While mulling some recent material from The Bulwark, I thought I’d explain something to the converted “Never Trumpers” the outlet represents, and did so at New York:
For a while now I’ve had a guilty-pleasure reading habit: The Bulwark, that semi-official outlet of Never Trumpers who view themselves as having definitively broken with the GOP thanks to their former party’s thralldom to Donald J. Trump. I share its contributors’ belief that they (the tribe usefully described by Miller as Red Dog Democrats) represent not just a self-promoting claque of elite scribblers but a real if marginal faction of the Democratic Party, having burned a lot of bridges on their way out of the GOP. Their views appear to parallel those of a significant number of suburban Republicans and independents who voted Democratic in 2018 and 2020. And given the very close balance between voters of the two parties, as reflected most recently in 2020, Democrats really can’t afford to contemptuously reject any potential adherents, however alien or even repugnant they might find their backgrounds.
So it’s understandable when Bulwark co-founder Charlie Sykes expresses frustration that Democrats refuse to consider their pleas for policy concessions on grounds of holding old grudges:
“The spending. The wokeness. The repeal of the Hyde Amendment. I could go on …
“These are difficult times for folks on the center-right, who’ve tried to join Democrats in a loose alliance to protect the Republic from Trumpism …
“Litmus tests are applied: it’s not enough to be pro-democracy, NTers are also expected to embrace the elements of the progressive agenda — from free community college, to abortion, rent moratoriums, police funding, transgenderism, CRT, social spending, and the candidacy of Greta Thunberg for sainthood.”
Sykes fears it’s all very personal, and warns, “If you cancel moderates/conservatives for their past sins, you don’t have a coalition.”
Here’s the thing, though: It’s not really about the Red Dogs. Yes, I’m sure it’s been tough for them to watch Democrats largely come together around a legislative program that’s significantly more progressive than the one advanced by the Obama administration. But Democrats have been coalescing around the basics of the Build Back Better agenda for some time now. That the famously moderate Joe Biden now embraces it is a sign of how the party has slowly evolved, not some sort of betrayal or surrender to the left. And anyone who paid close attention to the 2020 presidential primaries should have understood that there is less distance between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders than between Joe Biden and the Joe Biden of the 1990s.
Part of what has happened is simply a resolution of internal conflicts among Democrats that left them defensive and at times incoherent. A classic example is one that Sykes mentioned: abortion policy. For years, Democrats claimed to value reproductive rights even as they accepted significant limitations on them: e.g., the Hyde Amendment, which made abortion services, unlike any other medical services, ineligible for any sort of federal support. That amendment, along with acceptance of some largely symbolic restrictions on rare late-term abortions, and the whole “safe, legal, and rare” messaging introduced by Bill Clinton, represented concessions to a significant bloc of Democratic voters and Democratic pols who did not recognize reproductive rights at all.
That has changed over time. Anti-abortion Democratic politicians are a rare and shrinking breed, and there are now significantly fewer anti-abortion Democratic voters than there are pro-choice Republicans. Most Democrats, including Joe Biden, have made the leap into a more coherent and unified position. They aren’t going to turn back the clock to satisfy ex-Republicans, but they aren’t insisting on a “litmus test” just to annoy or exclude them, either. The same could be said for other policy tenets once beloved by a significant number of Democrats — from fiscal hawkishness to armed interventionism to an openness to “entitlement reform” — that remain attractive to the newest proto-Democrats. As for the idea that Democrats are some sort of rigid ideological cult: Come on, seriously? Look at what’s going on with the attempted enactment of the Build Back Better reconciliation bill. If this is an intolerant and exclusive political party, I’d hate to see a loosey-goosey one try to function. It may just be that the issues Red Dogs fret about may lie outside the still relatively loose bounds of party unity.
This doesn’t mean Red Dogs should despair, but it may mean another painful reevaluation of priorities, recognizing that most have already had to sacrifice a lot of old allegiances and even the habitual language used to make sense of the political world. In many respects, the Never Trumpers resemble their spiritual (and in some cases biological) predecessors, the neo-conservatives. These were people who broke with the Democratic Party out of a conviction that Democratic views on national security made continued party loyalty impossible. But most of them retained many views that horrified their new Republican allies until they accepted the inevitable role of a factional minority and grew to accommodate or even share the policy positions and ideological language of the GOP, which was increasingly dominated by conservatives with their own ideological-consistency demands.
Most Red Dogs have no illusions about the party they’ve left and understand their constituencies are too small to form a third force or demand concessions from a position of strength. Most, I suppose, will get used to the strange and sometimes lurid landscape of the Donkey Party. Others will embrace the posture of the gadfly, the people of no party or coalition. But it’s really not personal. It’s just politics.
Squeaky, I don’t think the Bush camp is giving all that much thought to Kerry on this. Their main concern is definitely the plummeting public opinion on Iraq, combined with the conventional wisdom in political/media circles having gotten to the point where only the most pro-Bush hacks are willing to say that his policy is working.
For Bush, the media’s “what’s Kerry going to do now that Bush is adopting his position” meme is a pleasant un-earned side benefit. It is happening in some circles, unfortunately. Commenter “howie” provides an irritating anecdote in the comments two posts up from this one, and also see this stupid NY Times story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/politics/campaign/26POLI.html?hp
Haggai:
That’s the strategery of this six-speech thing — force Kerry out into the open on Iraq. It’s a problem for Kerry — he doesn’t have any great ideas about what to do in Iraq because there aren’t any good options. My advice to him is to keep pointing out that a wish list is not a plan. But in the end Rove may get some traction from this. It’s risky, though. If Bush repeats last night’s performance six times, its vacuity is going to obvious even to the feeblest.
On the issue of Bush doing five more of these speeches, the Kerry campaign ought to give serious thought to a “counter-programming” strategy. In other words, plan some Kerry (or Kerry surrogate) speeches or press confernces on the same day as each of those five. Also, they might want to do some ad buys to run in selected markets at the same time to blunt their impact. They shouldn’t just passively let him use the power of the incumbency this way without a response.
I can see one scenario where “Shrub” wins (if only barely) despite a string of moderately bad news up until the eve of the elections. One, he decides he can’t win over the center so he starts pandering to his socially conservative base (gay bashing, school prayer etc.). That automatically guarantees him 40% of the vote regardless of how bad Iraq or the economy gets. Two, he launches a vicious all-out assault to smear Kerry as a Dom Perignon drinking Frog-loving sophisticate who will raise taxes and sell America to the U.N.. Three, non-partisan centrist voters will stay away in droves since they do not like the incumbent President but also dislike the Kerry character portrayed in the $200-million GOP attack ads. Four, voter turnout among the rabid political base (GOP vs. Dem. partisans) in Ohio, Florida and a handful of other states decide the outcome. Unfortunately, the Bush campaign has invested millions in getting out the vote and you can be sure Jeb Bush & co. will be doing their best to keep minorities, felons and other “unpatriotic” folks away from the polls.
I am still thinking about buying $1000 insurance against a “Shrub” victory. That way, I will at least have something to feel good about if Flyboy wins a second term in November. I would rather lose the money and see Kerry win, though … “the Chimp” is just an awful leader of the free world.
MARCU$
The really fascinating story of the past few days has been about the implications of the Chalabi and INC reletionship with Iranian Intelligence. The best story I’ve seen today is in the LA Times — op/ed section, at least the author knew some 20th century Espionage History, made reference to the Leninist “Trust” — but not to how the knowledge of the principles of the 1920’s Tust so spooked James Jesus Angleton that in the 60’s and early 70’s, he pretty much took down active agents in the USSR. Ironicxally it was Seymour Hersh in 1974 who published the investigative piece in the NYTimes that ended Angleton’s run. Bush Senior got in on the rebuilding at CIA during his year long directorship in 1976. Tiz ironic Bush Jr and all his neo-con’s apparently are the total victims of the Iranian version of this kind of false flag operation.
The papers are full today of juicy lines from high level former spooks congratualating the Iranians on their tradecraft.
While I’ve seen several efforts at analysis along these lines — I suspect that once the story is clear to people who have not read Intelligence History get the short but accurate version — I can’t see how Bush survives anything. In essence what the whole gang did was spend more than 200 billion of our money and over 780 lives at this juncture, to defeat the only major enemy of Iran and the Mullahs. The whole Neo-con operation resulted in that end due to the role Chalabi apparently played vis a vis Tehran.
Yep — the Bush gang are really the grown ups!!!
James, don’t put too much stock in quick anecdotal evidence. Remember how the “Saddam bounce” from his capture was going to guarantee Bush’s re-election? It certainly boosted his poll numbers, but then it all disappeared within two or three weeks, since events on the ground in Iraq didn’t get any better. Speeches are even less likely to give Bush any real boost, not compared to the capture of America’s public enemy #1 for most of the past decade (the few months after 9/11 excepted, when we actually realized who the real threat was). As DR has been documenting, public approval of Bush on Iraq is extremely low, in the 30s in some polls. A few rhetorical flourishes aren’t going to be enough to change that in any meaningful way.
One fear that I do have is the lazy horse-race dynamic of the press. Bush gives these speeches where he says he’s a strong leader, staying the course, fighting for freedom, etc. In reality, his policies are constantly shifting and startingly short on details. But, some in the media seem always determined to spin this as “Bush is moving closer to Kerry’s positions, so what’s Kerry going to do?” That’s a recipe for a totally fraudulent public discourse: Bush pretends to be a steel-jawed and determined war-time leader, while the press somehow turns his flip-flopping and incompetence into A STORY ABOUT KERRY. I’m definitely concerned about that.
Haggai, I don’t think the press is as skeptical as you think (they sure weren’t on CNN last night). Anyway, the public seems to be responding on cue, if the once-increasingly skeptical AOL dittoheads are any clue (they usually have 3 negative; 3 positive in “What America Thinks” this time they only had 2 negative).
“My president did a great job last night. God Bless him and God Bless America. We have a long fight, but we will win.”
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“Bush’s foreign policy has done irreparable harm and has proven that every negative stereotype of America is exactly right.”
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“I believe we should stand behind Bush and support him. He’s an amazing man [and has] courage and conviction.”
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“Congratulations on presenting a fine, clear, workable and honorable plan. I’m proud to have you lead our country.”
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“After three years, one thing is abundantly clear. Bush talks a good game, but there is no substance to back up his words.”
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“Don’t you people have the decency to stand by your president? Bush has done a great job.”
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I also don’t think that I can overestimate how many people fell for this “evil LIBERAL media didn’t run our President’s speech, they’re scared of the truth!!!” meme. I have heard this again and again and again, and it seems to be having a positive effect for him.
It will take more than this to help him in the polls but if this is only the 1st speech out of 6 then you’re going to definitely see his polls shoot back up. This isn’t about what the media thinks anyway. He wants to get the confused and scared Americans back in line.
I wasn’t exactly saying that the press will let Bush get away with it. They let him get away with more than they should, but this isn’t the run-up to the war anymore, with Chalabi-sourced WMD stories blanketing the cover of the NY Times. By and large, the press is a lot more skeptical now.
As Haggai mentions, the press will let Bush get away with anything he wants. That’s the problem. I don’t think this was a good speech but in the past he’s given worse speeches that were praised to the skies. So most likely, this speech will be a big help to him. What annoys me the most is how many people I hear saying ‘the awful liberal networks didn’t run our President’s speech!!!’ falling right for the trap Rove set, as always (he didn’t ask the networks to run the speech).
As long as Kerry remains undefined, it’s still Bush’s race to lose.
” . . . Bush’s approval rating on handling the war on terrorism been dropping like a stone,” No, no, no. his rating is dropping like Iraq. (get it?)
george II..wil follow in georgeI’s foot stumbles…another iraq another fiasco..
Hopefully that approval rating will dip below %40.
James K Galbraith brings up an excellent point in this article in Salon:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/05/22/polls/index.html
Since Bush (literally) took the office, his favorables have been on a downward spiral, with the exception of the 3 poll spikes, 911, the start of the war and capturing Saddam.
“will the administration successfully divert attention with deflective talk of “stay the course” and “resolve?” ”
Tim, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the answer is no, not at this point. The public mood has caught up with the consistently awful news from Iraq, and it’s really gone south on Bush, as the poll numbers keep deteriorating for him with each passing week. “Stay the course” doesn’t work when you get to the point where most people are convinced that the course we’re on is failing.
To be optimistic about it, I think Bush might be hoist on his own petard here, since changing course in a dramatic way would be nearly impossible to spin with his preferred image, show-resolve/stay-the-course etc. Meaning that even if he does change things up a lot and improve the Iraq policy (yeah, right, fat chance), he might already be assured of sustaining serious political damage either way–either stick with the current plan and look stubborn and clueless in the face of serious trouble, or reverse course and expose the entire “strong war-time leader/doesn’t waver” persona as a house of cards.
A bit of pessimism might be in order, in that Bush has already gotten away with a fairly major flip-flop or two. Most notably, the direct outsourcing of the June 30 transition plan to UN envoy Brahimi, an almost direct contravention of the previous 12 months of administration disdain for any serious UN involvement. But the press, instead of greeting this near-180-degree flip-flop by asking, “why didn’t the administration do this 12 months ago, like Kerry and the Dems have been saying all along?”, decided to play the story as, “what will Kerry do, now that Bush is undercutting Kerry’s position on internationalizing the Iraq effort?” %^#in’ press corps really gets on my nerves sometimes.
Interesting that it seems the public is connecting the WOT more directly with Iraq. The administration may well be painted into a corner by having equated the two if the public has decided that as goes one, so goes the other.
I’d rather not be in the position of seeing a poll that says that a strong majority of Americans think that we’re headed in the wrong direction… and feel good about Kerry’s prospect for election. I truly wish that the country was headed in the right direction. It’s obvious that we aren’t.
What got us to this point? Will the press go back in time and examine the Iraq mess and trace key decisions back to the administration? Will voters connect the dots? Or will the administration successfully divert attention with deflective talk of “stay the course” and “resolve?”
Who can answer: What is the plan to get out of Iraq? and… when??
I hope Kerry can.
It looks like Bush will need more than a great speech tonight. To date, I don’t think he’s given one in his 3+ years in office, so I’m not overly worried about that. The wrong track numbers are the numbers that stick and he’s now as bad as, or worse than, his father on this item. All Kerry needs to do is come up with an absolute great Veep candidate now. Since the Repugs cannot campaign on their main issue (war on terror), they’ll start blasting Kerry and his Veep left and right once the convention is over. Even if the economy is doing better, election history says that voters remember what happened six months prior to the election, and that is the high “wrong track” numbers when it comes to the economy. It certainly is great to see this happening to the Right. Their lies and favoritism is coming back to haunt them. Let’s hope it stays this way through the election.
Looks like the Dems should take a play form the GOP ’94 play book and come up with their “Contract with America”.