
While it still strikes me as implausible that the likes of Sanders or Trump will wind up presidential nominees, I’m equally skeptical that this disquiet with business as usual is just going to go away on its own. It feels — perhaps because we’re approaching the end of a decade and a half in which almost every American has hated one if not both of our presidents — as if we’re on the cusp of a major shift in American politics. As for where it points: I confess that there are so many disparate threads here that I haven’t the foggiest idea.
What say you, Ricochet? Is this a passing summer storm? Or is something bigger happening in American politics? And, if the latter, where are we headed?
Published in General, Politics
“A country that began in Revolution will end in Revolution.”
— Pseudodionysius, Esq.
This is like one of those Twilight Zone episodes where everyone ends up killing everyone else. This has been building since Gabby Giffords was shot and the media decided every Republican in America was responsible from Sarah Palin on down. In a better world, someone comes along and comes along and tells people to knock it off and people come to their senses. I suspect in this version of the story, people won’t be satisfied until they’ve drawn blood from their neighbors.
There is something awful in saying that. And there is something more awful in meaning it.
I think both sides are making a fundamental error in assuming that this is all about personalities – the ‘saviour’ mentality. The thinking goes that all we have to do is elect a true-blue <insert ideology here> who won’t ‘lie to the people’ or ‘kowtow to special interests’, and the entire ship of state can be brought back under control and steered towards a happier future.
But you know what? Washington is full of ‘establishment’ politicians who once were firebrands for their causes. It’s worth some introspection to understand what happened to them.
My fear is that there is an ‘invisible hand’ in government just as there is in markets. The bureaucracies are so large and complex that they have their own emergent patterns and forces, and these are very hard to change. Industry is so intertwined with government that change is nearly impossible without goring some very powerful oxen.
Politicians who enter office with the goal of burning down the system find that the system has some pretty robust defence mechanisms, and eventually those politicians get pushed back in line or face being marginalized or destroyed. So even the ‘tough’ ones wind up whittling at the margins and playing ‘go along to get along’ the rest of the time.
Look at Barack Obama. Here’s a guy who was elected in a popular groundswell, who had the support of the world and most Americans, and who was definitely an ideologue willing to burn down institutions and precedents to get what he wanted.
He had the media to cover for him, majorities in both the House and Senate, the ‘race card’ that insulated him from much criticism, and a new Nobel Peace Prize. The powerful government bureaucracies were full of people ideologically aligned with him and willing to bend the rules for his benefit. If ever there was a politician poised to make sweeping change, it was him.
But how much change did he really accomplish? He managed to screw up the health care system, but eventually had to abandon a number of his promises there. His immigration reform plans are hitting a major roadblock. His most sweeping (and destructive) change has to do with foreign policy and the military, where a president has most influence.
Politically, his attempts to steamroller opponents and ignore laws has resulted in the Democrats being destroyed politically in the States and losing both the House and Senate. And if the Democrats lose the Presidency, the next president may simply unwind everything he ‘accomplished’.
So where does that leave us? Forget finding a ‘savior’ who will stomp through the government breaking and smashing the status quo. If it didn’t work for Obama, how do you think it will work for a Republican facing a hostile media and an antagonistic bureaucracy, with voters split 50-50 and elections being won on thin margins?
If that’s what we get, expect the next four years to be very, very ugly. For us.
Anything’s possible. But then maybe that’s what they want you to believe.
So where does that leave us? What’s the answer? Simply, we have to win hearts and minds. What’s the one thing missing from almost all of these candidates? They aren’t communicators. They aren’t out there every day making a positive case for their ideals in ways that can appeal to those on the other side.
Everyone wants another Ronald Reagan. But Ronald Reagan was The Great Communicator. He spent his years in the political wilderness honing his ideas, and then taking them to the people. He had a weekly radio address. He toured the country giving speeches.
We have communicators today, on talk radio and on television. But who are they communicating TO? Rush Limbaugh doesn’t win over Democrats – he riles up Republicans. So does Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and the other bombastic firebrands on the right.
Real persuasion means debating with your opponents on their terms. It means being civil and conceding points where it’s advantageous to do so. It means above all coming across as smarter and more likeable than the opposition. You need to make people WANT to follow you, because following you says something good about themselves.
When I think about the people who actually caused the most movement towards free markets and Republican principles, I think of Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan. What did they have in common? First, they knew what they were talking about at a deep level. None of them dealt in sound-bites and slogans. Second, they were willing to debate the other side on their own turf. Milton Friedman went out of his way to put himself in the ‘enemy camp’. He didn’t preach to the converted, he took his ideas to those most hostile to him. And he had the chops to defend himself against their attacks.
But most of all, the primary characteristic I remember of them was their calm, civil demeanour and their ability to laugh and smile. They had wit and charm. They were likeable people – generous to their opposition and genuine and secure enough in their beliefs that they could laugh at themselves and enjoy the company of those who were opposed to them.
In a democracy, first you need to win a mandate. Then you can execute on it. What the right needs more than anything is new people who can make our case with a smile, while having the gravitas and intellectual chops to withstand attack from the other side. We need people that journalists will be afraid to ask ‘gotcha’ questions of for fear of being made to look stupid – not people who brandish slogans like weapons but who have their ideas torn apart by intellectual lightweights with blow-dried hair and fake tans.
Actually, many of them are really pretty darn good communicators – Rubio, Fiorina, Paul, Walker (if you give him a little kick start). Of course, one has to be willing to listen to what they say.
Good stuff Dan.
It can work. It probably won’t. But it can.
Did that happen to Reagan? Or did he simply not have the Congress he needed?
Obama struggled after the healthcare law. Obamacare was a disaster for this administration. He got the law, but he threw everything into it, and lost Congress. That changed everything.
Compare to Walker in Wisconsin: he got the law but kept the legislature and flipped the polls. That victory set up a completely different psychological dynamic: it’s a bluish-purple state, they have a margin of two Senate votes, and they keep doing things. It’s not necessarily all originating with the governor’s office, either. The state conservative movement has been very effective in pushing its agenda. They’re not winning everything — but they’re winning a lot.
I feel like I end up talking about Wisconsin on every thread.
If a president can win and repeal Obamacare, that would have a huge impact. The ball would be set rolling in a different direction. How much else would happen? Who can say?
It might depend on the Middle East.
I agree to an extent. We know they are pretty good communicators to other Republicans and to certain media people. What’s unknown is how well they can communicate when facing a hostile crowd – do they have the ability to win over people through persuasion? I’m guessing that Fiorina does, simply because that’s a skill you need to have as a CEO. On the other hand, I’ve heard some rumbling that she was pretty good at rubbing people the wrong way too. So the jury’s out until I see more of her.
Rubio is great at preparing a canned speech. Very inspiring. But I am not yet sure how much depth is behind the Rhetoric. I want to hear him in a few more ‘hostile’ interviews against smart people who ask penetrating questions before I could say for sure. But he’s definitely the kind of politician we need.
Walker? Not sure. He didn’t impress me that much in the debate, and I am skeptical that he has the charisma and verbal deftness required to be a real communicator of ideas. He seems like a very good executive, though, and that’s very important.
Rand Paul is a huge disappointment to me, since I lean Libertarian and very much wanted to support him. And he probably has more credibility with ‘the other side’ than any of the others due to his social liberalism. But he is quick to anger, easy to tie into rhetorical knots (just ask Chris Christie), and his foreign policy notions border on pusillanimous. I think Rand is done, and he’s certainly off my list.
A comment I made elsewhere on Ricochet but I think is appropriate here as well…given that there is sentiment that in the end we all may be stuck with an “establishment candidate” like Bush:
Of the polls showing that Trump is solidly in the lead, how many are polling likely Republican voters or Republicans who voted in previous Republican primaries? Gallup’s latest poll is a survey of all Americans, not likely Republican voters. The recent NBC/Survey Monkey poll also does not delineate from registered or likely Republican voters but draws from anyone of any political stripe or even non-voting background.
Count me as being suspect of these polls that seem to be measuring popularity or awareness rather than who registered Republicans are likely to vote for.Before Trump can win a general election he needs to win enough Republican primaries to take the nomination. Let’s say for argument’s sake that Trump currently has 25% of registered Republican voters even if that can’t be substantiated. That means that 75% of registered Republican voters haven’t coalesced around a preferred candidate primarily because there are too many candidates in the race at the moment. Of course, a good portion of those registered Republicans won’t vote for Trump under any condition even if he does become the nominee.Trump may see that a third-party run won’t get him the Oval Office and stay in the Republican race. If he does, the questions will get tougher and the fireworks will become more intense. It may be one thing to take swipes at the media but a skilled opponent in a more free-wheeling debate has the potential of making Trump look foolish and unprepared banking only on bluster and bellowing rather than coherent solutions. When that happens it will be difficult to claim that it’s some sort of Republican establishment conspiracy.
I’m oddly not that worried about the lit match, since I think involves the following things:
1. Absolutely, positively NOBODY is afraid of either Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush.
2. The last 20-24 years of Politics As Entertainment,as invented by Rush Limbaugh, made profitable by Fox News, and successfully imitated by Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, and Bill Maher, has certainly hit the Law of Diminishing Returns wall. HARD. When you have a brand-name huckster on one side insulting media figures for Presidential poll numbers, and a stereotypical bad hairdo Socialist getting YUGE homer crowds on the other side, the only thing left would be to have Miley Cyrus and her hijinks join this circus.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s just the Baby Boomers showing…angst at reaching the home in Anthem Sun City age and receiving the message that it’s time to gracefully step off the stage.
Doc, you are an oasis of reason in a world gone mad – normally – until now. Politicians have egos bigger than the whole outdoors. They don’t cotton to the idea of taking a back seat to anyone, ever. Because they all think they are “the chosen one”. (<– slight exaggeration, but mostly true, no?)
I think Paul is a good man but would be better suited as a VP on someone’s ticket to bring in Libertarians and Millennials and thus broaden the base. Being a VP would give him the necessary education of what the demands of foreign policy are really like.
Rubio acquitted himself quite well again Crist and Meek and each time he debated them he surged ahead in the polls. So, I don’t have any problem Rubio facing any Democrat on stage or Mr. Trump for whatever party he decides to affiliate himself with – even the Trump Party. Rubio just needs to offer a more stringent immigration policy and beat back the characterization that he’s an establishment RHINO which I think isn’t warranted.
Wrong thread. Ignore.
Yes Manfred, they are giant ego machines. Trump is an obvious narcissist but you have to be something special to run for president.
All of them have no desire to take a back seat, even Huckabee thinks he can do something.
The money aspect of this race is fascinating though. I’m having a BBQ at the house of a Bush megadonor Saturday. Probably high 5 figures already and if it was 7 figures I wouldn’t be surprised. The uber rich have been wooed long ago by Bush and he has collected an abnormal amount of cash and support from the whales. I asked my patient his reasoning for donating so much so early and he said that all the “right” people have thrown their support behind Bush and it’s a question of getting past those darn tea party folks.
The ultra wealthy(some of them ) consider Bush a fait accompli.
I suspect that whoever gets the most votes will win the primaries, and after being told that you can “keep” whatever or save $2500 a year” that people will be so tired of Dem lies that Frosty the Snowman could win if he has an R behind his name.
The question about uninformed voters probably won’t fit most Republicans because most Republicans want Barry and his ilk gone. If any of those voters actually talks to his neighbors it might be a Republican landslide.
When the primaries hit, Bush would still need enough votes to get anywhere. Given his lackluster poll numbers and lack of any discernible momentum it looks like all the money he has received isn’t translating into huge support. Which is why I think he may fade quicker than a lot of the folks in the MSM realize.
There is no doubt that most of the money folks are behind Bush but they can only vote once in their primary. If GOP primary voters are uneducated enough to pull the lever for whoever they see on TV the most then we are doomed anyway. If Republicans are such LIVs that their vote can be bought we are simply out of luck.
I’m hoping that won’t be the case. You could say it happened in 2012 but Romney ran against a much weaker field than Bush is facing (he also didn’t have the dynasty baggage).
I can’t get the image of voters screaming into pillows while the political class soothingly tells them, “Relax and let it happen.”
There are two paradigms in conflict for this nation’s future, and they are antithetical to one another. There is no room for compromise between their positions. As they continue to no longer be able to ignore each other with the courts unilaterally imposing ideological rulings on the entire country, they will antagonize each other more and more until it erupts into armed conflict.
It actually kind of amazes me — especially all the random hundreds of people who file for whatever crazy reason.
There are a few people who should be running for president. And I can see why Jeb, Rubio, Kasich, Sanders, and even Santorum (because of 2012) think they have a chance. I can see why someone like Cruz would run — it’s a long shot, but it doesn’t hurt his future aspirations to make a go of it.
But where the Patakis and Gilmores and O’Malleys are coming from, I really can’t imagine.
There are a few potentially credible Democrats hanging back (probably to stay on the Clintons’ good side), but there is only one Republican I can think of who could have made a serious run this year — and didn’t.
Hope you’re all right about Bush fading. Time will tell.
With any luck, the start of the debates means that other people will get an opportunity to be seen and Jeb’s name recognition advantage is neutralized. And if money were the only thing that mattered, Kay Hagan would still hold the Senate seat in North Carolina. The most important thing is having appealing alternatives that can get people’s attention.
Interesting. Maybe find out what actually he wants accomplished in the next administration and report back to us. Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks.
Ryan?
Yes.
And Eric Cantor would be House Majority Leader.
I think Mitt Romney could have been viable this time around – especially given how he could have played all those clips of Democrats laughing at all the predictions he made in 2012 – which came true. Being right is a pretty good weapon.
I like Fiorina, but my ideal candidate would be someone like her, only with a track record for success that is unparalleled. Elon Musk would be a very interesting candidate in 10 years or so. Silicon Valley has quite a few tech leaders who lean at least Libertarian. TJ Rogers, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Sergey Brin…
We need someone who can capture the imagination of youth. Someone who is part of the future, not the past. Someone who can command attention, and who can make a case for smaller government and more freedom with grace and intelligence.
The latest Rasmussen poll shows Bush’s support plateauing at ten percent with likely Republican voters. Stagnant. Not growing.
The consensus amongst the establishment is that the electorate needs to lie back and think of England.
I was forgetting Romney.
He had two shots at it, though. I don’t think a third round would have played well.