Peter Wehner's creative table-turning

In a NYT op-ed, Peter Wehner, a Reagan and double-Bush appointee, presents a thesis: "In the last two decades the Democratic Party has moved substantially further to the left than the Republican Party has shifted to the right. On most major issues the Republican Party hasn’t moved very much from where it was during the Gingrich era in the mid-1990s." That Republicans "have become more extreme over the years" is but a liberal myth, he insists; it is a "self-flattering but false narrative."

After suffering Wehner's torrential survey of political, social and cultural changes over the past 20 years, one comes to appreciate that Democrats are now bomb-throwing Bolsheviks and Republicans are still the mild, modest Gingrichites of the 1990s. A most convenient timeframe Wehner has chosen. Had he compared the conservative-progressive policies of the Obama administration to those of FDR, he would have found the same sort of conservative-progressive incrementalism; and had he compared today's GOP to President Eisenhower's era, he would have found that the radical right's "stupid" and "negligible" numbers, of which Eisenhower warned, have assumed control of the asylum.

Wehner adopts Bill Clinton as the gold standard of Democratic wisdom, which is odd. For I recall 1990s Republicans casting President Clinton as a far-leftist villain come to tyrannize America with his intolerable and malignant rule. The fact that the actual left often opposed Clinton and came to defend him only upon the mild Gingrichites' attempt to unseat a legitimately elected president never persuaded the right that the second millennium would end in anything but Clinton's Stalinist horror. Then Al Gore became the stalking emblem of the right's eschatology, then John Kerry, and then Barack Obama.

Just wait. In 24 months, with another far-leftist Clinton in the White House, the right will be looking fondly on the reasonably staid Obama administration and wondering why Hillary can't be like Barack.

Wehner also plucks some rather peculiar generalities from their contextual settings. For example, "Mr. Clinton cut spending and produced a surplus," he observes. "Under Mr. Obama, spending and the deficit reached record levels." Notice anything missing? Like, say, the intervening chasm of the Bush administration? — its insane tax cuts, its multitrillion-dollar wars, its staggering debts, its plunging of the economy into what essentially became the Second Great Depression? In short, the Bush administration's complete and utter break with the conservatism of yesteryears? And yet what does contemporary conservatism demand as a complete and utter break with W.'s transgressions? More insane tax cuts, more multitrillion-dollar wars, more staggering debt, and yet another Great Depression, courtesy of not minding the national store.

Wehner proceeds to concede that "In some respects, like gay rights, the nation is more liberal than it was two decades ago." But, however, nonetheless "it is more conservative today than it was in the mid-1990s. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that Republicans have opened substantial leads over Democrats on dealing with terrorism, foreign policy and taxes. They’re competitive on the economy, and a good deal more competitive than in the past on traditional liberal issues like immigration and health care." Yet what Wehner gauges here is less a conceptually modern-conservative trend than rather familiar sociopolitical phenomena: there's an electoral lag in understanding the economy's upticks; there's also an electoral misunderstanding of the Affordable Care Act (whose individual components voters overwhelmingly find agreeable); and, above all, outlandish fearmongering on terrorism and promises of painless tax cuts remain effective pseudoconservative tricks of the political trade.

As for Wehner's notation of the "two enormous losses by Democrats in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections" and that "Nearly half of Americans now live in states under total Republican control," about all we're left with is a shocking reminder that Democrats don't vote in the political Oscars of supporting roles. This is a matter of mobilization, not prairie-swept tea partyism.

And that, it seems to me, is where America actually stands. It's no more conservative than it was under Eisenhower and no less liberal than it was under FDR, who, as noted, was indeed a conservative-progressive, just as President Obama is. This, broadly, is what today's Democratic Party reflects. The GOP? Its reflection can no longer be seen in a mirror.

 

Comments

[Peter G]

Wehner's argument is essentially this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAmPIq29ro

It would be a serious mistake however not to consider why voter turnout is so low or why Republicans have come to dominate so many State Houses. These are not merely indicative of a lack on interest by voters else it would affect both side about equally. It isn't all technical factors like gerrymandering or voter suppression. It isn't money. No amount of money spent is done to persuade people not to vote. Not voting is a conscious decision. And if the wider electorate aren't buying what the Democrats are selling then they'd better start wondering why.

[Bob]

Wehner's analysis is something like looking at a wheelbarrow full of apples and oranges reflected by several fun house mirrors. Congratulations for your patience in pointing out the main flaws. He has certainly provided a convenient "frame" or context for his argument; lies, damned lies and statistics. Wehner is cherry picking Pew's data for results that seem advantageous to Republicans. He's got a point on terrorism, but in another poll Pew names the issues most important to Americans. Among the results are "Since Barack Obama began his second term in January 2013, the economy has declined 11 points as a top priority, and improving the job situation has fallen 12 points (from 79% to 67%). ... Currently, 64% say reducing the budget deficit is a top priority ... down eight points since 2013." He also brushes off a wide range of policy priorities not favorable for Republicans, noticeably Social Security, Medicare and the environment: http://www.people-press.org/2015/01/15/publics-policy-priorities-reflect-changing-conditions-at-home-and-abroad/

[Bob]

The conventional wisdom has been that midterms are dominated by older voters who are less mobile and more likely to be registered, less Democratic and less liberal. The Dems have been trying to fight this for years. However, it might be more advantageous to just make better, less timid, appeals to voters. Why vote for Republican Lite?: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/midterm-election-turnout-isnt-so-different-from-presidential-year-turnout/

[dricey]

The GOP has a better weapon in the midterm elections: fear. In 2014 for example the Beltway Media and the Fox/talk radio propaganda machine pounded the country with fear-mongering about Ebola, ISIS terrorists infiltrating across our borders, the Ferguson disturbances, etc. Those motivated old white religious people to mob the ballot boxes, while Obama's determined efforts to downplay the Democratic message in order to save the likes of Mary Landrieu de-moivated Democratic voters, who tend to be much less susceptible to fear than conservatives (a lot of us even took our names off the listservs that were flooding our inboxes with Sky Is Falling messages a dozen times a day).

Sad to say, fear, especially when turned into anger, is the one of the most potent political weapons there has ever been, and conservatives both are masters in its use and have built a powerful apparatus for that use.

[Peter G]

The thing about that is the stats Bob produces courtesy of Nate Silver suggest otherwise. They do tend to argue on the left that low turnouts are caused by failure of the Democratic Party to offer authentic progressive candidates. To which I reply, what do you mean by authentic progressives? Because quite a lot of them aren't the least bit progressive, the policies they offer would be toxic to huge swathes of the voting public. If fear is the motivator then we are left with the inescapable conclusion that quite a lot of the potential voters on the left aren't afraid of the consequences of not voting.

[The Raven]

Oh noes! The Obamunist menace is coming to get you! So where is Noam Chomsky in the Democratic party? Where is the Trotskyist wing?

Um, well, maybe not.