Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Friday, June 15, 2018

The Fulcrum Of American Democracy

Martin Longman advances a really, really interesting theory.  Basically, he posits that there is about 15-20% of the population who clothe their ignorance in sophisticated disdain for "both sides."  These are the "swing voters" who moved from Obama to Trump.  They routinely move from one party to the other, based on who is in power at any given moment.  They are not making a decision based on policy or ideology, but rather they simply want to throw the bums out, and "the bums" is a moving target depending on who controls the White House.  I suppose you can't count on them 100%, but the constant drumbeat of negative news about Trump is likely to have an impact on these people.

One of the leading insights I've been gaining since 2016 is the idea that everything we think about voting is wrong.  This is what the Sandernistas don't get.  They think that offering some magic policy prescription will somehow flip the script. 

Voters - especially the ones who haven't made up their minds yet - don't give a shit about policy.  A few do, sure.  Most simply vote their tribe.  About 35-40% belong to each of the Red and Blue tribes, leaving the remaining 20% to fluctuate by moving against whatever the prevailing winds are.  Ironically, I would argue that in these polarized times, what we need is a stronger sense of what each party stands for, but unless this 20% decides to pay attention to what the people in government actually do, it's probably useless.  Political junkies naturally miss these people, because they vote, but they do so for reasons that make zero sense to people who are constantly checking their phones for the latest updates. 

This group should swing for the Democrats in November and could deliver one or both Houses of Congress.  But they will swing back again in 2022, because they are morons.

No comments: