The GOP's laughable new dirty trick — that the New York Times wants you to believe

Republicans are playing a shell game, trying to convince Democrats they should be less progressive. Don't buy it

Published June 1, 2015 6:15PM (EDT)

      (<a href='http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-98358p1.html'> Valex61 </a> via <a href='http://www.shutterstock.com/'>Shutterstock</a>)
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The dumb conventional wisdom must be discarded: Victory for Democrats in 2016 actually depends on going “hard left.” This is true even as a new analysis from Real Clear Politics argues — for good reason — that the GOP is stronger than it's ever been since before the New Deal.

Of course, this idea is enough to cause fainting spells in the chattering class. A much-debated op-ed in the New York Times last week actually tried to make the case that the Democrats have already moved further left this decade than the Republicans. Actually, the logic in heading further left is compelling — and we're seeing early signs of it in the way Hillary Clinton is rolling out her campaign (The Huffington Post "found that she is philosophically supportive of all 13 of the principles" in New York mayor Bill De Blasio's "Progressive Agenda to Combat Income Inequality," for example), and Bernie Sanders has sparked energy around issues of wealth and inequality, as well.

Put simply, the last two Democratic presidents tried running to the center and while it worked like a charm to get them elected, it proved disastrous soon after. Both governed perpetually on the defensive, despite winning re-election rather comfortably. In 1992, Bill Clinton received significant praise for supposedly reviving the Democrats' electoral fortunes. Two years later Democrats lost the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, and lost more seats in state legislatures than they had since FDR's first election in 1932. Then in 2008, Barack Obama did it again, using unifying rhetoric to become the first non-incumbent Democrat to win more than 50 percent of the popular vote since FDR, only to produce even deeper Democratic losses in 2010 than than the party suffered in 1994.

The fruits of these two “successful” two-term Democratic presidents were sketched out by Sean Trende and David Byler at Real Clear Politics, in an article bluntly titled,"The GOP Is the Strongest It's Been in Decades." Their analysis was based on an index including Congress (House and Senate), the presidency, and governors and state legislatures, who are usually foolishly ignored.  Still, in the end, everything hinges on those two “centrist” triumphs, which turned out to be anything but, each failing to rally and inspire supporters with the governance that followed, resulting in sweeping losses [see chart here]. As I recently noted, Ross Perot voters played a key role in the GOP's 1994 success, but both 1994 and 2010 saw sharp declines in Democratic turnout, reflecting the profound failure of neo-liberal governance to speak to the party's base.

Looking forward to 2016, if Democrats are to break through this current condition of GOP strength — if  they're to have any chance of retaking Congress, making gains in state legislatures and implementing policies that will improve their standing over time, they will need to move unambiguously to the left. Hillary Clinton has shown signs of this. More importantly, they will need to engage and excite their base — as  Bernie Sanders has begun doing, and as Elizabeth Warren has done even without running for president.

There are three main reasons that running left makes sense. The first is pragmatic: Progressive economics works, while conservative economics does not. The second is pragmatic in a different sense: “moving to the center” doesn't work as a political move for Democrats, no matter how much they wish that it did. The third reason illuminates things even more: the public is already more liberal than Democrats realize — even willing to support things that Democrats haven't dared propose.  Let's consider each of these reasons in more detail.

The first point is clear even to the most airheaded talking heads on social issues like gay marriage and immigration, where pundits acknowledge both the unpopularity and unworkability of GOP positions, but try to pretend that won't actually hurt them in the 2016 election. But the same logic holds on the economic side as well. This is clear from the overall GOP record of economic failure, which many have written about in recent years. And it's particularly clear from the failure of GOP governors I've written about previously, as well as the failed ideological guidance that they've come to rely on.

These last two points are further underscored by a couple of head-to-head comparisons one can make.  First is a comparison of Minnesota and Wisconsin — made in "The High Road Wins," in the American Prospect by Ann Markusen, lead author of the classic study, The Rise of the Gunbelt: The Military Remapping of Industrial America. Contrasting Scott Walker's record in Wisconsin with Mark Dayton's record in Minnesota, Markusen writes:

While the “experiment” is not perfect — there are minor differences in urban and industrial structure between the two states — it is clear that imposing fiscal austerity and undermining residents’ standards of living are not successful prescriptions for economic prosperity. As the presidential election ramps up, the hard economics of these two states offer us evidence on the choice between markedly different futures....

Minnesota’s policies on wages, health care, and unionization have improved the quality of life for large numbers of state residents. Outpacing Wisconsin, Minnesota’s jobs and pay have expanded, and health care and education have improved. Dayton’s progressive taxation has not scared off business, but has funded better public services, besting Walker’s fiscal strategy of regressive tax cuts and deficit reduction.

Walker fell far short on his pledge to add 250,000 jobs to Wisconsin’s economy in his first term, adding only 100,000, compared to 130,000 in Minnesota. Not surprisingly, this was reflected in unemployment rates as well:

Wisconsin suffers from persistently higher unemployment rates than Minnesota, and Minnesota’s rate has fallen much faster than Wisconsin’s since the beginning of the two governors’ terms. From 6.8 percent in January of 2011, Minnesota’s unemployment rate fell to 3.7 percent by November of 2014. Wisconsin’s initial rate of 7.7 percent fell to 5.2 percent in the same period. Slower job growth and higher unemployment rates have encouraged net out-migration from Wisconsin: Fewer workers are encouraged to move to or stay in the state.

Marksusen also noted that the job growth divergence was part of a broader pattern that could be related to the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) misguided policy recommendations reflected in the ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index. Citing research by University of Wisconsin economics professor Menzie Chinn looking at private nonfarm job growth in California, Wisconsin, Kansas and Minnesota from 2011 (when all four got new governors) through early 2014, Markussen reported, “The newly conservative-led states, Kansas ranking 15th and Wisconsin 17th on Laffer’s index, did equally badly relative to U.S. employment growth, while Laffer’s least-favored states, Minnesota (46th) and California (47th), both posted superior job growth rates.”

The second reason moving left makes sense is that the alternative, moving “to the center" does not work for Democrats. For one thing, conservatives have spent the past 30 to 40 years working to move the entire political spectrum to the right — a process facilitated by right-wing think tanks. In this political environment, moving right to meet them where they are now is not a pathway toward cooperation and developing a long-term policy consensus that can be built on; it's simply a political concession, which they will happily pocket, then move even further to the right.

This is what happened with the GOP alternative to healthcare reform in the 1990s, which actually began with the notion of the individual mandate from the Heritage Foundation in 1989, which was then incorporated into two Republican bills in 1993, and eventually passed into law under Mitt Romney as governor in Massachusetts. Romneycare suddenly became “socialism!” when adopted by Obama, even as he turned his back on the public option, itself a diminished version of progressives' preferred option, Medicare for all.

Something similar happened when Democrats dropped plans for a tax on carbon, and adopted the Republican-favored “cap-and-trade” approach (first advanced by free market conservatives in the 1980s to fight acid rain) to controlling carbon emissions. Not a single GOP Senator would support the legislation in 2010, forcing Harry Reid to pull it. Conservatives were all up in arms against “cap-and-tax!”

Or consider a third example: after the 2012 election, the GOP supposedly realized it needed to stop alienating Hispanic voters, particularly around the issue of immigration. So Democrats, naturally, agreed to compromise with them to pass legislation. The one thing they wouldn't compromise on was a path to citizenship, even though the compromise Senate bill delayed the citizenship process for 13 years. But that refusal to compromise on a path to citizenship wasn't just liberals being stubborn, it was also essential for Republicans motivated by the desire to stop alienating Hispanics. As Politico put it when the Senate passed it 68-32, “Republicans, shellacked by Mitt Romney’s 44-point loss among Latinos in the 2012 presidential election, almost immediately coalesced behind immigration reform as a top priority.”

In the end, even that made no difference. After leaving the Senate,  it got bogged down in the House, and couldn't even get to the floor, as conservatives demogogued it as “amnesty.” Eventually, even Marco Rubio, who played a key role in crafting it as his legislative calling card, turned into a bitter opponent.

This pattern repeats itself across issue areas, but it's hardly the only reason that “moving to the center” doesn't work politically. Republicans also tend to seize on moves to the center as opportunities for blame-shifting — as they're trying to do now with blaming ISIS on Obama, and as they did previously blaming him for the terrible economic mess left to him by Bush (Ted Cruz took this farthest, even blaming Obama for the 2008 crash). In both instances, Obama tried to minimize immediate political conflicts with Republicans, and brushed off concerns of those to his left, who argued for a more fundamental rethinking of our policies, and more forceful measures.

Of course, these claims are ridiculous, but ridiculous claims are the new normal, in case you've been asleep since the '90s. It wasn't Obama's policies that created ISIS, it was Bush's Iraq invasion, followed by de-Bathification, neither of which were reversible by the time Obama took office. Still, he might have found a better way to address Bush's policy failures, but not while uncritically insisting on “looking forward, not back.”

On the economic front, the available alternatives were much clearer. Obama could have prosecuted Wall Street lawbreakers, moved to break up the too-big-to-fail banks which brought us to brink of ruin and pushed for a stimulus large enough for the magnitude of the demand deficit we faced — and not larded up with costly, ineffective tax give-aways. In short, the mistakes Obama made consisted of acting too much like John McCain would have, had he won the 2008 election. But Obama got blamed as “socialist!” anyway, regardless of what he actually did. The lesson, in short, is clear: There is no cheese in the center, only an empty, hair-trigger mousetrap.

The third reason moving left makes sense is that that's where the public already is.  As I wrote back in November 2013, the American people are well to the left of Democrats in Congress. For example, taking up the two most popular targets for “fiscal restraint,” I wrote:

Combining GSS [General Social Survey] data from 2000 to 2012, and asking about Social Security and spending on “improving and protecting the nation’s health” (GSS’s closest match with Medicare), liberal Democrats thought we were spending “too little” rather than “too much” on one or both by a margin of 87.1 percent to 2.4 percent — a ratio of over 36-to-1. But all other groups of Americans held the same view, even conservative Republicans — just not by the same overwhelming amount. They “only” thought we were spending “too little” rather than “too much” by a margin of 59.2 percent to 13.1 percent— a ratio of 4.5-to-1. With figures like that — all well to the left of Democrats in D.C. — it’s no wonder that conservatives in Congress always talk about “saving” Social Security and Medicare, and forever try to get Democrats to take the lead in proposing actual cuts.

The last sentence there was another reminder of the point made just above, about the lack of benefit in “moving to the center.” But the main point blows the idea of political centrism to smithereens: so-called political “centrists” are all far to the right of where the American people are.  And it's not just a matter of abstract theorizing on what people would like to cut or spend more on, as I went on to explain in that story. In early 2011, researchers at the Program for Public Consultation released the results of two waves of “deliberative” polling bracketing the 2010 midterms, the triumphant “Tea Party” wave election. They presented their results in two reports, “How the American Public Would Deal With the Budget Deficit” in February 2011 and “Competing Budget Priorities: The Public, the House, the White House” in March.

In the first report, the researchers found a high level of consensus across parties: “Among a total of 31 areas, on average, Republicans, Democrats and independents agreed on 22 areas — that is, all three groups agreed on whether to cut, increase or maintain funding.” But the second report was even more compelling, as members of the public were taken through a deliberative process, much like the budget process that Congress members go through.  The results, however, were dramatically different, producing massive defense cuts on the spending side, and massive tax hikes on the revenue side — positions well to the left of where Democrats try to position themselves.

On the revenue side, the public increased taxes by an average of $292 billion—roughly triple the amount proposed by President Obama. Majorities increased taxes on incomes over $100,000 by 5 percent or more, and by 10 percent or more for incomes over $500,000. Majorities also increased corporate taxes and other excise taxes. Overwhelming majorities also favored raising estate taxes: 77 percent favored reverting at least to the 2009 levels, with estates over $3.5 million taxed at a 45 percent rate. These positions are generally so far left, they don’t even appear on the spectrum of discussion in Washington.

That's where the American people are. That's where the Democrats should run.  It's just that simple. But it's worth adding another angle on this situation. Talking Points Memo recently called attention to an earlier study (full length/summary) which directly illustrated that the electorate is significantly more liberal than most individual politicians realize.

Researchers David Broockman, from the University of California, Berkeley, and Christopher Skovron, of the University of Michigan, surveyed the views of nearly 2,000 candidates for state legislative offices. They asked them to estimate the percentage of the people in their districts who would agree with each of these three statements: (1) same-sex marriage should be legal, (2) the federal government should implement a universal healthcare program, (3) all federal welfare programs should be abolished. They then used a large national survey to derive district-level estimates of support levels. The results were stunning:

When we compare what legislators believe their constituents want to their constituents’ actual views, we discover that politicians hold remarkably inaccurate perceptions. Pick an American state legislator at random, and chances are that he or she will have massive misperceptions about district views on big-ticket issues, typically missing the mark by 15 percentage points.

What is more, the mistakes legislators make tend to fall in one direction, giving U.S. politics a rightward tilt compared to what most voters say they want. As the following figures show, legislators usually believe their constituents are more conservative than they actually are.

Looking more closely at how these misperceptions were structured, they found further imbalances:

  • The typical conservative legislator overestimates his or her district’s conservatism by a whopping 20 percentage points. Indeed, he or she believes the district is even more conservative than the most right-leaning district in the entire country.
  • Liberals also think their constituents’ views are more conservative than they really are, but are typically only off by about five percentage points.
  • Most conservative legislators believe their positions on same-sex marriage and health care command majority support in their districts – but only two-fifths are correct. In contrast, liberal legislators usually share views with constituents, but one in five does not know it.

Thus, Republicans have a strong tendency to run significantly to the right of where their constituents are, without even knowing it. Democrats tend to be less mistaken, but the mistake may still be psychologically more significant for them, given the direction of the misperception. For conservative Republican candidates, the mis-perception relieves them of potential conflicts between what they believe ideologically, and what they want to campaign on. For progressive Democratic candidates, the mis-perception creates conflicts where none actually exist.

The fact that people come to more liberal positions the more they engage with issues is the most important fact of all.  It tells us that moving left is not just a smart tactic or short-term strategy for Democrats to pursue, it's a long-term strategy for restoring the kind of broad-based prosperity that the New Deal first laid the foundations for, while at the same time expanding the framework of social inclusion, so that this time around everyone is equally included.


By Paul Rosenberg

Paul Rosenberg is a California-based writer/activist, senior editor for Random Lengths News, and a columnist for Al Jazeera English. Follow him on Twitter at @PaulHRosenberg.

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