That being said, Jonah Goldberg has a salient op/ed today about the "Achilles heel" of Liberalism--that is non-pocketbook issues.
Behold the cultural contradictions of progressivism.Goldberg goes on to emphasize a point that I often think of as an inherent weakness of the Democratic Party (inherent inasmuch as the Democratic Party is based on Liberalism): that the Dems are a coalition party rather than a consensus party like the GOP.
Barack Obama’s victory was a huge win for self-described progressives. Arguably the most liberal presidential nominee in American history, Obama has given some very old ideas an aura of new coolness. Congrats on all that. Hope it works out for you.
. . . .
But something interesting happened on Election Day that didn’t get much attention. Bans on gay marriage were on ballots in several states, and they all won. In fact, gay marriage bans have ultimately passed in all 30 of the states in which they were on the ballot.
. . . .
In other words, Obama had some major un-progressive coattails. The tidal wave of black and Hispanic voters who came out to support Obama voted in enormous numbers against what most white liberals consider to be the foremost civil rights issue of the day.
Put aside the substance of the gay marriage debate; what’s fascinating is how these returns expose the underlying weakness, or at least vulnerability, of progressivism.
In all candor, I'd posit that coalition politics--much moreso than consensus politics, contributes to the ugly, focus-groupish, sausage-making reputation and reality of contemporary politics. As Goldberg might say . . . good luck with that.
5 comments:
Of course, a "consensus party" isn't going to happen in America, at this point. Well, it isn't going to win.
I'm as bothered as the next gay liberal that black voters drove a lot of marriage bans to victory almost as much as conservatives did, but the fact of the matter is that this is hardly surprising. Constituencies who agree on many things don't necessarily agree on all of them, and the modern political party has to be relatively open to those disagreements.
For instance, say that the Dems came out tomorrow and said that the national party would only support candidates staunchly in favor of gay marriage. That would be political suicide on a whole host of issues that the vast majority of Dems agree upon. I probably have far more in common, issues-wise, with some of the black voters who pushed Prop 8 over the top than any Log Cabin Republican. So, of course we're going to gravitate towards the same party.
In reality, "consensus politics" is the pipedream of the far-left and far-right. America's a big country. It's rapidly changing, demographically. (Changing, by the way, in the direction of pro-gay marriage demographics.) Insisting on absolute, ideological consensus is foolhardy; it ignores the vast diversity within the America population.
So, please, make the right in America a "consensus" group. I'll be happy to stay over here on the left and win over and over and over.
One of the ironies of Dems courting the Hispanic vote is that Hispanics are quite conservative in many areas. The black anti-gay marriage stance if common knowledge.
Politics do make strange bedfellows. (No pun intended, it just happened.)
NSA,
You're missing the point. It's not consensus on EVERY issue, it is that they have a consensus on a significant number of issues and that's why they are a party. e.g., Labor doesn't overtly have much in common with Environmentalists or feminists, except that they need to band together to have their respective agendas advanced.
And isn't it kind of a stretch to assert that y'all are "win[ning] over and over and over" when you (a) have only in the two recent cycles been winning elections and (b) have to talk Conservatively to do so.
Fascinating topic. I think Reagan's magic was that he combined "consensus" principles with a big tent, "coalition" spirit.
At any rate, I think the leftist illuminati are scratching their heads. The problem with liberals is the special-interest group weakness: everyone wants to be in the center, not the margins. The center doesn't end up being a round table, though: it ends up being a wrestling match.
reagan,
To be clear, President Reagan (and the GOP in recent decades) is certainly coalitional (?) in the sense that everyone doesn't agree on everything. The key distinction from the Democrats is that the GOP agrees on a significant number of issues such that they have substantive consensus.
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