It’s fascinating that, though Bernie Sanders has won one primary election and only narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton in two others, Democratic party rules give him next-to-no chance of becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. These circumstances justified the headline of Monday’s lead article in the New York Times: ‘Delegate Count Leaving Sanders With Steep Climb.’ Continue reading
Could Donald Trump become president? The most recent GOP debate left me wondering. Until then, I trusted that Trump’s status as Republican front-runner would evaporate when the earliest primary votes came in. Now, I have my doubts. Trump, who has been a candidate for just six months, gave proof in the debate that he’s learning what he must do to keep his lead and garner real votes.
Moreover, even as Trump’s field of rivals narrows, his potential as a political leader is becoming more obvious. For better or worse, he is the lightning rod around which the energies and ideology of the party are reorganizing. Trump may be destroying the old GOP, but, without him, the GOP would be dead.
Trump’s zenophobic views have drawn condemnation from his opponents, his party, and the media. Most continue to believe that Trump’s star will fade, leaving the nomination a battle between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. But what if that isn’t true? What if, confounding these expectations, a re-calibrated Trump continues to lead? Not only are Trump’s tactics shifting perceptibly, but some of his ideas are beginning to seem more plausible. Last week’s debate, which 18 million people watched, gave Trump a chance to qualify and explain the logic of his most controversial pronouncements, which collectively stand as a rebuke to the sort of political moderation that has characterized all our presidents, Democrat and Republican, since Ronald Reagan.
In the debate, Jeb Bush warned that Trump would not get to the presidency by insulting people. In fact, Trump pointedly refrained from belittling his opponents that night: he didn’t even attack Ted Cruz (who had it coming) given the opportunity. Likewise, most of those onstage refrained from challenging Trump directly. As Trump pointed out, though, moderators repeatedly asked Trump’s challengers to comment on his ideas, a pattern that only confirmed his centrality.
Trump’s doggedness paid off in the skill with which he defended and refined some of his positions. Beneath his intolerable soundbites are more focused convictions, such as that the government should be tapping the nation’s best people to thwart the internet being used to promote violence and terror. Trump believes that neighbors and families who wink at subversive terrorist behavior in the US should expect to be severely punished.
Overall, Trump (who is not a social conservative) is tapping into a frustration that the US is failing to use all the tools and resources that it has to maintain internal order and safeguard its global economic supremacy. A natural ideologue, Trump is carving out stands on illegal immigration and domestic security that are compatible with his interest in ending economic policies and practices benefiting rival nations at the US’s expense. Trump’s intentions jibe with the people’s desire to see the value of their citizenship restored.
So, could a toned-down Trump garner enough popular support to be president? Like it or not, the answer is yes. Trump, Cruz, and, yes, Jeb Bush are shaping the parameters of this epoch-making campaign. Could any one of them defeat Hillary Clinton in the general election?
For a transcript of the debate, click here.
For a fact-check of the debate, click here.
Click on the image to view the New York Times interactive map of House election results.
This map of House election results from the New York Times dramatically conveys the state of democracy on the ground. Because the entire House stands for election every two years, the results express the state of local sentiment better than Senate elections can.
The map does not correct for population density, so one must bear in mind that some of the vast red areas represent relatively few people. Still, it’s sobering to contemplate the restricted appeal of a Democratic ethos. Just think of all the Americans, living in all the varied settings pictured on this map, to whom Democratic party principles no longer appeal. Democratic strength is extremely limited geographically, whereas, as David Brooks points out, it’s hard to deny that Republican conservatism represents the mainstream. It’s ironic, because red regions contain many people who use and benefit from the sorts of programs and services that Democrats perennially champion and defend. Well-being is not all that drives people to the polls.
The Democratic Party’s ethos no longer resonates with such voters culturally. Instead, the party has become identified mainly with the coastal and urban regions where more educated people tend to gather. Looking at this map, it’s easy to understand why ‘mainstream’ Americans resent the undue influence that urban elites exercise through the media.
Many Democrats I know, convinced of the morality and truth of their views, do not see a need to proselytize. I once asked a liberal friend why she didn’t volunteer to canvas in Democratic campaigns, and she said, “I guess it’s because I’m right—and I think that, if other people can’t see that, there’s nothing I can do.” It’s a shame, because the Democratic Party is becoming irrelevant to a huge natural constituency of small-town and working-class Americans who are just getting by. In those broad regions where Democratic leaders are giving up, an important strain of political culture may one day die.
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The Enduring Republican Grip on the House (NYT)
Republican gains in Tuesday’s elections delivered a stunning rebuke to Democrats and their party. The GOP is resurgent, despite having teetered after the 2012 election on the verge of disintegration and decline.
The Republicans achieved this gain primarily by telling voters that, under President Obama and the Democrats, the nation has fared badly. Republican candidates attacked both the style and substance of the administration. They assailed a government that they styled as autocratic, expensive, and ineffective. They railed against government intrusion, and (in the case of illegal immigration) against governmental laxness, too. They chafed against laws and constraints they don’t believe in. Most of all, Republicans succeeded by denigrating what will surely be regarded as this era’s most significant achievements, such as the government’s success at bringing the nation back from the brink of all-out economic collapse and at passing a radical yet tenable and comprehensive health-care reform bill.
Strategically, the GOP also took care to marginalize some of the worst kooks seeking to work their way up in the party’s ranks. The Republican National Committee under Reince Priebus encouraged and supported more electable candidates whose messages would still resonate with conservatives. The policy also served the goal of producing a Republican Congress that is more homogeneous and governable. Anyway, as campaign strategy, it worked. Even weak candidates like Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas won.
Sadly, the Democrats were afraid to be identified with their party’s strengths. They also failed to deliver a vision of government, that, if consonant with their recent achievements, was fresh and forward-looking. As the president’s time in office wanes, Democrats should be thinking about how to catch the next wave. What should the Democratic Party be about, once heavyweights like Obama and the Clintons are gone? The Dems are notably short on galvanizing up-and-comers who could breathe new life into what has become a too-staid and centrist political party.
Chiefly, though, the Democrats have failed to accommodate and adapt to legitimate criticisms of Democratic governance and ideology. In particular, they do not seem attuned to the people’s desire for a government that, if powerful, is deft and efficient. They have not cared enough about the national mood to break with the president and demand Congressional debate on issues like our open-ended bombing campaign against the Islamic State.* Nor have Democrats cared enough about the middle and lower classes to attack the glaring issue of corporate responsibility, favoring a rise in the minimum wage, yes, but remaining silent on a host of policies that work against working-class prosperity while benefiting corporations and the interests of global capital unduly.
Renew themselves: in short, this is what the Democrats must do. Dare to be a more interesting, local, peaceful, green, and economical party. Dare to think small, and find new ways to promote prosperity that rely less on government spending and more on shrewd uses of information and technology. Scour the countryside for young, charismatic, ardent, and innovative political thinkers. Restore pride in American citizenship and civic culture. And move beyond the paradigm of the social-welfare state in trying to figure out how to give a stagnant, suffering America what it wants and needs.
* The president has since called on Congress to debate and authorize the bombing campaign.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, no matter how retrograde its ideas, has long outshone Democrats in its ability to attract galvanizing up-and-comers. Eric Cantor’s startling fall is just the latest instance of a conservative “star” self-destructing, but one that underscores the Party’s uncanny ability to spot and exploit a long string of controversial media darlings: Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan . . . the length of the list is downright alarming.
Cantor, though departing the House under a cloud, had become a nationally known leader at an impressively young age. Figures like Cantor, Paul Ryan, and Rand Paul have few Democratic counterparts. Rising Democrats like Kristen Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren have yet to be given leading roles that would signal their stature within their party, and Warren, a latecomer to politics, is only now beginning to hit her stride. Only the GOP has a cadre of young iconoclastic lieutenants with big responsibilities and long resumes.
The GOP’s leadership advantage derives not just from personality but from the very ideological conflict that has threatened to weaken it as a party. In the last presidential election, outsized but deeply flawed figures like Palin or Herman Cain held our attention because they stood for something, because they were staking their claim to the soul of their party, and because something dramatically different was going to happen if they gained enough popularity. Even as we despised them, they contributed paradoxically to the political system’s health, energizing the opposition and re-establishing the voting public’s unwillingness to tolerate meanness, character flaws, or dangerous ideas.
Only when President Obama leaves office will it be clear how decrepit the Democratic Party has become. His youth and charisma have tended to compensate for the Democrats’ bland leadership and ideology, concealing how staid and, well, conservative, its major figures are. Figures like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden are wonderful public servants, but they can hardly be said to represent a vanguard.
Disarray in the Republican Party has given the Democrats an opportunity to dominate and prevail. Instead, the Democratic Party is languishing. Democratic leaders have grown unaccustomed to risk-taking, and they have lacked the energy required to consolidate their power in the states, win back the South, or expand the breadth and fervor of their support among voters nationally. Meanwhile, their inability to cultivate young talent leaves them poorly positioned to weather the generational change at hand.