what’s happening to the Democrats?

Q. Why are the Democrats losing popularity in national surveys?

A. The answer to that one seems pretty straightforward. There is an eerily close correlation between unemployment and presidential approval during recessions. John Judis provides the graphs for Reagan and Clinton; Obama’s pattern is just the same so far:

Q. What should the Democrats do about unemployment?

They should do whatever they can, mainly because losing your job is a terrible thing, but also because the Democrats’ political fate is tied to the unemployment rate. What they have done so far is the stimulus package, the auto bailout, and extending unemployment benefits. It’s clear that the public doesn’t give them credit for these steps–understandably, since unemployment is still at 10%. Probably the stimulus should have been bigger, but I have my doubts that the federal government could have spent more money faster without making major mistakes.

Q. What about the narrative?

Paul Krugman, E.J. Dionne, and Kevin Drum all agree that the Democrats’ problem is not declining popularity. That’s inevitable, given the economic picture. Their problem is a failure to control the interpretation, the public’s grand “narrative” about what is going on. Dionne writes:

    Liberals and Obama … have failed so far to dent the right’s narrative, especially among those moderates and independents with no strong commitments to either side in this fight.

    The president’s supporters comfort themselves that Obama’s numbers will improve as the economy gets better. This is a form of intellectual complacency. Ronald Reagan’s numbers went down during a slump, too. But even when he was in the doldrums, Reagan was laying the groundwork for a critique of liberalism that held sway in American politics long after he left office.

    Progressives will never reach their own Morning in America unless they use the Gipper’s method to offer their own critique of the conservatism he helped make dominant.

Narratives do not determine electoral results, which can be forecast precisely based on economic indicators. Narratives do influence which policies the governing party attempts. Bill Clinton felt much more constrained than L.B.J. because the national storyline had shifted between 1964 and 1992–in part due to Ronald Reagan.

But I am not at all sure that Reagan controlled the narrative better in 1980-1982 than Obama is today. While Reagan’s popularity was sinking toward 40%, I don’t think most Americans were buying his claim that liberals had wrecked the economy with their taxes and spending, and he was saving it with his tax cuts (and spending). They were more likely to think that a mean Republican was putting people out of work. Reagan won the narrative in 1984 for a simple reason: the economy had recovered strongly, and he was the president at the time. Obama is making the progressive case today, much as Reagan argued for conservatism. People don’t believe Obama, because unemployment is 10%. I don’t think they believed Reagan when the situation was equally dire in 1981-2. Once again, everything depends on recovery.

Q. What about the left’s revolt against Obama?

It certainly does not surprise me that people to the left of Barack Obama are dissatisfied with his record so far–that was to be expected, given their expectations. I do think their level of anger is surprising and damages their own cause. Here, in the academia-dominated, liberal, affluent Western suburbs of Boston, I hear constant griping about the president, and some of the reasons seem to me downright mistaken. For example, the public option in the health care bill was almost pure symbolism; using it as a bargaining chip was smart–not a betrayal. The national decline in the president’s overall popularity is a function of economic conditions. For the Democrats to lose steam in Cambridge and Brookline seems unnecessary and harmful. I blame my neighbors for that, not the White House.