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With his usual clarity, National Journal’s Ron Brownstein looks at both national political conventions and defines their essence as competing “populist” involving starkly different claims of who represents the biggest threat to the middle class:
All week in Charlotte, Democratic speakers have portrayed Republican nominee Mitt Romney as an insular economic elitist so cosseted by great wealth that he cannot understand or empathize with the struggles of average families. For all the zingers delivered from the podium, that message may have been summarized most succinctly in a new ad President Obama’s campaign released as the convention opened. “The middle class is carrying a heavy load,” the ad begins before unleashing its three-word kicker. “But Mitt Romney doesn’t see it.”
Efforts to humanize Romney consumed much of last week’s Republican convention in Tampa. But in terms of predicting the messages that will shape the fall, the convention’s most revealing aspect may have been the crystallization of the GOP rebuttal to this relentless Democratic accusation that Romney favors the rich over the middle class: The response is to argue that Obama favors the poor and the undeserving over the middle class.
All week in Tampa, Republicans positioned themselves as the defenders of hard-working taxpayers against Obama policies that they alleged would benefit a panoramic array of “undeserving” interests, from welfare recipients (“He believes in government handouts and dependency,” insisted Rick Santorum) to illegal immigrants (he “refuses to protect our citizens from the danger of illegal immigrants,” charged South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley) to public-sector unions enriching themselves at taxpayer expense.
Without question, big parts of this campaign have revolved around please for middle-class folk to “kick up” against wealthy predators demanding still more tax cuts or “kick down” towards those people and their union-thug and bureaucrat buddies.
As Brownstein notes, this focus carries risks for both sides:
These arguments carry complications for each side. Obama’s economic populism is meant to suppress his losses among working-class and older whites but risks alienating better-off white-collar whites that loom larger in the modern Democratic coalition. Romney’s makers-versus-takers construct aims to maximize his margins among those same older and blue-collar whites, but risks further narrowing his appeal to minority voters even as he (and his party) already face catastrophic deficits among them.
The heavy emphasis on cultural issues in Charlotte was almost certainly designed to keep better-off Democrats (particularly women and younger voters) in the coalition, while Republicans sought to counter their highly bleached image and message with a lot of diversity at the podium (if not in the delegations).
Beyond these fairly obvious if sometimes underestimated aspects of the general election campaign, there’s something about the competing appeals to the middle class that’s more of a simple identity test: it gets to competing understandings of who created the economic mess in the first place.
By that I don’t just mean “Barack Obama” or “George W. Bush,” but the people they are thought to represent. Because it is axiomatic to progressives that the housing and financial crises and the Great Recession that ensued were mainly the product of an underregulated Wall Street drunk on debt and greed, they sometimes fail to understand or remember that to most of the conservative movement, it’s equally axiomatic that those people abetted by socialist politicians and government-dependent, rent-seeking bankers were at fault.
This was, lest we forget, the master narrative at the heart of the Tea Party Movement from the very beginning (as dramatized by its original cri de couer, the Santelli Rant): the Alinsky Coalition of irresponsible poor and minority folk, given official advantages by the Community Reinvestment Act and egged on by ACORN and Freddie/Fannie, created a housing bubble that predictably burst and then demanded “relief” in the form of government bailouts and handouts coming right out of the pockets of virtuous white folk (many older people with paid-off mortgages) who saw their wealth dissipating, their tax liabilities (it’s a myth, but many believe it fiercely) going up, and their children and grandchildren losing opportunity. The fact that many serious conservatives are willing to apportion part of the blame to George W. Bush and/or to the banks saved by TARP shouldn’t obscure the fact that the main blame is fixed on those people and their political representatives. Indeed, Bush and the banks are objects of right-wing fury precisely because they cooperated with the poor/minority/socialist shakedown game, or at least did little to fight it.
So the “kick down” efforts of the GOP are not just based on mischaracterizations of Obama’s record as part of the obsessive drive to make the election a “referendum” on the last four years, but also on the powerful beliefs of conservative activists about the period prior to 2009. Because these beliefs are not that widely shared beyond Tea Folk circles, Republicans are vulnerable to the very counter-argument Democrats are seeking to make: we know wealthy predators like Romney and the people financing his campaign are to be feared and avoided because they got us into this mess in the first place. And so the GOP appeal to “kick-down” class resentment has had to get cruder and more racial as the campaign has proceeded, with Obamacare and “gutting welfare reform” presented as a new threat to white middle-class families, even as they represent continuations of the assault on America building for years to the “base.” That’s one reason GOP efforts to half-heartedly suggest they think Obama is feckless rather than evil are not very convincing: to big elements of “the base,” the terrible things he’s done since taking office are exactly what they expected, and will be read into everything he says and does whether or not it makes sense to the non-initiated.
This may provide a slight ace-in-the-hole for Democrats on the margins of the electorate. Their explanation of how things went wrong before and in 2008 is more plausible, and is probably subscribed to quite a bit more than the competing conspiracy theory in which Barack Obama plays an especially lurid role. Middle-class swing voters may well dislike both predatory financial players and welfare recipients, but it’s doubtful a majority think the latter are a more powerful threat to their interests than the former.
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Ron Byers on September 07, 2012 1:57 PM:
I just got off the phone with my brother the Fox News conservative. When we talk business and family we are always on the same page, but when we venture into politics it always turns into a fight.
Why can't we have a genuine policy discussion? Why does it always have to end in some kind of tribal fight? I guess that is the power of the propagandists who don't want us to ever examine the facts, and never ever want us to solve real problems.
The problem is we are in business together and we have to consider politics when thinking about the coming year. We end up fighting trivia just like the propagandists want.
RimKitty on September 07, 2012 2:19 PM:
You are so right Ron Byers. Polarization has affected relatives and friends in a terrible way. We have lost the balance.
I've always considered myself very near center, voting for both Repubs and Dems at different times in my life, and certainly able to have good conversations with people of either side. But, as the right has moved more right, I have found myself moving more left, maybe to try and trip the scales back or maybe because it's natural to rebel when one gets too righteous. Lately, I actually avoid politics when speaking with my very best Republican friends because I know, no matter what their politics, they are still good people.
But, you can lay all this at the feet of the right wingers. They moved the center, slowly but surely over the years, then the tea party came along and took them over the edge. That imbalance is killing us as a nation, just like imbalance in your life, via too much/too little work, too much/too little food, too much/too little sleep, etc can mess anyone up.
Robert Waldmann on September 07, 2012 2:27 PM:
I agree with you. I copied text from Brownstein intending to argue in this comment that he is full of it. You conclude what I planned to conclude (and managed to be polite too ... how?).
I think that Brownstein's "risks alienating better-off white-collar whites that loom larger in the modern Democratic coalition." is a thoughtless mental knee jerk. First note that he sees potential costs and benefits on both sides (the racehorse version of both sides have a point). My guess is that he decided that both strategies had advantages and risks years ago before he knew which strategies he would be discussing.
But more importantly, he asserts without evidence (in the bit you quoted) that white collar swing voters do not like bashing of the rich. Here I think he has a simplified picture of society with 3 groups: poor, working class, and upper middle class. The logic must be that people with white collars have now where up to kick. This is a parody of his argument, but I think it is fair. I'd guess that your concluding sentence remains true if "middle class" is replaced with "white collar." (in fact I guess that may be what you meant by middle class which sometimes includes the working class and sometimes doesn't).
A final complaint on "without evidence". Pundits seem to feel free to discuss public opinion based on their intuition (I only read the quoted passage of Brownstein so I don't know if this is true of him). Polls are very imperfect, but I think that pundits should explain why they think a true assessment of the opinion of some group differs from the crude reading of the polls. For two decades Gallup has consistently found solid to huge majorities who think that the rich pay less than their fair share of taxes. Last year, this very clear fact came as a great surprise to many smart commentators. Pollster.com doesn't have internals by income or education. I'm sure Gallup does (I'm sure they keep the raw data). The question of whether white collar Americans want to soak the rich can, I think, be answered. I am quite sure that Brownstein would be surprised by the answer.
Frank Wilhoit on September 07, 2012 3:02 PM:
Here's the thought experiment.
If the law were to be enforced -- something that few people alive have actually seen; something that a declining number have even heard about -- who would it be that would go down? Would it be business or labor? Business or consumers? Rentseekers or renters?
We have in-groups who are protected by the law but are not bound by it, alongside out-groups who are bound by the law but not protected by it. This is not The Rule Of Law. It is a perfectly odious situation. No [upper-case-D]emocrat -- which is to say, no [lower-case-r]epublican -- ought to be talking about anything else.
Phoebe on September 07, 2012 3:20 PM:
I suspect Brownstein is fretting too much about the supposed risk of losing "better off white-collar whites." The current Democratic party has an offsetting advantage among those in that group who aren't already dedicated Republicans: there's a lot of cultural identity in common. Not to put too fine a point on it, Obama, Biden, Clinton, most of the rest of this past week's prime time speakers: they sound like us, and sometimes they even look like us. For definitions of "us" that include knowledge workers, at least. They speak wonk, they talk about technical issues and about their work, and when they do they sound like colleagues who know what they're talking about. They pass both tribal-identification and do-you-have-confidence-in-them sniff tests.
The Republican ticket? Not so much. Money isn't the only thing that leads to identification with one group or another, and Romney/Ryan were vague and condescending. They didn't look or sound like us. They sounded, well, like the boss's kid who doesn't know what he's talking about and whose work you're going to have to do for him, and that's if you can keep him from wrecking the whole project with his idiot decisions and ability to go running to Daddy when he doesn't get his way. Or they sounded like that teacher you had in junior high, the one who tried to teach you creation science. We have, um, feelings about putting people like that in positions of authority, and while sometimes I'm afraid I'm being too optimistic, I still suspect that the GOP is going to find that out in November.
Mitch on September 07, 2012 3:25 PM:
What interestes me the most is that the "Middle Class" itself is not exactly much better off than "those people" at the bottom. Wages have stagnated for my entire lifetime (b. 1980) and jobs that were once Good Money are now simply not.
Nearly all of my friends/family who work in the kind of jobs that made this country great during 20th century (especially manufacuring) are living at the level of check to check. This goes for folks in places as diverse as Northern California, southeastern Kentucky, Rhode Island, Chicago, both Carolinas and Minnesota, among others.
The real fight is not Upper Class vs. Lower Class, or Middle Class vs. Lower Class.
The real fight is Middle Class vs. Extinction.
The Dems seem to realize this, but the GOP is trying to make it all about "handouts" to the poor. Nobody seems to be smart or bold enough to admit that—if you are "Middle Class"—you are merely a hair above being poor at best.
bdop4 on September 07, 2012 3:49 PM:
The fact is that the predominant economic migration pattern is downward (i.e., upper to middle to lower class). Many middle-class voters in the Democratic Party are all too aware of the fragile state of their economic standing.
While they think "there but for God go I," republican middle class voters view the precarious situation as an existential threat from others who seek to confiscate their wealth (which of course they earned without any help from others or the state).
I don't think Obama needs to worry about middle or upper class Democrats fleeing the party. The differing perspectives of the parties are too stark.
Peter C on September 07, 2012 4:59 PM:
People don't move from the upper class downward because of taxes (unless the were caught massively cheating by the IRS). Rather, people move from the upper-middle class to the upper class when they find opportunities to evade taxes (stock options, Mitt's mega-IRA). The 'asperationals' in the Republican Party hate taxes because they think that if they got the same tax breaks are the Romneys, they'd be livin' the lifestyles of the rich and famous too. They feel that their tax burden is the only thing holding them back from their goals.
Rick B on September 07, 2012 5:38 PM:
@bdop4
That explains the reactions of middle class Republicans and Democrats quite nicely. It also explains why there seems to be so little movement in the decision regarding whether to vote for Obama or for Romney.
I'd guess that the Republicans are more class-based emotionally so that they will blame the lower classes for their own precarious economic condition.
Democrats, with their more equality-based beliefs, are going to look at the economic conditions and determine what has caused them - at the moment the banks look like great culprits. I personally add wealthy power families like the Bushes, Coors, Kochs, Eric Prince and his family, and the Romneys along with large corporation high executives (who tend to be a self-perpetuating group.)
AndThenThere'sThat on September 07, 2012 7:30 PM:
...to most of the conservative movement, it’s equally axiomatic that those people abetted by socialist politicians and government-dependent, rent-seeking bankers were at fault.
Yeah... Well, they also believe the earth is 6,000 years-old, global warming is a conspiratorial plot by thousands of scientists to rake in grant money, and Obama's automatic natural born citizenship via birth by a United States citizen is negated because, in their minds, his mother somehow decided it would be better to fly from Hawaii to a Kenyan hospital for her first birth experience.
MuddyLee on September 07, 2012 8:17 PM:
Note too how many republicans believe in family connections and "inheritance" - inheritance of all the family wealth (they talk endlessly about the "death tax") and inheritance of political power. The Bush family (two presidents, one senator, plus a governor), the Romneys (father-son governors and presidential candidates, plus Mitt's mother ran for the Senate). I don't think the Dems come across as "entitled because my family is royalty" nearly as much. Certainly Clinton and Obama can claim that they "made it" without inherited wealth and status, and I prefer these kinds of politicians, because I respect them more than somebody who has "inherited" a lot.
casino implosion on September 08, 2012 5:11 PM:
Eventually, after studying politics and history, I came to the conclusion that "Big Gummint" and "The 1%" were for all practical purposes the same thing.
Interminable arguments about which of the above swallowed which can be left to internet libertarians and those who debate them.
If the social conservatives and the economic populists in this country ever got over their culture war resentments and teamed up, look out.