A few days ago I wrote a post called "If you hate the culture wars, blame liberals." As you can imagine with a provocative headline like that, conservatives loved it. Liberals were a little, um, less enthusiastic.
But my argument was pretty straightforward: survey data over the past 20 years makes it clear that liberals have moved to the left more than conservatives have moved to the right. This has pushed us far enough to the left that even moderates find some of our positions scary, and with centrist states largely out of play it's become very hard to win congressional majorities.
Over at the Bulwark, Tim Miller has taken on the task of rebutting me. He starts out by saying that my analysis is "absolutely correct":
But when it comes to the actions of politicians, the aggressive, top down Culture War is being driven overwhelmingly from the right. And the shift rightward among Republican politicians on culture war issues is as dramatic—if not more so—than the leftward shift among Democratic voters on policy.
I deliberately focused on rank-and-file voters because they are, ultimately, what matters. Still, it's true that the political ecosystem also includes influencers, primarily politicians and the press, and those work differently.
Miller points out that, rhetorically, conservative politicians have moved far more right than liberal politicians have moved left. I agree that this is obviously true even if I don't have hard evidence for it. However, politicians are symptoms not causes, followers not leaders, so the bluster of politicians means less than most people think. I addressed this a bit in my original post, but it's worth doing it in more detail here. Here we go:
- In a political debate, it's entirely natural for the losing side to be much more vocal than the side that's winning something. In the case of culture war issues, it's generally liberals who are pushing to gain something (civil rights, gay rights, etc.) and conservatives who are at risk of losing something (customs and hierarchies that they've long lived with). So no one should be surprised that conservative politicians are louder and more hysterical about culture war issues than liberal politicians. That doesn't mean much.
- Because we've moved so far left, conservative politicians are free to attack us good and hard. Liberal politicians, by contrast, tend to be more judicious. But this is not a difference between liberal and conservative. It's just that a strong leftward shift gives conservative politicians a lot of room to scare moderate voters while liberal politicians are hesitant to fight back because they know they'll lose even more voters if they do. Always remember: there are more conservatives than liberals in the United States.
- By pushing so far left, we have given the conservative press an easy job. It's popular among certain liberals to say that this doesn't matter because conservatives will attack us no matter what, but that's sophistry. Of course both sides are always attacking each other. But conservative attacks are a lot more effective when we liberals provide them with a big fat target—and we do.
- The liberal press—and here I'm mostly talking about MSNBC—shouldn't be underestimated. They are less thuggish than Fox News, but they press the extreme progressive agenda pretty hard, and not always honestly.
- That said, there's no question that Fox News plays a special role in all this. After a relatively moderate start, they moved to the hard right starting around the year 2000 and they've been uniquely destructive ever since. It's not just that they fight back against progressives, it's that they demagogue and misrepresent and just outright lie with a casual abandon.
Miller's basic case is that social change is constant and, sure, "the scores of millions of people who create cultural change in the daily comings and goings of their lives should be more forbearing with everyone else." Still, he says, it's the "inflamers" who are responsible for turning a normal level of disagreement into a war.
But this is just not the way things work. It's easy for liberals to say "social change, eh, no big deal," but it is a big deal to those who are scared by it. To suggest that the elite conservative fight against lefty change is nothing more than a ruse for the rubes is not just backward, it betrays a deep misunderstanding of how H. sapiens tribalism work. Noise level aside, liberals are every bit as invested in pushing change as conservatives are in resisting it, and the farther left we go the stronger the resistance becomes. This should surprise no one.
However, there is one particular place where I agree with Miller: the deep, dark cesspool that is Fox News. The basic political dynamic here is simple: progressives have made themselves into an easy target and Fox News is largely responsible for using that target as a way of not just attacking us, but of making its audience believe that liberals are scary, unpatriotic, and deliberately trying to ruin America. This has had a big impact on rank-and-file voters, and it's no surprise that conservative politicians have followed along like lapdogs. Without Fox News conservatives would still be naturally louder than liberals in this fight, but with Fox News they've been turned into maniacs.
It's still the case that liberals are fundamentally the ones who pushed first and pushed hardest on social issues over the past 20 years. And it's only natural that this sparked a strong response from conservatives. Beyond that, though, it's Fox News that's turned things truly toxic. So if you're looking for a conservative target, forget the politicians, who just follow public sentiment. Look instead to Fox News, which eagerly accepted its 30 pieces of silver and cold-bloodedly stoked that toxic public sentiment in the first place. They're the ones who turbocharged a fairly normal dynamic and made it into the hellscape it is today.
POSTSCRIPT: I want to make clear yet again that nothing I've said is meant to suggest that progressives are wrong. Generally speaking, I'm all on board with most progressive change. But my personal opinion doesn't mean anything, and it's simply a fact that liberals have moved very far to the left in recent years. This has placed them a long way away from the median voter and made it very difficult to win in centrist states.
This post is both-siderism of the worst sort. Almost looks like deliberate outrageousness to attract more clicks ($).
So you disagree that dems have moved left more than republicans have moved right?
Absolutely.
There is voluminous literature on this topic. Books and more books. Start the clock in 1968 with Nixon. The Dems have moved somewhat to the right, not left. The GOP has gone right off the rails. What have the Dems done that can even remotely counter:
1) Nixon's racist southern strategy (Buchanan)
2) Nixon's secret plan to end the war in Vietnam, and his sabotage of LBJ's peace initiative (Kissinger).
3) Nixon's illegal invasion of Cambodia (Kissinger)
4) Nixon and Watergate - he resigns in disgrace
5) Nixon's calculated racist war on drugs (Ehrlichman)
6) Reagan's tax cuts for the rich, taxing SS benefits, blowing up the national debt? Trickle down yet? (Stockman)
7) Reagan's illegal arms to Iranian terrorists to fund illegal war in Nicaragua (Ollie North, Poppy Bush)
8) Reagan's breaking unions via the NLRB
9) Poppy Bush overturning the Fairness Doctrine (Scalia and Bork)
10) GOP embrace of NRA, anti-abortion culture wars (late 1970s)
11) Poppy Bush Xmas Eve blanket pardon of the Iran Contra traitors after losing to Clinton (Barr)
12) GOP Clinton Whitewater ratf*cking
13) GOP killing Hillary's universal healthcare
14) Newt allowing monopoly media ownership (think Rupert Murdoch)
15) GOP great Clinton penis hunt (Kavanaugh, Barr, Ken Starr)
16) W/Cheney war of aggression for oil based on lies and torture
17) W budget busting tax cuts for the rich and corporations (during war, no less)
18) Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett to the SCOTUS
19) GOP death clown posse mocking covid threat, opposing covid vaccinations
20) GOP/Trump embrace of neo-Nazi white supremacy
21) GOP/Trump budget busting tax cuts for the rich and corporations
22) GOP/Trump refusing to concede 2020 election
23) GOP/Trump supporters storming the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021
What you got? AOC is shrill?
https://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/
Here's the thing though, conservatives don't want to take us back to the 90s. They want to take us back to a century ago.
The idea of a conservative is that change and disruption are risky. But when the cultural change is show to work then by their own admission conservatives no longer are supposed to oppose it. Like social security. It's existed for a human lifetime, more because as a society we decided having old people die on the street is bad. At what point do conservatives admit that idea is not going to destroy civilization and stop opposing it? Because they haven't stopped yet.
At this point conservatives are disrupting settled society every bit as much as progressives.
What policy proposals by republicans support your claim that they want to " take us back to a century ago"? It was just a few years ago that almost every democrat (e.g. Obama, Hillary, Biden) was against gay marriage.
You confuse the Nixon-manufactured culture war (which the GOP is losing, BTW) with real power: the power to regain control of the government and loot the economy from the inside. A return to the Gilded Age. What you are seeing is a right wing slow motion counter-revolution to the New Deal and Great Society. Divide et impera.
https://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/
Call me old-fashioned
News was never left or right, democrat or republican leaning
It was just TRUTHful. We then had to deal with the fallout from that truth
Nowadays we don't WANT the truth because it makes us uncomfortable for some reason - so now that news is not truthful we go to news sites that we are comfortable with.
We are a nation of snowflakes - of "Karens"
It USED to be that reporters were trying to break the news stories first using multiple sources. Now we report rumors - and now we leave to internet fact checkers - and criticize everything that is reported. The days of Jennings, Huntley Brinkley and Cronkite - have been replaced by OAN, and Newsmax.
Truth is now what WE BELIEVE it to be
On this issue and as usual, Kevin gives the points which he thinks are in favor of his conclusion and ignores those that conflict. He cites polls, but polls only answer some questions and people are not always honest in their responses. What he ignores is the way that Republican politicians have been pushing the culture war for over 50 years, and how this obviously intensified since Obama was elected. This is partly a reaction to the real progress in racial equality that that election represented. Liberals - and especially non-whites - have reacted in turn. But it is Republican politicians to whom the culture war is now absolutely essential. It is true that the extreme rhetoric now comes from Fox (and other right-wing media), but they are in service of the Republican party and their plutocratic backers.
Sure, liberals provoke the Republican base by pushing for the end of racism, but this is something that they have always done. What they have done lately on both racism and economics is not at all comparable to what happened in the pre-Nixon era.
Republican politicians are now at work in state legislatures to deny voting to non-whites as far as possible, and to be able to overturn the results of democratic elections. Fox News has actually pushed back some against this effort by the politicians, apart from the extreme wing-nut commentators. Liberals are in no way responsible for the assault on democracy by Republican politicians which is a direct offshoot of their reliance on the culture war. Republican politicians have extended the culture war to a war on democracy.
The main criticism I see of Kevin's data and thesis about the leftward shift of the Democrats is basically this: "But we are the good guys and they are the bad guys, so everything we do is just common sense, while everything they do is insane. Why doesn't Kevin see this?" Meantime, people like me (former Rockefeller Republican turned New Dem turned disgusted independent) without a political home think that both the Left and Right have gone insane. Not equally insane (Republicans are worse right now due to the influence of the Orange Narcissist), but both are insane enough that I can't consider myself a Democrat any longer.
+1
I am in the same boat as you. Although I'm more of a disillusioned republican. I can't stand what Trump did to our party and hate that some are emulating his craziness. But, the left wing of the dem party is off the reservation.
Culture wars covers a lot of territory. I consider myself a social libertarian - just keep the government out of any of the social stuff. Let laws protect everyone equally. The social contract should be made with individuals, not groups. Laws should protect us from each other, not ourselves. Full freedom of speech.
At the same time, I believe we need the government to respond to market failures so that people don't take advantage of each other. I've identified with the Dems up until the last few years when I finally realized that they have done so much damage to the worker bees. We knew opening up trade was going to make some people MUCH better off and many people worse off. But the Dems would rather blame racism as if it is the only reason. And prevent open discourse to boot.
Right now the Dems are driving me nuts and the Reps are responding - thank God. I haven't brought myself to vote for a Republican in the past because of their stance on abortion, gun rights, anti-gay, etc. But right now they are behaving like the moderates. Fox doesn't need to whip people up about guns and abortion any more... the Dems are giving them all the ammunition they need.
A survey of the debate in the NYT, inc. arguments (and charts) rebutting Kevin's article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/opinion/culture-war-democrats-republicans.html
The NYT. Ha ha ha! LOL
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