The media has fomented a narrative whereby the Republican Party
is divided between corporatist RINOs and Tea Party activists. By the terms of the
narrative, the two factions are dividing the party, to the point where they
will eventually bring it to wrack and ruin.
One expects as much from the mainstream media. After all,
they are no longer about providing the best and most accurate information.
They have refashioned themselves into the drivers of the narrative.
Whatever you think of it, it's not journalism.
In the meantime, Republicans have bought the narrative. They
have taken up residence in it, to the benefit of Democrats. To the dismay
of more conservative voices in the party, far too many Republicans have gone to
war against their fellow Republicans, leaving Democrats to pick up the spoils.
After all, Mitt Romney, the last standard bearer, won the
nomination by trashing other Republicans. When it came to the presidential
election he could not bring himself to attack Barack Obama. He lost.
Now, he seems to be angling for another shot at losing an
election. A smart Republican Party would reject him.
In the meantime, it takes a sensible Democrat like Joel Kotkin to expose the fault lines within the Democratic Party. As the
cognoscenti ponder whether capitalism suffers from internal contradictions, we
do well to examine Kotkin’s analysis of the internal contradictions within the
Democratic Party.
If Democrats did not have Republicans to hate and if the
Republicans were not wasting themselves attacking each other, the Democratic
Party would likely implode from its own internal contradictions.
As Kotkin sees it, the Democratic Party is divided among the
gentry (tech oligarchs and Wall Street bankers, the populist progs (leftist
intellectuals and minorities) and bubbas (the DLC and labor unions).
Their interests are not the same, so they seem to be held
together by a common enemy—the Republican Party.
Kotkin begins with the gentry liberals, the group that has
profited from Obama administration policies:
This
group currently dominates the party, and have
the least reason to object to the current administration’s performance. All in
all, the gentry have generally done well in the recovery, benefiting from
generally higher stock and real estate prices. They tend to reside in the
affluent parts of coastal metropolitan areas, where Democrats now dominate.
The
liberal gentry have been prime beneficiaries of key Obama policies, including
ultra-low interest rates, the bailout of the largest financial institutions and
its subsidization of “green” energy. Wall Street Democrats also profit from the
expansion of government since, as Walter Russell Mead points out, so many make money
from ever-expanding public debt.
These 1%ers have no real conception of how their policies impact other members
of the Democratic electorate:
What
most marks the gentry, particularly in California, is their insensitivity to
the impact of their policies on working-class and middle-class voters. They may
support special breaks for the poor, but are in deep denial about how high
energy and housing prices – in part due to “green” policies – are driving
companies and decent-paying jobs from the state. The new “cap and trade” regime about to be
implemented figures to push up gasoline and electricity prices for
middle-income consumers, who, unlike the poor, have little chance of getting
subsidies from Sacramento. High energy prices, one assumes, have less impact on
the Bay Area or West Los Angeles Tesla- and BMW-driving oligarchy than to
people living in the more extreme climate and spread-out interior regions.
Gentry liberals dominate important social institutions. One
might even say that they have completely monopolized the marketplace of ideas
in those areas:
The
gentry liberals’ power stems from their dominion over most of the key
institutions – the media, the universities, academia and high-tech – that provide both cash and credibility to
the current administration.
And then there is the populist, progressive wing of the
party. Kotkin describes them:
Many
more traditional left-leaning members of the Democratic Party – whom I would call
the populist progressives – recognize that the Obama years have been a disaster
for much of the party’s traditional constituencies, notably, minorities.
Although the nation’s increasingly wide class divides and stunted upward
mobility has been developing for years, they have widened ever more under
Obama, as the wealthy and large corporations have enjoyed record prosperity.
This segment of the party militates for redistributionist
policies, policies that will, in principle, help the poor at the expense of the
rich, but that will, in practice, help the poor at the expense of the middle
class.
In Kotkin’s words:
But the
populists’ often-blunderbuss redistributionist tendencies – seen most notably
in deep blue big cities – could alienate
many middle-class voters who, for good reasons, suspect that this
redistribution will come largely at their expense.
And then there’s the group that Kotkin calls “the old social
Democrats.” These are the bubba voters, most especially the labor unions that
have generously funded Democratic campaigns.
Kotkin calls them the “weakest part of the Democratic Party:”
This
group is the most closely associated with private-sector labor, manufacturing
and areas dependent on fossil-fuel production. Long dependent on white
working-class voters, they are the most threatened by the increasingly hostile attitudes among them to President
Obama and his gentry liberal regime. Already, some building trade unions in Ohio, angry about delays on
the Keystone XL pipeline and other infrastructure projects, have even shifted
toward the GOP.
One suspects that the group also includes public sector
labor unions.
The power of labor unions has depended on their ability to
finance political campaigns. What will happen to that influence when more billionaires
are capable of contributing the same amount of money by writing a check? What will happen when they try to unionize Silicon Valley?
And, what will happen to the party when minority voters
learn that voting en masse for one party, no matter what, causes that party to
take them for granted. What will happen when minority voters demand results for
their votes? What will happen when they cannot be so easily manipulated by
cries of racism and amnesty?
"These 1%ers have no real conception of how their policies impact other members of the Democratic electorate:..." And they don't care. "Caring Democrats" is a hoax.
ReplyDelete"Many more traditional left-leaning members of the Democratic Party – whom I would call the populist progressives – recognize that the Obama years have been a disaster for much of the party’s traditional constituencies, notably, minorities. Although the nation’s increasingly wide class divides and stunted upward mobility has been developing for years, they have widened ever more under Obama, as the wealthy and large corporations have enjoyed record prosperity." As much as they try to ignore it.
"One suspects that the group also includes public sector labor unions." I disagree, strongly. It's a case of "I'm all right, Jack", wherein they are doing well and don't care about the others. Statist policies means more government employees, bigger government unions, more of their union money for the Dems.
Let's see...
ReplyDeleteMake abortion/murder, not life.
Diversity of class, not of the individual.
Evolutionary creation is a fact, but evolutionary principles are negotiable.
The scientific method is exercised through induction or inference (i.e. created knowledge).
Redistributive change is change with a diminishing return or progressive devaluation of capital and labor.
Retributive change is action by the vindictive.
Doctrine of collective sin.
Doctrine of inherited sin.
Yeah, they are an oxymoron in both principle and practice. By ever measure they are fundamentally corrupt.