{"id":4600,"date":"2004-11-22T07:32:47","date_gmt":"2004-11-22T07:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4600"},"modified":"2004-11-22T07:32:47","modified_gmt":"2004-11-22T07:32:47","slug":"why-the-democrats-are-slipping-into-minority-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4600","title":{"rendered":"why the Democrats are slipping into minority status"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s possible <\/a>that<\/p>\n

we’re a fifty\/fifty nation, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans,<\/p>\n

and the last two elections have been so close that they only prove we’re tied.<\/p>\n

But I don’t believe it. A powerful current is moving us rightward. It has helped<\/p>\n

Republicans to gain control of both houses of Congress, to appoint most federal<\/p>\n

judges, and to control seven more governors’ mansions than the Democrats do.<\/p>\n

(State legislatures are still about evenly split, with 19 completely under the<\/p>\n

control of each party, and the rest divided.) In the national<\/p>\n

exit poll<\/a>, 34% of voters called themselves conservatives compared to 21%<\/p>\n

who identified as liberals. The ideology score is nothing new, but the balance<\/p>\n

of power is startlingly different from 20 years ago. It is possible that the<\/p>\n

rightward trend will stop of its own accord at the current point, but I wouldn’t count on it. <\/p>\n

Progressive parties demand more of voters than conservative ones. To start<\/p>\n

with, they demand more taxes. Under favorable circumstances, progressives can reserve<\/p>\n

their tax increases for a wealthy minority, but people won’t vote to tax<\/p>\n

anyone <\/i>unless they believe that the revenue is likely to be well spent.<\/p>\n

Progressive parties also need low-income people<\/p>\n

to turn out, something that is relatively hard for them to do because the “costs”<\/p>\n

of voting (becoming informed and taking time off to go to the polls) are relatively<\/p>\n

onerous for poor citizens. Besides, poor people have little reason to trust politicians enough<\/p>\n

to vote for them. Finally, the modern Democratic party is (rightly) committed<\/p>\n

to a set of unpopular moral values, so it must convince people to overlook those<\/p>\n

commitments in return for other benefits. <\/p>\n

Historically, American progressive parties (usually Democratic, but occasionally<\/p>\n

Republican) have won elections when they have identified the really important<\/p>\n

issues that concern majorities of voters, and have directly addressed those<\/p>\n

issues. People will vote to raise taxes–their own or other citizens’–if they<\/p>\n

think the money is needed for critical purposes. For example, the nation faced<\/p>\n

a deep depression in 1932. One of its causes appared to be malfeasance in the financial<\/p>\n

markets. And even before the depression began, people risked becoming indigent<\/p>\n

if they lost their jobs. Roosevelt responded with employment programs to stimulate<\/p>\n

the economy, market reforms, and Social Security. We can argue about whether<\/p>\n

he solved <\/i>the problems that the country faced in 1932, but there was<\/p>\n

no question that he pursued policies that directly addressed the country’s needs.<\/p>\n

In the 1960s, there was less consensus about the need to wage a “war on poverty,”<\/p>\n

given that most families had become relatively affluent. But there was wide<\/p>\n

agreement that the country had to move past racial segregation. Liberal Democrats<\/p>\n

and liberal Republicans who tackled discrimination won elections. <\/p>\n

Today, the<\/p>\n

traditional problems have not disappeared. De facto racial segregation is worse<\/p>\n

than it was 25 years ago; losing your job can still be very bad news. But for<\/p>\n

most Americans, there doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to invent new solutions<\/p>\n

to these old concerns, which are manageable. People support the traditional progressive<\/p>\n

programs, but they need not vote Democratic to preserve them; Republicans<\/p>\n

also swear oaths in defense of Social Security and Medicare. In any case, Americans<\/p>\n

are now more concerned about a new set of problems, including the lack of decent<\/p>\n

jobs for those with high school diplomas; persistent violent crime that we barely<\/p>\n

control by jailing millions of our fellow citizens; reliance on foreign oil;<\/p>\n

and the coarseness of popular culture, especially as it affects kids. While<\/p>\n

the long-term fiscal condition of the federal government probably doesn’t worry<\/p>\n

people as much as these other issues, the deficit does matter because it makes<\/p>\n

it hard to propose expensive policies. <\/p>\n

No doubt, some people are also worried about issues that Democrats cannot and should not define<\/p>\n

as “problems,” such as immigration and increased diversity, gay weddings in<\/p>\n

San Francisco, or the legal right to abortion. But Democrats would have a fighting<\/p>\n

chance if they addressed a different set of important concerns. Otherwise, people will vote conservative. <\/p>\n

I basically<\/p>\n

gave up on this year’s Democrats <\/a>when they failed to address any serious<\/p>\n

problems at their convention. They seemed to think that Americans would vote for a Democrat<\/p>\n

because Bush had made mistakes and Kerry was personally macho. I think a Kerry<\/p>\n

administration would have been at best a holding-action; at worst, a last stand.<\/p>\n

A considerable part of me is relieved that Democrats (and McCain-ite Republicans)<\/p>\n

now have four years to come up with a plausible program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s possible that we’re a fifty\/fifty nation, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, and the last two elections have been so close that they only prove we’re tied. But I don’t believe it. A powerful current is moving us rightward. It has helped Republicans to gain control of both houses of Congress, to appoint most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-revitalizing-the-left"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}