The Culture Warriors
Ryan Avent offers a common liberal gloss on the culture wars:
The language Obama used in his bittergate talk was obviously unfortunate, but it’s worth remembering that he was making a very serious point–that Democratic policies are far more helpful to small town Americans than Republican policies, but that the right successfully deploys cultural warfare to prevent those economic policies from resonating with voters. To see these remarks then turned on Obama by a campaign tailored almost exclusively to the needs of the very rich is surreal. Sarah Palin was basically saying, “Watch us hoodwink you the way Obama said we’d hoodwink you, and watch you all eat it up.”
The basic image here, also seen in Tom Frank’s What’s the Matter With Kansas, is of low-income people hoodwinked into backing the GOP by culture war rhetoric. But Andrew Gelman and his coauthors in the excellent Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State mount a huge pile of data to suggest that this isn’t the case. Overall, low income back strongly and consistently back Democratic candidates. Where you see culture war voting is among rich people. They explain this, plausibly, in terms of the fact that privileged people are able to do more to express their cultural preferences — both in terms of lifestyle and in terms of who they vote for. Poor people need to spend their money on stuff they need and cast their votes for practical reasons. But the well-off can afford to indulge their preferences about where to live, how to vacation, and what recreational pursuits to follow and divergent tastes in these matters continues into the voting booth.
Our current crop of candidates offers up some pretty good examples of this. The McCain family is really stinkin’ rich (inheriting multi-million dollar fortunes and owning a dozen houses) but the other three couples on national tickets are well-off on a much more banal scale. The Palin family, the Obama family, and the Biden family all have incomes running into the six figures which is much more than your average American family has. But the Palins choose to spend their money in very different ways. They’re raising five kids, getting into competitive snowmobiling, going on moose hunting expeditions, etc. This isn’t stuff that your typical coastal elites care to do with their time and money, but none of it’s cheap, either. Rather, these are the leisure pursuits of Red America’s economic elite while prosperous people in Blue America are instead raising fewer children in smaller houses that are much more expensive per square foot and spending money on cheese plates rather than moooseburgers.
But in whatever sense snowmobiling is a “working class” hobby — and I’ll agree it doesn’t have vast appeal to big city sophisticates — it’s not a cheap pursuit, and I’m sure Todd Palin could have bought a ton of arugula with the money he spent on his snowmobile instead. He just chose not to, which is fine. But that’s what these culture wars are all about — relatively prosperous cultural conservatives fighting with relatively prosperous cultural liberals about “postmaterial” political issues and using lifestyle cues as proxies for those battles — they’re not about poor people mobilizing themselves on behalf of the GOP.
94 Responses to “The Culture Warriors”
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September 4th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Matt,
That’s a very subtle and very important argument put very well.
I liked that post a lot.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Poor people need to spend their money on stuff they need and cast their votes for practical reasons. But the well-off can afford to indulge their preferences about where to live, how to vacation, and what recreational pursuits to follow and divergent tastes in these matters continues into the voting booth.
That’s basically nonsense. Poor people vote for as expressive and identity reasons as rich people. Poor people recognize that at the individual level, the vote is irrelevant to the outcome. Yes, if they could choose $1,000 more a year in federal money by pulling a lever, they’d do that.
But everyone realizes that they don’t get anything by pulling a lever as an individual. But they do get some psychological benefit, which turns on how they identify with particular narratives about themselves and the political world in which they live.
So poor people are not “practical” in the sense Matt wants them to be practical. They’re practical in the sense that I say: they realize that hte practical effect of the individual’s vote is worth nothing, and they vote the way they do because it’s an expression of the kind of community - gun toting, god fearing, masculine vs. at least according to Republicans, arugula-eating, namby-pamby liberals.
Liberals win in one of two ways. They will win once they figure out how to tap into that narrative in a way that makes them seem like the dominant of the two parties. Or they will win once that narrative becomes less pervasive.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
So what’s a mooseburger cost.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I think Frank’s general argument is incorrect, but he does give some indication that gibes with your analysis. He certainly shows that the people he focuses on in Kansas are not destitute and in need of social services. They are well enough off to be more interested in social than economic issues. They perhaps could gain marginally from a Democrat vs. a Republican, but it’s not a life-or-death difference.
Interesting response last night to Palin’s touting her husband’s union membership, no?
September 4th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
…Red America’s economic elite…
Are the Palin’s “economic elite?” Nothing I’ve read so far would suggest that, unless she’s been on the take getting kickbacks for the $27mm or whatever of Wasilla earmarks. Frankly, I would be happy to forego disclosure of the candidates’ medical records and force them instead to provide their credit reports.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Matthew, Bageant addresses your point here directly in “Deer Hunting With Jesus.” The low income Republican voters tend not to be the poorest of the poor, but they are still low income (predominately white) voters.
But here’s the question you need to answer if you want to defend your thesis: If the only people voting for Republicans are well-off members of the middle and upper middle class, then how do Republicans win elections? The numbers just aren’t there. (Or are they? I think you’d have to make a more numbers-based argument if you want to convince me that Republicans win elections entirely because of these affluent voters.)
September 4th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
This reminds me of a story that was in the New Yorker a couple of years ago, about the “Blue Collar Comedy” tour, and how they tapped this exact cultural stratum. Their biggest fans aren’t necessarily true “blue collar worker” people in the literal sense, but middle-to-upper-middle-income suburbanites in certain (large/growing) pockets of the US. It’s an affinity/identity dynamic — puts a very different slant on what they right means by “elite” which has less to do with actual power or wealth or even *taste* than a cultural stance. (Unfortunately just an abstract online: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/10/060710fa_fact_friend)
September 4th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Along the same lines: every time I heard the phrase “hockey mom” I think of how much it actually costs for a kid to play hockey. Thousands of dollars, and more than my middle-class parents had.
One upshot is that liberals need to stop trying to rebut these claims of elitism by talking about how rich the GOP candidates are. That’s because the elitism the GOP is talking about, and which resonates with many swing voters, is not economic elitism. It’s cultural elitism, i.e. Hollywood, academia, secularism and minority politics. Economic envy/ populism is real too, but those voters are already largely voting Dem. So pointing out McCain’s largess has questionable benefits.
The average white working class family is middle-income, not poor. Many of them have legitimate hopes of being rich. They want to be McCain, or Romney. McCain or Romney are their heroes. For many, they don’t want to be, and could never imagine themselves being, John Kerry, Al Gore or Barack Obama. It has nothing to do with wealth. The emphasis in the term “limosine liberal” is not on limosine. It’s on liberal. That’s why there’s no less sneering at poor communitiy organizers than well-off trial lawyers.
“So poor people are not “practical” in the sense Matt wants them to be practical. They’re practical in the sense that I say: they realize that the practical effect of the individual’s vote is worth nothing, and they vote the way they do because it’s an expression of the kind of community - gun toting, god fearing, masculine vs. at least according to Republicans, arugula-eating, namby-pamby liberals.”
But Gelman’s whole point is that this liberal pity-party just doesn’t fit the facts. The poor did heavily favor Kerry in 2004, claims of “elitism” to the contrary. Cultural politics is largely a luxury, and despite appearances, charges of elitism are likely to be well-received not by the poor, but by the middle-class and even rich.
We liberals spend so much time talking about economic hardship that we forget that this is still a middle class country. Our electoral problems are not with the poor.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Palin sure sounded bitter to me.
.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
i think this post moves far too quickly from the poor to upper middle class. Families where I grew up vote Republican while making $32,000/yr with two kids. They would benefit enormously from health care reform or college aid, but vote god guns and gays instead.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Gah! Why is everyone assuming that identity = reality? How many well off people think of themselves as “middle class”?
Look at this another way: this same group will also identify with rural issues (or rather IMAGES), but they’re suburban.
Get it?
.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
“and spending money on cheese plates rather than moooseburgers”
Speak for yourself, Matt. I spend my most of money on improving the energy efficiency of my house and give the rest away to educate Tibetan refugees.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I agree with Mordy #6. Please explain how a party of primarily well-off people can win elections.
I checked out the home page for the book:
http://www.redbluerichpoor.com/
The “Myths and Facts” summarizing the argument are contradictory (or, to give the benefit of the doubt, confusingly worded).
One of the “Myths” is that the Republicans are the party of the rich. One of the “Facts” is that more rich people vote Republican in every state.
If the basic argument cannot be stated clearly in the summary, I’m not sure it’s worth reading the details.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I think Paul Krugman has suggested (shown?)that the poor vote in their economic interests everywhere except in the Deep South, where race complicates matters, giving Republicans a structural advantage in presidential races.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I agree with Cletus. There’s a difference between poor, middle class, upper middle class, and rich.
Also, it’s clearly true that few people hate the wealthy liberal elite with as much passion as the wealthy conservative elite, but the GOP base does go beyond wealthy AM talk radio personalities.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I should have added that “culture” would then turn out to be somewhat of a proxy for how race is viewed, especially in the South.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I always got confused with the beer/wine track argument, what with all the micro brews and all, but I totally get the cheese plate/moose burger tracks!
September 4th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
” he was making a very serious point–that Democratic policies are far more helpful to small town Americans than Republican policies, but that the right successfully deploys cultural warfare to prevent those economic policies from resonating with voters”
That’s not what Obama was saying at all, but never mind.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
It’s about perceptibles.
A NASCAR car has more in common with a F1 car than a production car, but it presents itself as Guys Driving Cars Like Yours Around An Oval. A snowmobile is just a lawn tractor on sleds. Or something. And as Andrew Hinton’s link suggests, it’s not so much about identifying as wanting to identify with something that you’re not.
Palin sure sounded bitter to me.
Me too. But apparently that kind of insular, close-minded resentment is one of those things you’re not allowed to talk about in American politics. I mean, there was a whole lot of pinched-face hating going on in that room last night.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
The Palins more than $200,000 last year, and have been making six-figures for a while now. Even the Mayor of Wasilla made $63,000 a year, a hefty sum considering the size of the town.
The problem Democrats have is that they fail to realize that there are many high-skill jobs that still don’t require a college degree. Plumbers, electricians, builders, small-business owners, factory workers, oil riggers, firefighters, railroad workers all can make six figures if they’re good at what they do without a college degree. Given that only 25-30 percent of adults have college degree, there are a lot of people that would be identified by sociologists as lower class that still make a lot of money.
What Democrats need to do is focus talk on their jobs program, and explain that government investment and regulation can help create jobs in the short-term and long-term. The downside for these hard labor jobs is that it’s difficult to do them long-term unless you start your own business, and immigration has tightened the job market and probably depressed pay for these occupations.
I believe that Democrats are right to focus long-term on high-tech, well-educated economies in places like Denver and Northern Virginia. But they need to talk about Republican voters as well-off people who happen to be so without buying into the college-based meritocratic view of success.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Think you’re overlooking the truly rural voter, who probably doesn’t have much money or much voice in how land in his area is used or not used, and resents the government who will tell him what to do far more than he resents the rich who would let do what he wants. To wit:
“In the 2004 general election, every city in the United States with more than 500,000 inhabitants returned a majority vote for John Kerry. The election was won for Bush and the Republicans in the outer suburbs and the rural hinterlands. Much was made of ‘red states’ and ‘blue states’, but the great rift was between the blue cities and the red countryside. Environmental politics, in the form of fervent local quarrels over land use, were at the heart of this division. Beneath the talk of Iraq, health care, terrorism, gun control, abortion and all the rest lay a barely articulated but passionate dispute about the nature of nature in America.” (Jonathan Raban)
For more on this, please see:
September 4th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I read the Myths and Facts also and think you’re mostly wrong here Matt. “they’re not about poor people mobilizing themselves on behalf of the GOP.” What they are about is rich Republicans using God, Guns, and Gays to mobilize poor people for the benefit of the GOP. Here in Wisconsin it is effective enough to keep the state at least competitive, and obviously, the “poorest states” in the south are red for a reason.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
then why do some states vote overwhelmingly GOP? Not everyone in Texas is wealthy…how is this explained?
September 4th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Very much like the underlying of the cultural wars observation.
Focusing on the reality of our life in this country is so much more interesting and leads to better analysis of what is really going on.
Wish we could have had this kind of analysis 4 or 8 years ago during those cycles. Thanks for slugging it out for us in St. Paul.
Kudos.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
a commenter had the answer up top…
That’s basically nonsense. Poor people vote for as expressive and identity reasons as rich people. Poor people recognize that at the individual level, the vote is irrelevant to the outcome. Yes, if they could choose $1,000 more a year in federal money by pulling a lever, they’d do that.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Not that I really want to give her overmuch benefit of the doubt, but my impression from somebody I knew from Minnesota was that snowmobiles were used as practical transportation in places like that.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Isn’t it sad that the day after one of these BS Archie Bunker on steroids speeches, we devolve into who drinks, drives, and eats … whatever. BoBo Nation indeed.
It’s so silly … By any measure, I’d be considered a member of the elite by virtue of upbringing, education, and fill in the blank.
Here’s the deal: I’m living in a major metropolitan area. My husband is a successful academic who lucky enough to spend most the year out of the country in one spot or another. We’re struggling from month to month most of time. We bought our house over a decade ago for far less that Cindy McCain’s yellow ensemble. We’re kinda Catholic but not really. What I drink — ice cold Bud (can). What he drinks — Lemonade. What I listen to — Lou Reed. What he likes — Merle Haggard.
What the fuck ever. Get these Palin nutjobs off our screens and maybe we can get back to a real conversation about how to save our own necks. Together.
Sorry for the rant. I hate what’s happened to the USA.
It reminds me of that awful period when women would get together in living rooms with phony consultants to figure out which “season” they were.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Palin sure sounded bitter to me.
The bitter right is bitter about how we allowed them to screw things up so bad while they’ve been in power.
And I don’t blame them. Endless war? Debt? Torture? Abolition of the 4th amendment? Jeez-louise. What were we thinking?
September 4th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Ok - here’s my maybe dumb question. Why does the White South so consistently vote Republican. It’s the poorest region. Plus, a significant chunk of the population (black southrons) are about 95% Democratic. So it seems like the GOP must be getting a big chunk of working class people.
I’m sure the very poor vote Dem - but i’d say the 40K to 70K range is the key (aren’t they the most numerous?). what’s the data on them?
this is all basically speculation out of my ass, so caveat emptor
September 4th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
GOP is adept at waging social warfare and the are absolutely adept as getting otherwise ignorant voters to vote against their own economic interest in the name of guns, abortion, etc. Ignorant people make decisions based more on emotion and not on rationale thought. The GOP owes its very existence to the fact that they can manipulate emotions so well. Just think about all the ignorant low-income and middle class folks that aren’t going to vote for Obama because he is “against guns” or “going to raise my taxes,” or “not fight the terrorists.” It is all bullshit, but ignorant folks like to eat up the bullshit because they are told it tastes good.
Sarah Palin is an insult to the American people and I am supremely disappointed the GOP couldn’t do better than that. What a joke.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
publius–
Racism, religion, and probably a reluctance to self-identify as one of the “poor” who’d benefit from Dem policies.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
and being shafted by the democrats in the 60’s
September 4th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Poor people vote for as expressive and identity reasons as rich people. Poor people recognize that at the individual level, the vote is irrelevant to the outcome.
Is there much evidence for this? Yeah, I’m familiar with the Voter’s Paradox, and maybe you don’t find the reasonable “but if everyone thinks that way then we’re screwed” to be reasonable, but lots of people feel otherwise. I vote because otherwise that means that people who think like me will stay home–essentially, I see the Voter’s Paradox as an instance of Newcomb’s Paradox. So, yes, I vote and I do so with “selfish” motives in mind–I vote for policies that will improve the situation of Americans because I’m an American and I would like my situation to improve.
Stated like that it’s abstract and esoteric, but in reality we’re just talking about a practical interpretation of the Golden Rule–act as you want other people to act.
I agree with the others who have said either A) the middle class is doing well enough that it can afford to concern itself with symbolic bullshit issues or B) the GOP has done a better job of selling itself on middle class economic issues, such that even lower middle class voters who would definitely benefit from Dem policies believe otherwise.
Even if B is true, the McCain/Palin strategy focusing on the culture war might still pay off. This stupid “elitism” battle sucks all the oxygen out of the room, such that it becomes impossible for a more substantive policy discussion to take place. These culture battles are the smoke screen, the feint, that allows McCain to win the day on “drill here, drill now” or “all of the above”–policies that sound good but don’t actually add up.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
“Ok - here’s my maybe dumb question. Why does the White South so consistently vote Republican.”
Mostly, I think it’s the gun issue. No amount of evidence will convince these voters that the Democrats won’t walk into their house and take their guns away. After that, these voters seriously think that the Democrats will convince their son to be gay. They are paranoid freaks, and it takes only a little scaring to make them vote Republican. I lived in Texas for three years, and the level of tin-foil-hat conspiracy lunacy always surprised me. Whenever I thought I’d heard it all, they proved me wrong again. Let’s put this in perspective: they literally blamed the weather on Bill Clinton. “We wouldn’t have this hail storm now if a Republican were in office.” I’m not kidding here. I’d need a Pepsi Center sized crowd to have enough fingers to count how many times I’ve heard crap like that. You don’t just hear it every day, you hear it multiple times every day. Southern voters are just plain delusional. And we should make no effort at all to court them. In fact, we’d be better off deliberately trying to lose The South. That might bring in some votes elsewhere to put us over the top.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I’m living in a major metropolitan area. My husband is a successful academic –
Say no more. To the GOP Palinites, you are a dirty disgusting elitist that must be destroyed, no matter what your income level is.
I guess it used to be that urban liberals were the ones who looked down on other people’s cultural habits. Seems to me, the only cultural elitism going on nowadays is emanating from the swirling cesspool of hatred that is the modern GOP.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Another major issue, heretofore, has been the inability of the Democratic party to motivate enough people to vote in the first place. We can debate til the cows come home which kind of people vote for which party, and how we could get them to change their minds, but until we get better turnout amongst the poor, the elderly and minorities, we’re going to remain a minority party and never get the White House back.
That said, I think Obama does a good job of motivating people to vote. We’ll see if he can keep the fire burning hot enough for the next couple months to see it through to a successful conclusion.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I’ll try to add this book to the reading list, but I’d to first ask, does it break down voting patterns by income and area?
September 4th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Spending money on a snowmobile (or ATVs for white folks here in Virginia, motorcycles for blacks in PG county) doesn’t mean one can actually afford it and is therefore middle class. How many people do you see driving extremely expensive cars, yet have to scrimp and save to pay the electricity bill or rent? In my day, we called this “frontin”.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I think this is a critical point that should be stressed more.
It should be, because it underlines the key motivating factor among the GOP wealthy base voters:
Republicans espouse a philosophy that says you can help others by helping yourself.
Greed, self interest–are good, both help “power our economy”. What’s more, poverty has always existed and “will never be eradicated” so it’s “useless to try”. Clannish moral superiority is a virtue because they are “solid values”. Who wouldn’t want to believe in a political philosophy that says every anti-social instinct humans have is, in fact, a virtue?
September 4th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Chris (comment #13):
You’re right, we didn’t phrase this well. It’s clearer in the book, I think, but sometimes it is indeed tricky to summarize things in a single sentence. We were highlighting the facts that:
(1) Republicans tend to get the support of richer voters, but
(2) Rich people are getting richer in Democratic states. Incomes at the lower end have been increasing faster in Republican states.
In any case, I agree that the way we wrote these Myths is confusing, so maybe we’ll remove that one. I hope this doesn’t dissuade you from looking at the book.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
The “fronting” argument seems right. I suspect many of the Republican low- and moderate-income voters we’re talking about work in seasonal jobs, like the building industry, that means you might be rich one year (when you buy your boat) and poor the next (when you can’t take it out because you can’t afford the gas). There have been studies that show that when in office Republicans try to make the economy better in an election year (Nixon in 1972 was the first to do this) in order to win votes, no matter the consequences after the election is over. It’s so hard for any of us to understand the economy, and Republicans talk a good game, so it’s only in desperate years like this one that Democrats can win with an economic message.
If I were a Democratic politician at the state level, I would pass a law requiring financial education in school, which I think would be good for the country and help people not be tricked by short-term stunts to improve the economy.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
On the Today Show, Matt Lauer asked Joe Biden how he’s going to answer the claim that neither he nor Obama has ever had to balance a budget. I really hope his response is, “I’m not sure the good governor should be bringing up budgets, or the public might get to see just how dishonest her “bridge to nowhere” claims are.”
September 4th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
You mean George Bush Jr. or Dick Cheney has experience in learning how to balance a budget? Where? In what country or state?
September 4th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I think in addition to NASCAR,NRA, and God, Ronald Reagan identified a central them in the culture war:
“Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem”
For various reasons - legalized abortion, affirmative action, taxes, civil rights act, imminent domain, all the way back to the Civil War, or even further back to the distrust of the English government, etc - this forms a large coalition. This is what got alot of Reagan Democrats to vote Republican.
Sadly, I think what Reagan meant was not government, but governing.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I’ve read that Biden put most of his spare money into fixing up a house that was falling down when he bought it. That sounds a lot more average-guy than snowmobiling and moose-hunting. I’ve read nothing about what the Obamas do with their disposable income - college savings for the girls, surely, but what else?
September 4th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
“Even the Mayor of Wasilla made $63,000 a year, a hefty sum considering the size of the town.”
What kind of town is this? $10 from every citizen of the town went just to pay *the mayor’s salary*. And she hired a lobbyist and got $27 million in federal earmarks for the town–that’s over $4000 for every man, woman and child who lives there. You see the pic of Palin in her mayor’s office and it looks like it is probably nicer than the Wyoming governor’s office.
“Matt Lauer asked Joe Biden how he’s going to answer the claim that neither he nor Obama has ever had to balance a budget.”
Thanks to the prices we’re paying at the pump, a monkey could balance the budget in a state awash in petrodollars, like Alaska is. If if it weren’t, being a Republican means that “deficits don’t matter” so they don’t have to balance the budget either.
But the question is pretty dumb. It seems to assume that the president is holding the checkbook. Read the U.S. Constitution: spending and taxation originates in Congress, not the Oval Office. Every member of Congress has to make budgetary decisions, and “balance the budget” (or in the case of recent Congresses, not balance the budget).
September 4th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
hate to say it - but there’s a ton of latent racism as well as a general “us against them” attitude, especially among the those lacking in higher education and who aren’t well travelled. It’s the whole “tribal” thing, but also applying to religion and city/country besdes race/ethnicity. I think that ’splains a whole lot more than the economic stuff.
My sister doesn’t have a whole lot of money or education, yet she begrudges every cent she pays in taxes because she’s sure that democrats are going to just give it to “the blacks”. Nothing that anyone is going to say or do is going to prevent her from voting Republican - and all this talk of resentment by the Republicans just feeds and encourages that.
I think this whole culture war thing is only tied to economics in the sense that having a higher income or access to money leads to education and a broading of the parochial narrow world-view shared by too many Americans.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
“So poor people are not “practical” in the sense Matt wants them to be practical. They’re practical in the sense that I say: they realize that the practical effect of the individual’s vote is worth nothing, and they vote the way they do because it’s an expression of the kind of community - gun toting, god fearing, masculine vs. at least according to Republicans, arugula-eating, namby-pamby liberals.”
For people who aren’t voting solely based on cultural similarity, charisma, or spite, I think it’s worth asking about the quality of information most people (from poor to wealthy) have about the policies they’re voting for, and how developed their reasoning about that information is. Ask 100 people on the street about the approaches to health care the rest of the world takes, and I’ll bet a considerable chunk of them will regurgitate a PR-manufactured caricature (it’s a disaster, you’ll die while waiting for the care you need, etc.). How many of them could give you a reasonable explanation for the recent rise in gas prices? How many of them could recite even a few correct facts about the various actors in the Middle East? About Obama’s tax plan?
I would bet that a lot of these people are being practical, given their shallow and mistaken grasp of the facts, even if their reasoning about those facts is heavily motivated by identity or social desirability in their cultural context. Even people who profess to be pure “values” voters would probably attempt to give you some reasons why they support the policies they do, even if they only amount to believing that codifying their neotraditionalist values into law would certainly make things better for them and for the country.
The interesting question for me: How does all the the cultural and identity and social-desirability stuff mediate the way people subjectively reconstruct the information they consume into a model of what would be practical for them? And what is the quality of that information and that reasoning?
September 4th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Republicans win because the Democrats are too fucking cowardly to confront them — to challenge their lies, to point out their evil deeds, and to explain the nature of their deceit.
Just look at the pathetic, limpwristed response Obama gave to Palin’ speech last night. John Kerry all over again.
If Obama gives NO SIGN of outrage at how the Republicans have fucked 80 percent of the population over the last 8 years, why should the common citizen feel that Obama will do anything on the common citizen’s behalf?
I mean, it’s fucking obvious that all that fundraising has had an effect on Obama. Just like it does on most Democratic leaders. They don’t see anything really WRONG with George Bush and Dick Cheney –other than the fact that Bush, Cheney and Congressional Republicans are occupying positions of power that those Democratic leaders want.
You can’t criticize Republicans for doing evil deeds on behalf of billionaires — when you desperately yearn to whore for those same billionaires. Just look at Zell Miller, John Bereaux, and Joe Lieberman.
It’s all like high school. When the football quarterback dumps the cheerleader after fucking her for a few months, the most ardent defenders of the quarterback’s behavior are those other cheerleaders who hope to be the quarterback’s new girlfriend.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
While it is not clear that the “Kansas” thesis is correct, it is interesting how poorer states (with some exceptions like Delaware and Oregon) tend to vote Republican. Poor Republican states have more income inequality than richer Democratic states, so the class divides in voting tend to be rather stark in Republican ones (with the rich voting Republican and the poor Democratic, which is rather stark in Alabama). Meanwhile, in Democratic states like Massachusetts, class plays a negligible role in voting and party ID while a lot of the Republicans tend to be rather moderate (especially Celucci and Weld, whom everyone in Mass loved).
September 4th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
If Obama gives NO SIGN of outrage at how the Republicans have fucked 80 percent of the population over the last 8 years, why should the common citizen feel that Obama will do anything on the common citizen’s behalf?
You probably haven’t seen video of Obama since the DNC. The events he’s been holding out in the Rust Belt have been marked by a distinct edge to them, mostly under the national radar. The quick press thing he did to day was in a similar vein.
He’s not avoiding this.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
The Culture War exists to make people feel virtuous as they do un-virtuous things.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I think the problem is the hidden (or not so hidden) assumption that, absent some outside force (be it propaganda, whatever) that voters will vote their economic interest. That’s stupid.
Why? When you think of who will be the best president, do you think only of your own personal economy or do you consider a whole raft of other issues, of differing importance, some of which having nothing to do with money? Well, so does everyone.
There are people who would happily vote themselves into the poorhouse in order to end abortion, because that issue is more important to them than their own finances.
So the quest to create a Grand Unified Theory of Voting Against Economic Interests is a fool’s errand because it’s assumptions about the nature of the voter’s choice is probably false.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
The interesting question for me: How does all the the cultural and identity and social-desirability stuff mediate the way people subjectively reconstruct the information they consume into a model of what would be practical for them? And what is the quality of that information and that reasoning?
There was actually a sort of similar discussion on Balko’s blog not long ago, though it was specifically about the shift in the GOP from valuing education, class, refinement, etc, to holding it all in a sneering sort of contempt. And it’s a good point–this culture war crap is just cynical politics as usual for the high-level GOP operatives, but you do really have to wonder about the long-term viability of telling people that it’s essentially wrong to have a good education, eat healthy, live in a reasonably large city, or enjoy anything more sophisticated than Denny’s and NASCAR.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
“you do really have to wonder about the long-term viability of telling people that it’s essentially wrong to have a good education, eat healthy, live in a reasonably large city, or enjoy anything more sophisticated than Denny’s and NASCAR.”
But that’s not what they’re doing. They’re telling them that it is okay if you don’t have a good education, like to eat red meat and fries, live in the country and enjoy a night out at the Denny’s before watching the races (as well as being okay if you like to display your patriotism and pray to God.) Their message is: “the Democrats, (Liberals, whatever) look down on you for the simple pleasures in your life. We don’t.” That’s a powerful message which resonates.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
It isn’t just about enjoying the simple pleasures in life. It is about exploiting the ignorant masses to benefit the privileged few. The problem isn’t that people enjoy their NASCAR, but that the routinely vote in people that systematically hold them down. By and large we don’t have an educated citizenry and the Republican model works on those people. Republican or Democrat, if you are paying attention and if you value fundamental American ideals, you should be outraged at what our government has done the past 8 years. War crimes, stripping away our constitution, watching Americans die in the street and do nothing, invading sovereign nations in violation of international law, torture, outing American officials, manipulation of the justice department. The list goes on.
Our country is hurting, hurting bad, and instead of enjoying the “simple pleasures” maybe we should wake the fuck up and start electing people that will look out for us and our country.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
But that’s not what they’re doing. They’re telling them that it is okay if you don’t have a good education, like to eat red meat and fries, live in the country and enjoy a night out at the Denny’s before watching the races (as well as being okay if you like to display your patriotism and pray to God.) Their message is: “the Democrats, (Liberals, whatever) look down on you for the simple pleasures in your life. We don’t.” That’s a powerful message which resonates.
Well, you’re correct that it resonates, but I have to disagree with the rest of your post. The GOP has gone way beyond simply expressing an acceptance of poor educations, rural living, blue-collar work, religion, etc, to actively reveling in it and categorically condemning or even vilifying anyone who doesn’t live under those same conditions and by those same values (see for example their open and oft-cited contempt for lattes and Whole Foods).
September 4th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
John McCain owns seven houses and pays $275,000 year on servants/staff. Meanwhile, 30 million other American’s don’t have healthcare altogether and will leave the Katrina victims to die in the streets. Disgusting. But that’s right, lets keep voting for the folks that grant tax subsidies to big oil and make their buddies rich so they can buy more planes, buy more houses, and make fun of “organizers.”
John McCain has become a parody of himself. Mr. POW sell-out. This is a man that graduated in the BOTTOM 1% of his class at the Naval Academy–the BOTTOM 1%. He doesn’t even comes close to posing the intellectual rigor and judgment necessary to lead our country in these difficult tmie. And his selecting of Sarah Palin as Vice President is an insult to all Americans–young, old, black, white, Asian, green, purple, liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat, and Independent. An insult to our intelligence. An insult to your intelligence. A slap in the face to our country. A political gimmick. The count on our ignorance and thrive on our stupidity.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Along the same lines: every time I heard the phrase “hockey mom” I think of how much it actually costs for a kid to play hockey.
Bingo. Here in Toronto, annual registration for minor hockey will set you back $5400 per kid. And to add insult to injury, if you want to actually attend your kid’s game, they charge a $5 admission fee (no matter how young your child). I work with a guy who has a 14 year old and twin 12 year olds in hockey, and because they play travel league as well, it costs him upwards of $25K for the year for registration and equipment.
Even the Mayor of Wasilla made $63,000 a year, a hefty sum considering the size of the town.
Bang on again. This is actually an outrageous salary for a hamlet of 5,500 people - made even more outlandish by the fact that they hired a city manager(!!) on her watch; the only thing that might justify such a high salary is if she were effectively also acting as the city manager. But if not, it’s essentially a one day a week job.
By way of comparison, the mayor of Toronto, which has a multi-billion dollar annual budget, and a few million people, is $163K.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
By way of comparison, the mayor of Toronto, which has a multi-billion dollar annual budget, and a few million people, is $163K.
Yes, but that wasn’t paid for by oil royalties and Federal subsidies.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Matt, I haven’t got time to read all the comments, so I’m sure this point has already been made above, but the numbers on this post just can’t add up. There just aren’t that many relatively high to middle income families in red states for that explanation to make sense.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Ditto what Andy says. This may be true in terms of the percentage of poor whites versus wealthy whites who vote Republican. But it must be the case that some of those poor whites vote Republican too, and this is the crucial block that puts them over the edge. After all, the wealthy will likely vote their interests — they don’t need hoodwinking. And they don’t need to hoodwink all poor whites, just enough.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
@47:
but there’s a ton of latent racism as well as a general “us against them” attitude, especially among the those lacking in higher education and who aren’t well travelled. It’s the whole “tribal” thing,
This is what I think I see. In myself, too. It’s all chemistry.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:10 am
The economy of Alaska is probably inflated by government spending (an embarrassment for Palin) and big oil, and I don’t think the Native American inhabitants get much benefit from it, despite Palin’s husband being one-eighth Yurik.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Sorry, I didn’t mean to post so soon.
Someone in the papers today likened Alaska’s economy to a colonial economy and when I see Palin’s picture with the bear skin, it could be (with period details changed) a memsahib with a lion skin in British India. I don’t think her attitude to the Inuit is blatantly colonialist. That would be something to dredge up.
Nonetheless, I also don’t think she’s qualified to govern (even as VP) in the lower 49 with their very different racial mix. No right-wing Republican is.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:19 am
Matt underestimates the cost of snowmobiling. That’s a 2004 pricelist, and things are worse now. And don’t forget the cost of gassing them up. They use more gas than a compact car. And they depreciate more than one too. And the kind of sled you’d race is right at the top of that price list — bear in mind that some production sleds can do 120mph or more straight-line. World record for a single-engine sled is 173mph. Some really compulsive racers modify by putting in two engines for even higher speed.
Added to which, there’s the obligatory hospital visit for you and body shop visit for your sled any time you hit a tree, or a pressure ridge (on lake ice), or a moose, or a deer or other large object. Let’s hope not a funeral home visit.
September 5th, 2008 at 3:08 am
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/09/08/080908ta_talk_gourevitch
Before she was running against him, Sarah Palin—the governor of Alaska
and now the Republican candidate for Vice-President of the United
States—thought it was pretty neat that Barack Obama was edging ahead
of John McCain in her usually solidly red state. After all, she said,
Obama’s campaign was using the same sort of language that she had in
her gubernatorial race. “The theme of our campaign was ‘new energy,’ ”
she said recently. “It was no more status quo, no more politics as
usual, it was all about change. So then to see that Obama—literally,
part of his campaign uses those themes, even, new energy, change, all
that, I think, O.K., well, we were a little bit ahead on that.” She
also noted, “Something’s kind of changing here in Alaska, too, for
being such a red state on the Presidential level. Obama’s doing just
fine in polls up here, which is kind of wigging people out, because
they’re saying, ‘This hasn’t happened for decades that in polls the D’
“—the Democratic candidate—” ‘is doing just fine.’ To me, that’s
indicative, too. It’s the no-more-status-quo, it’s change.”
This was two weeks ago, at the statehouse in Juneau. After persistent
reports, in July, that Palin was on McCain’s short list of potential
running mates, her name had faded back into obscurity. Nobody in
Alaska seemed to take her seriously as a national prospect, and she
had shrugged the whole thing off on television, telling CNBC’s Larry
Kudlow that, before considering the job, she would want to know “what
is it, exactly, that the V.P. does every day.” Now, at the statehouse,
she sat, unattended by aides, curled up in a cardigan, and explained
that what she had done every day since becoming governor was to stick
her thumb in the eye of Alaska’s Republican Party establishment. “The
G.O.P. leader of the state—we haven’t spoken since I got elected,” she
said.
She went on, “I guess if you take the individual issues, two that I
believe would be benchmarks showing whether you’re a hard-core
Republican conservative or not, would be: I’m a lifetime member of the
N.R.A.—but this is Alaska, who isn’t?—and I am pro-life, absolutely.”
She continued, “I guess that puts me in a box of being hard-core
Republican.” But she said she recognized that “the Democrats also
preach individual freedoms and individual rights, capitalism, free
market, let-it-do-its-thing-best, let people keep as much of their
money that they earn as possible. And when it comes to, like, the
Party machine, no one will accuse me of being partisan.”
So the possibility that Obama might win Alaska did not worry Palin:
“Turning maybe purple in the state means, to me, it’s more
independent, it’s not the obsessive partisanship that gets in the way
of doing what’s right for this state, and I think on a national level
that’s what we’re gonna see.” And she added, “That’s why McCain is the
candidate for the G.O.P.—because he’s been known as the maverick, as
the conduit for some change.” In the state’s Republican caucus, McCain
came in fourth, trailing Ron Paul. “I always looked at Senator McCain
just as a Joe Blow public member, looking from the outside in,” she
said. “He’s been buttin’ heads with Republicans for years, and that’s
a healthy place to be.” Then again, on McCain’s signature issue—the
prosecution of the war in Iraq—she did not sound so gung-ho. Her son
is a soldier, and she said, “I’m a mom, and my son is going to get
deployed in September, and we better have a real clear plan for this
war. And it better not have to do with oil and dependence on foreign
energy.”
September 5th, 2008 at 11:32 am
With all due respect, Matt begins this post with comments that betray a certain affluent provincialism and unwillingness to deal with facts that disturb him.
Look, Obama was originally talking about central and rural Pennsylvania. And that’s the kind of place where this sad phenomena will most certainly play out this election.
Central and rural Pennsylvania are, indeed, filled with working-class whites (usually in Rust Belt communities that have been economically devastated since the 1970s) who are very conservative and consistently vote Republican against their clear cut economic interests.
That’s just a fact. (Deal with it.)
Ask En Rendell. Ask Obama. Ask anyone with any familiarity with the people or the region or polling data.
This is, also, true for West Virginia and much of Ohio. (Two rather important states.)
Then there are the pro-life working-class Catholic women scattered throughout Midwestern cities who exhibit a similar pattern.
It might not be the case for Kansas. It’s certainly the case for the Rust Belt and some very important swing states.
Ryan Lizza discusses this at length in an interesting (if bit disjointed) New Yorker piece. He makes the point that where the Democrats are losing ground with poor white and working-class folks in the industrial Midwest (the kind of people who most need progressive ecomomic policies, universal health care, etc.) they’re actually making progress in the Plains states where people are doing much better. Irony of ironies.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/01/080901fa_fact_lizza
For some reason or another this is a very scary fact for Matt.
I defer to everyone else’s expertise on the cost of snowmobiling.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
All this business about lumping the poor together with hockey or snowmobiling families can be understood much better through the framework of class, as articulated by Paul Fussell in his book titled, simply enough, Class.
In Fussell’s amusing yet insightful hierarchy, the Palin family would be solidly high prole: the demographic of skilled tradespeople, who can be quite wealthy, who dump their money on belligerent hobbies like snowmobiling or jet-skiing.
I think one could make an argument that high prole values have become increasingly prevalent in American society at large, as an inevitable result of market forces, of corporations needing to grow. One could even argue, I think, that the wealth which made the upper classes feasible could only be generated by corporations that grew by knocking down upper-class values and replacing them with proletarian values. But this argument would take a lot of work.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
My understanding of the results are:
1. People with incomes in the bottom 20-40% tend to vote Democratic, in most states (red or blue) at similar rates. Although there are still a substantial fraction who vote Republican.
Note this is entirely consistent with there being identifiable subpopulations of lower income folks who vote heavily Republican. However, for every such subpopulation in Kansas or South Carolina, there’s another such subpopulation in New York or Michigan. And these subpopulations are outnumbered by low income Democratic supporters in most states.
2. Top 20%-40% (whether you want to call them “rich” or “middle class”) in “blue states” tend to be split between the parties.
3. Top 20-40% in “red states” vote OVERWHELMINGLY Republican.
Hence one interpretation is relatively well off people in blue states feel conflicted between voting for lower taxes (Republican) or cultural issues (Democratic), while Red state upper income people feel no such conflict - voting Republican is a “no brainer” for them.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Those are 2004 factory-stock prices. Competitive snowmobile racers quickly rack up 100 grand worth of gear: sleds, helmets, body armor, jackets, tools, parts, a big trailer and a super-duty truck to haul it all around.
Hockey moms have no problem racking up $500 worth of gear: skates, sticks, helmet, shoulder pads, elbow pads, knee pads, shin guards, gloves and the biggest duffel bag you ever saw.
Hunters will tally up $500 in a hurry too: gun, bullets, blaze orange and/or camouflage suit, boots, gloves, knife, compass, maps, hip flask and beef jerky. Hunting is becoming a rich-woman’s pastime, falling victim to private property whose owners either hunt it for themselves, rent it out to rich expedition-adventure seekers, or set up a skeet shooting range with live targets, Cheney style.
September 5th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Todd Palin, who is not a college graduate, made $93,000 last year split between a job as an oil field roughneck and the family fishing business. He would have made more but he stepped down from an oilfield management job to a rank and file job to avoid conflict of interest charges in his wife’s dealings with oil companies. Alaska is a fairly expensive state, but housing in Wasilla is cheap. More importantly, the blue collar standard of living is high because of the low population relative to the amount of land and amount of natural resources. And, of course, it’s a long way from the Mexican border, so the supply of blue collar workers is low.
September 5th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Anyway, if you really want to understand the politics of red states and blue states, read the part in Gelman’s book on my theory of Affordable Family Formation. Or, better yet, read it here:
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/feb/11/00016/
September 5th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Very interesting argument…it also seems to track well with presidential elections in recent memory (with the possible exception of Carter/Reagan). Cultural division only gets traction during the prosperous times when more can afford to “consume their ideology”
September 5th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
After reading most of these postings, I question why there was not more comments/information about race. Growing up in a blue-color, small-town Kentucky family in the 50’s and 60’s, I campaigned for civil rights.
While KY was never as racist as The South, I now find when I visit my hometown (from CA) the same families ( non-college graduates) who were racist then are now avid Bush/McCain/Palen fans. Not as candid as they once were about race, they now talk about religion, abortion, family values, and the enemy (read: Muslim) as the reasons for their choice. Much to my surprise, jobs, with their increasing scarcity and falling wages are not part of the conversation. As one of the people on this site said, they think that their tax money goes to help people on welfare.
They also see themselves as attacked by our government. Many of their grown children who remained in the area are without health insurance, and yet they are against universal health insurance, as they are against the estate tax, and higher taxes for the wealthy even though the latter two will not affect them.
The few liberals I have found are in my mother’s age group (80-95) whose political choices were formed in the 30’s-60’s as well as educated newcomers and a few academicians. Moreover, the growing white evangelical movement has intimidated more moderate Christians limiting discussion.
September 5th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I imagine most people find it easier to understand a man who spends a lot of money snowmobiling than one who spends it on arugula.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I am not embarrassed by my “blue-state” California coast perspectives nor my arugula, NPR, and NYTimes consumption, but I am “red-faced” about my mistake in subject-verb agreement in the first line of my posting # 75.
September 6th, 2008 at 1:10 am
Someone should give Sara Palin a hard stiff sean hannity.
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