RFK Jr. and MTG are using the same dismissive term for major-party differences. I took at look at this phenomenon at New York:
Partisan polarization has been steadily growing in the U.S. since roughly the 1960s. Ironically, during this time, the complaint that the two parties are actually too alike has become increasingly prevalent. For years, right-wing Republicans have called people in the GOP who don’t share their exact degree of ideological extremism RINOs, or “Republicans in name only,” suggesting they’re basically Democrats. Left-wing Democrats occasionally echo these epithets by calling (relative) moderates “DINOs,” “ConservaDems,” or — back when maximum resistance to George W. Bush was de rigueur — “Vichy Democrats.”
Today the term “Uniparty” has come to denote the idea that Democrats and Republicans are actually working for the same evil Establishment enterprise, their loudly proclaimed differences being a mere sham. This contention was the culmination of a five-page letter Marjorie Taylor Greene recently sent her Republican colleagues calling for House Speaker Mike Johnson’s removal, unless he changes his ways instantly. She wrote:
“With so much at stake for our future and the future of our children, I will not tolerate this type of ‘leadership.’ This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority …
“If these actions by the leaders of our conference continue, then we are not a Republican party – we are a Uniparty that is hell-bent on remaining on the path of self-inflicted destruction.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also leaned heavily into the Uniparty idea in his recent speech introducing running-mate Nicole Shanahan:
“Our independent run for the presidency is finally going to bring down the Democrat and Republican duopoly that gave us ruinous debt, chronic disease, endless wars, lockdowns, mandates, agency capture, and censorship. This is the same Trump/Biden Uniparty that has captured and appropriated our democracy and turned it over to Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, and their other corporate donors. Nicole Shanahan will help me rally support for our revolution against Uniparty rule from both ends of the traditional Right vs. Left political spectrum.”
The Uniparty claim is ridiculous, of course, as FiveThirtyEight’s Geoffrey Skelley demonstrates:
“[O]ur current political moment is arguably farther away from having anything resembling a uniparty than at any other time in modern U.S. history. Based on their voting records, Democratic and Republican members of Congress have become increasingly polarized, and both the more moderate and more conservative wings of the congressional GOP have moved to the right at similar rates. Meanwhile, polling suggests that Americans now are more likely to view the parties as distinct from one another than in the past, an indication that the public broadly doesn’t see a uniparty in Washington. Although there are areas where the parties are less divided, the broader uniparty claim is at odds with our highly polarized and divided political era.”
Kennedy’s subscription to the Uniparty notion is understandable on two points. The first is that his candidacy is vastly more likely to tilt the 2024 presidential campaign in the direction of one of the two major-party candidates (likely Donald Trump, according to most of the polling) than to actually succeed in winning the presidency. Maintaining that it really doesn’t matter whether it’s Biden or Trump running the country is essential to maintaining RFK’s appeal as November approaches and the futility of his bid becomes clearer. Second, Kennedy’s pervasive conspiracy-theory approach to contemporary life lends itself to the argument that the apparent gulf between the two major parties is a ruse disguising a sinister common purpose.
MTG’s Uniparty contention also reflects dual motives. In part she is simply echoing Trump’s weird but useful contention that he’s an “outsider” battling a Deep-State Establishment that secretly controls both parties, which is pretty rich since he dominates the GOP like Genghis Khan dominated the Golden Horde. But there is a marginally more legitimate sense in which key elements of the two parties really are in line with each other on isolated issues that happen to obsess Greene, such as aid to Ukraine. If you are a hammer, as the saying goes, everything looks like a nail.
The same is true of other implicit Uniparty claims, particularly those made by progressive pro-Palestinian protesters who adamantly argue that the need to smite “Genocide Joe” Biden for his pro-Israel policies outweighs all the reasons it might be a bad idea to help Trump return to the White House (including the fact that Trump is palpably indifferent to Palestinian suffering). If the two parties do not appear to differ on your overriding issue, then the fundamental reality of polarization can fade into irrelevance.
So we’re likely to hear more Uniparty talk even as Democrats and Republicans head toward another highly fractious election with very high stakes attributable to their differences.
Beware the October Surprise.
If the New Republic is right and the Pakistanis produce senior members of Al Quaida to the command of Washington, then all is in play.
If bin Ladin turns up dead or alive on 30th October, Bush will win. Regardless of how far down in the polls Bush is, I think that would turn it.
I would certainly encourage Mr. Dowd to continue with such predictions….
It makes getting “there” (if there is down 15 points) all the more easier, but no amount of spinning, ‘pre-planning’, or acting the part of an oracle makes recovering from that 15 point deficit any easier.
I occasionally enjoy taking a stroll down right-leaning blogs to gauge the right’s reaction to stories, events and what-not… and the reaction to Dowd’s comments have been more or the less the same as mine, though with a GOP face.
The wheels are truly coming off — we’re starting to get more and more of these “process stories”, these “inside baseball” type pieces focusing on the GOP side of the aisle that then become angry internal wrangling…. not unlike the Dem MO pre-primary season dating back to 2000.
The key is that the dem surrogates take items like Dowd’s analysis and run with it (piecemeal, of course)…..
“I think Matthew Dowd is absolutely correct — GWB is doomed to be down 15 points by August.”
Period.
That’s increased reluctance, of course, or decreased willingness…
Have convention bounces increased or decreased over the years? Is there any general trend? It seems to me that since a national party convention is essentially a show for TV, the fragmentation of the viewing audience, the decline of the broadcast networks, and the decreased reluctance to devote lots of time to this sort of thing would render them less relevant over the past decade or so.
“One post-Dem convention poll had Dukakis up 17 points; others had Dukakis up by less. The distinction is that George Bush Sr. was not the incumbent, he was the Vice President. The point made in the post is that no incumbent behind by that much has gone on to win.”
This is putting a tremendous amount of weight on the incumbency factor alone. Given that Bush was the VP, one would expect at least some of the incumbency effect to apply to him. Since there are so few cases anyway of Presidential elections, and fewer still of incumbent Presidents running, I wonder if the Dukakis vs Bush campaign is not at least as much relevant as the absence of any case in which an incumbent President is down by over 10% after the challenger’s convention and still wins.
“I suppose it’s all about the expectations game: predict some outlandish bad outcome for your candidate and then when it doesn’t occur claim things are going your way.”
Hannity (hey, I was driving home and nothing else was on) was doing just this tonight on his radio show. Only, he said the typical bounce from naming a VP was fifteen points — an odd manipualation of Dowd’s odd number. He went on to say that the failur of this 15 point bounce to occur is a clear sign of the public’s distaste for the ticket with “the numbers 1 and 4 liberals in the senate” on it.
AB
about whether “Dowd now believes Kerry is up by 8 points?”, it seems that article that you cited or Dowd’s email points out that the challenger gains ~7 and the incumbent loses 8. And he states that he believes that they are tied.
… should read “Kerry ahead 47 to 44”.
AP-Ipsos poll, with leaners, Mon – Wed: Bush ahead 46 to 45.
AP-Ipsos poll, with leaners, Tues – Wed: Kerry ahead 47 to 47.
http://2.004k.com/national/
One post-Dem convention poll had Dukakis up 17 points; others had Dukakis up by less.
The distinction is that George Bush Sr. was not the incumbent, he was the Vice President. The point made in the post is that no incumbent behind by that much has gone on to win.
One question I have: what was Dukakis’ lead over Bush I after the Dem convention?
I had the impression it was over 10%, maybe well over. Is this not true?
isn’t this just more of the “soft bigotry of low expectations?”
sounds to me like Dowd is trying to skew the CW that if Kerry doesn’t get that 15 point bounce, he’s toast. same thing they did to Gore in the last coup (I mean election).
The banality of american electoral politics:
40% R / 40% D are intransigent. Of the remaining 20%, half are split 50/50, hence the 45-45 poll results. The remaining 10% are in play and the last 3 months of the campaign, including the convention kabuki theater is for their benefit. Who the fuck are these people and why do they get to decide the fate of the country?
I wish someone would go through and catalog the predictions that Dowd has made. It seems he comes out with one of these every few months; usually in the right direction, but with a loaded dice to spin his guys way when it lands.
Ruy
I just came from seeing 3000 women pay money, get up at the crack of dawn to cheer on Kerry and Edwards here in NYC. Biggest event of its kind ever.
This huge level of enthusiasm is hard to square with the AP poll which is just now on the MSNBC home page which shows Bush ahead by 49-45. Poll taken Monday prior to the announcement and then Tuesday and Wednesday. How can that be?
And what is the agenda of the home page editor touting this poll when their own NBC poll shows Kerry ahead.
I hope you write about this. I think polls like the AP can be used to push poll public opinion and set up confusion about the electoral outcome.
I think people like you need to start defensive debunking.
What’s depressing is how mindless the media has been about repeating Dowd’s spin – without even stopping to think about, much less check, the facts.
That’s the great GOP advantage in this election: Their media strategy assumes that journalists are clueless, selfish oafs with the long-term memory of a sea sponge.
And what do you know – they’re right.
I agree with the last poster. There’s nothing scientific or historical about this. Dowd’s just trying to raise expactations knowing Kerry probably won’t get that high of a bounce, and then Dowd can go back to the press and say the bounce wasn’t as high as expected. However, i do enjoy Fabrizio uptight about Dowd’s comments…
Bounce numbers historically fall off at a rate of 1 to 2 points per week after the convention. Perhaps Dowd is figuring that by the time Bush gets his bounce (which I predict will be much less than normal) Kerry’s bounce will be gone or at least in reach.
Fact is that there is simply not room for a 15 point bounce for Kerry, not enough independents out there. This is an expectations game and Dowd wants Kerry’s 8 or 9 points to look enemic.
Has anyone attempted to get Dowd to answer the question “Where did you get the fifteen point number from?” I know it is hard to get a hold of some people, and the speculation is interesting, but maybe Dowd has something to back up the claim.
Ruy….we have a chat going on over at dKos. Might you fill us in on your polling methods? How do you find people to answer your polls? I’ll respost your response, if you should give one.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/9/11533/48230