Compromise Has Died in the US Electorate

[beirnini]

beirnini

I wonder if you have read any of Thomas Sowell's quotes and comments regarding slavery and racism. 

I haven't. Is there some writing of his that is relevant to this thread that you recommend?

 

[beirnini]

The different identifiable segments of the whole voting population were sliced and diced after the election, and Hillary didn't hold Obama's fraction of several of the voting blocs, including blacks.  I accept it as established that Obama was at nearly all points during his administration more popular personally than the policies he favoured.  That evidence tends to deprecate racism as an explanation, and reinforce Hillary and her political positions as the source of her own demise.

You can go on cherry-picking the handful of studies that support your position.  They're a fart in a hurricane.  Your selected author isn't a righteous iconoclast disproving the conventional wisdom of political analysts on both sides of the aisle; he's angry and frustrated that his causes have at least suffered a four-year interruption of advancement and at worst an eight-year period of reversals and he situated his estimate.

Regardless, the idea that white racism propelled Trump into office could be proven or unproven and would still be irrelevant to the notions that compromise never really existed among conservatives, or that the blame for a dearth of compromise could be narrowly laid at any one pair of feet.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but in over 15 years of itinerant forum discussions I can't think of one instance where my mind was changed after endless lobbing of heated rhetoric, usually fallacy-riddled assertions, and poorly sourced and cited (at best) opinions. I've no reason to believe this time will be any different. On the rare occasion I was brought to reconsider anything it was after the presentation or dissection of particularly germane facts or data. Brushing away what is probably hundreds, if not thousands of hours of cited research as "farts in a hurricane" does little to convince me of anything (assuming that is your object) besides your ability to use language rather poetically.

*Edit: I'd like to think we can do better than American voters.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Until those people can explain from where "white-conscious" voters emerged if they were not already part of the Republican base - were they part of the Democrat base; had they sat out the past two elections and passed up a chance to vote against a black man and his decidedly not-white-favouring policies; are they traditionally part of the roughly 20% in the middle that decide presidential elections - then the mere discovery that they voted based on cultural affinity just tells us what common sense should already have told us.  Asserting they voted their interests in this election isn't very interesting if they have voted their interests for several consecutive elections.

The people who decided the election are the ones who switched from Democrat to Republican after voting Obama, or declined to participate after voting Democrat for Obama.  That is where the explanations must be sought.

Thousands of hours of research doesn't carry much weight in a field that has generated tens if not hundreds of thousands of hours of research and assessment.

 

[beirnini]

Asserting they voted their interests in this election isn't very interesting if they have voted their interests for several consecutive elections.

You're somehow drawing the wrong conclusion from this article as no such assertions are made. The studies pertaining to relative compensation for the general population and desegregated healthcare for Southern whites in particular demonstrate that voters regularly do not vote in their interests but rather their status to the detriment of their interests. In particular the healthcare and welfare net studies suggests "white-conscious" voters are greatly motivated by status over African Americans.

Thousands of hours of research doesn't carry much weight in a field that has generated tens if not hundreds of thousands of hours of research and assessment.

Re-iterating your opinion about farts and hurricanes doesn't make it any more convincing. At least one study that squarely contradicts the conclusions of the studies I've provided or a methodical dissection and refutation of the data, procedures or conclusions of at least one of the provided studies will go much farther to that end.

 

[Brad Sallows]

You missed the point.  I accept that the polls and whatnot demonstrate that some arbitrarily defined categories of white people are motivated by arbitrarily defined "white-consciousness" to vote for "white issues".  I'm looking for evidence that they suddenly became "white-conscious" recently - after the 2012 election.  If they were voting "white" all along (it's hardly plausible that they were Obama voters), then they were "base" voters, not "swing" voters, and they aren't to blame for the change in election fortunes between 2012 and 2016.  A tirade directed at their vote in 2016 with a view to blaming them for the outcome is not an explanation of how Hillary lost part of Obama's coalition.

The most probable explanation is still: Hillary is responsible for losing part of Obama's coalition.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I looked at the 2012 and 2016 Wikipedia articles about the respective US presidential elections.

In no particular order, here are some things that piqued my interest.  Where I compare, the 2012 number will be first as the former/earlier and 2016 as the latter/later.  Caveat: I'm not sure how directly comparable (or reliable) the demographic breakdown measures (polls) are.

Voter turnout up slightly, 54.1% to 55.4%.

Share of vote to Libertarians way up (0.99% to 3.27%) and to Greens up (0.36% to 1.06%).  Republican share down roughly 1.4% (47.32% to 45.93%), Democratic share down roughly 3.2% (51.19% to 48.02%).  Observation: those numbers say nothing about the EC distribution (efficiency) or exactly who moved where, but Hillary lost much more.  I suppose it could have been mostly Republicans who went Libertarian and Democrats who went Green, but that would imply a lot of Democrats went Republican.  The breakdown by Ideology (liberal, moderate, conservative) shows Trump more or less held the same numbers and Hillary slipped in all three groups to the benefit of third parties.  In particular, a lot of liberals and moderates were lost to third parties, for which "white consciousness" is not a likely explanation.

By Party, Trump lost among all 3 groups (Democrats, Republicans, Independents).  Hillary lost Democrats and Independents, and actually gained a bit among Republicans.  Observation: another measure which illustrates that a bleed to the benefit of third parties.

By Race/Ethnicity: Trump claimed a slightly lower fraction of whites (59% to 58%), higher fractions of blacks (6% to 8%), asians (26% to 29%), and hispanics (27% to 29%), and a lower fraction of others (38% to 37%).  Observation: a decreased share of whites and increased share among the primary non-white groups doesn't intuitively fit well with blaming "white consciousness".

From the results by state, the increased share in the Libertarian and Green vote would have been enough to flip FL (29), MI (16), PA (20), and WI (10), but not OH (18).  The first four sum to 75 EC votes - more than enough to have elected Hillary; she would have needed 39 so several lesser combinations would have sufficed.

So now I don't merely believe Hillary lost part of the Obama coalition; I also believe she lost most of that to tickets other than Trump/Pence.  It's still possible to believe that Trump got more votes by appealing to "white consciousness" than he otherwise might have, but the biggest finger seems to point at the people who pulled the lever for Libertarians and Greens, particularly in battleground states.

 

[beirnini]

[...]If they were voting "white" all along (it's hardly plausible that they were Obama voters), then they were "base" voters, not "swing" voters, and they aren't to blame for the change in election fortunes between 2012 and 2016.
[...]
The most probable explanation is still: Hillary is responsible for losing part of Obama's coalition.

My intention with referencing this article and the studies cited within is to present data that describes conservative voter motivation. This description is used to support the contention that compromise in the conservative electorate has long since died, assuming it ever existed in the first place. Several of these studies support the notion that most people are significantly motivated by status regardless the better interests they might impinge. Intuitively we know this is true by the prevalence of over-leveraging. Big mortgages and big car loans for the biggest, newest houses and cars to show off one's status (however sustainable) are everywhere. Maxed out credit cards on consumer goods are seemingly the norm, not the exception. Everyone is at least in part driven by status. "White-conscious" voters are driven even further by status relative to African Americans and other visible minorities (with a significant overlap of concern for male status over females, i.e. sexism).

I'm not particularly interested in how or why Hillary lost/Trump won, at least as it pertains to this thread.

 

[beirnini]

It would seem I've been warned probably about the use of "crypto-fascist" when referring to Trump. In the spirit of forum rules and at the risk of taking the thread on a tangent I submit for consideration Harvard political scientist Robert Paxton's definition of fascism from his book The Anatomy of Fascism;

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. (p. 218)

- Political behaviour marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline? Check. Humiliation? Check. Victimhood? Check.
- Compensatory cult? None definitively or formally, but his supporters have consistently exhibited mania for, devotion to, and excessive admiration towards him which add up to cult-ish behaviour. His go-to insult is weirdly "low-energy" as well.
- Mass-based party of committed nationalist militants? Not yet, but his implied support of the thugs in Charlottesville does not bode well.
- Collaborates uneasily but effectively with traditional elites? An apt description of his relationship with the GOP.
- Abandons democratic liberties? Only in the present climate could an American president say that "President-For-Life" a la Jinping is something that should be given a shot and it barely causes a ripple. His unqualified praise for autocrats (Putin, Jinping, KJU) and autocrat wannabe's (Erdogan, Duterte) is concerning to say the least as well.
- Redemptive violence? Internal cleansing? External expansion? No on all counts, but his attitude to immigrants and muslims is questionable.

That's far more than anyone should be comfortable with. Whether it's crypto-fascist, latent-fascist, or ur-fascist, there's something deeply wrong politically going on in that man.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I see both Obama and Trump being parties of 1. Each used their respective parties as jumping off platform, but it was really about them and not the party. I think many voters picked up on that and voted to show their frustration with their traditional party. Hillary and the DNC were to closely joined at the hip. Internal politics within each of the major parties is likely poisoning support for them. 

 

[Brad Sallows]

>compromise in the conservative electorate has long since died

But that's not what the linked article shows.  The linked article basically shows that some guy is angry that more white voters than he expected have recently discovered identity politics, and that they are not in the Democratic tent.  And that makes him one among many people who wrote articles after the 2016 election along the lines of "Hey, white people have become a group that votes along identity (cultural) lines.  No fair."  And since these particular white voters were just about the last group to start doing it (2016) compared to all the other identity/grievance factions, I suppose that you might be able to claim that compromise has died in the white-conscious sub-faction of the conservative electorate.  But they don't represent all conservatives, and it didn't happen "long since".

 

[Brad Sallows]

This is all off-topic, some of it unnecessary, but I lost tolerance for sloppy usages of "authoritarianism" and "fascism" long ago.  Ignore what follows if you have no interest definitions.

>definition of fascism

It's bilge.

From the Wikipedia article:

"In his 1998 paper "The Five Stages of Fascism," he suggests that fascism cannot be defined solely by its ideology, since fascism is a complex political phenomenon rather than a relatively coherent body of doctrine"

Bearing that in mind, consider stage 2 of his 5 stages:

"Rooting, where a fascist movement, aided by political deadlock and polarization, becomes a player on the national stage"

How does he know it's a fascist movement, if fascism can not be defined by ideology or doctrine?  Because he just knows it when he sees it?

He is also at odds with the guy who invented it (Mussolini).  Latter-day academics don't get to redefine it.  I get that latter-day political scientists mostly lean left, and that the left has been trying very hard to scrub its excesses and bad associations for a century or more, but it was always clear (to most of the earlier generations of scholars who lived through the period and its aftermath) that the "fascism is on the right" meme was a corruption of Stalin's attempt to move fascism out of communism's zone in what amounted to a turf war over the extreme left in the 1930s.

Those 5 stages are just a common-or-garden description that could apply to the ascension of many parties.

1. Intellectual exploration, where disillusionment with popular democracy manifests itself in discussions of [whatever]
2. Rooting, where [the party], aided by political deadlock and polarization, becomes a player on the national stage
3. Arrival to power, where [politicians] seeking to control rising [any] opposition invite the movement to share power
4. Exercise of power, where the movement and its charismatic leader control the state in balance with state institutions such as the police and traditional elites such as the clergy and business magnates.
5. Radicalization or entropy

As for these points:

- Political behaviour marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline / humiliation / victimhood? [Not a distinguishing feature.  Think of all the political and religious movements concerned with family/community; the notion of humiliation expressed by, say, Chinese leftists; the sense of victimhood expressed by all the leaders of crappy little dictatorships who require an external boogeyman to divert attention from their domestic incompetence and tyranny.]

- Compensatory cult? [Not a distinguishing feature.  Consider all the "Great Leader" images and iconography and statuary and leader-worship of the firmly left-identified movements of the past century.]

- Mass-based party of committed nationalist militants? [Not a distinguishing feature.  Shared with pretty much every extreme left-wing movement, irrespective of whether they paid lip service to the International.  The Russians, Chinese, Cambodians, Cubans, Venezuelans, etc, etc all had/have their enforcers out to purify the nation.]

- Collaborates uneasily but effectively with traditional elites? [Not a distinguishing feature, and not particularly accurate.  Some of the movements accused of being fascist in various countries around the world are decidedly not collaborating with the elites; many political movements not accused of being fascist collaborate "uneasily but effectively" on the path to power.]

- Abandons democratic liberties? [Not a distinguishing feature; describes virtually every totalitarian regime.]

- Redemptive violence? Internal cleansing? External expansion? [Not a distinguishing feature: repression of the kulaks, the gulag, the Great Leap Forward, Cambodian genocide, political imprisonments and executions under Communist and other totalitarian regimes, occupation of Tibet.]

Basically, that is just a shopping list of features of totalitarian regimes, most of which arise on the left.  It doesn't distinguish fascism.  The key distinction between communism and fascism is ownership: under communism, the state (notionally, at least) owns everything and controls everything; under fascism (corporatism), the state controls through established bodies the important parts of the economy while they remain in (notionally, at least) private hands.

 

[beirnini]

My first link to start this thread shows a "long-standing partisan gap over views of compromise [that] has disappeared", so when I say "long since" I merely refer to the this "long-standing" difference.

And since these particular white voters were just about the last group to start doing it (2016) compared to all the other identity/grievance factions, I suppose that you might be able to claim that compromise has died in the white-conscious sub-faction of the conservative electorate.

Your point about some guy recently discovering there is a bigger white-conscious sub-faction of the conservative electorate is undoubtedly true, because that guy is definitely me. The writer of the article however seams to have studied this for far longer and at a far greater depth than most. I don't get where or how you figure he's "angry". If I were to guess I would say that's a bit of projection. If anything the writer comes across as genuinely worried.

Beyond that I can't see how you can conclude that any particular set of "white voters were just about the last group to vote along cultural lines" with any of the data I've presented. None of the data I've presented suggests any dynamism in the motivations of the conservative voter that I can see. Of course you're more than welcome to make that case with this or any other data you might wish to provide.

 

[tomahawk6]

its the politicians that don't compromise because if you have the power they wont.

 

[Brad Sallows]

"This description is used to support the contention that compromise in the conservative electorate has long since died"

In that statement, "compromise in the conservative electorate" (one thing, not two things or a measure of the relative distance between them) is what has "long since died".  (Break it down: compromise...has...died.)  But the shift among white-conscious voters is novel (2016) according to its accusers.  It is neither "long since", nor has it anything to do with a gap (there is no "gap" between a single item and itself).

"I made this [piece] because I am sick of the bullshit excuses for voting for Trump as well as the attempts to obfuscate what happened in 2016." 

That tone conveys anger, not worry.

"So we can see that compromise has died in the American independent and left-leaning voters, but why has never really existed in "conservatives"?"

I can't make sense out of the second clause.  Was it supposed to be "compromise has never really existed among conservatives", or something else?

There's a methodological problem with the Pew survey, shared with many surveys, that hinges on questions and who answers them honestly.

I have a thought experiment that goes something like this: suppose conservatives tend to hold a larger share of the people whose education never went past high school; progressives tend to hold a larger share of those who went beyond high school.  The latter, by experience and necessity, will tend to be better test takers.

Ask a potentially embarrassing question like "Are insults fair game?"  Who is more likely to know the politically correct answer; who is more likely to write to pass the test rather than to admit - even to themselves - having outmoded wrong thoughts?  [In case it's not clear: I believe the lower-educated people are more likely to shoot straight and give an honest answer about their opinions.]

Based on what Democrats and progressives in general are saying is acceptable behaviour toward anyone involved with Trump's administration or even supporting Trump, I don't believe that the number of Democrats who admit to "wrong thoughts" [in surveys] about partisanship and civility is anywhere near as high as [in reality].  And based on how things were during the Bush administration, I don't think it was the case then, either (it's not a recent shift).  People who cheer for F-bombs and c*ck-holster comments are not high-minded.

 

[Journeyman]

[In case it's not clear: I believe the lower-educated people are more likely to shoot straight and give an honest answer about their opinions.]

This relates, somewhat, to my recurring hobby-horse of opinions versus informed  opinions.  Much like your displeasure with sloppy usages of "authoritarianism" and "fascism," I have heartache with people who assume that "educated" and "intelligent" are synonyms;  many educated people are dumber than dirt, while many very smart people don't have a school paper to frame.

 

[beirnini]

IBut the shift among white-conscious voters is novel (2016) according to its accusers.

Again, according to who? What "accuser" data or survey or study are you referencing that suggests this novelty? Because I'm failing to see where in the article I provide this is suggested. I'm missing it (or if you have data of your own) please point it out.

"I made this [piece] because I am sick of the bullshit excuses for voting for Trump as well as the attempts to obfuscate what happened in 2016."

That tone conveys anger, not worry.

I suppose it comes down to whether one sympathizes or not with the writer.  Anyone who is similarly concerned with the prospect of "those who don't learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them" then that quote is definitely frustrated concern. But if one finds Trump's election not at all concerning then I can see how that quote comes across as anger. <shrug>

Was it supposed to be "compromise has never really existed among conservatives?

More like, "why has compromise historically been relatively lower in value among conservatives compared to left-leaners and independents". But since I titled the thread "Compromise Has Died" I thought I should keep it consistent. It's a distinction without much of a difference, at least as far compromise itself is concerned.

Regarding your thought experiment I would need at least one clear example (preferably taken directly from at least one of the studies I've provided but really anything similarly peer-reviewed will do) to see your point: "Political Correctness" and "outmoded" are both far too loaded and too vague to rest any convincing claims on.

Beyond that rigorous polls are anonymous, designed to avoid gaming and extract genuine responses from participants of all demographic backgrounds. If lower-educated participants are as honest and straight as you claim then all the better, although I object to your implication about higher-educated participants. Regardless nobody wants to spend the considerable time and energy on a study and realize after peer-review that all one's data is garbage because of such an oversight.

Accordingly I have my doubts that peer-reviewed studies in general suffer from the kind of general weakness in polling you describe, but any studies or data that demonstrates that this is a genuinely recurring problem is welcome.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>I have heartache with people who assume that "educated" and "intelligent" are synonyms;  many educated people are dumber than dirt, while many very smart people don't have a school paper to frame.

Correct; but - and maybe it's a subtle difference - my point is how a person is likely to answer based on their accumulated expertise taking tests.

 

[Brad Sallows]

"why has compromise historically been relatively lower in value among conservatives compared to left-leaners and independents"

That's qualitatively different than "compromise has never really existed".  A conservative could easily value the abstract idea of "compromise" less than a non-conservative, simply by having a longer list of principles he excludes from compromise.  It doesn't mean he won't compromise to reach a deal on anything else.

Example: on the related issues of amnesty (for illegal aliens) and border control, conservatives and progressives have complementary preferences.  Conservatives have repeatedly expressed willingness to concede amnesty for improved border control.  Progressives are the ones unwilling to compromise (improved border controls for amnesty).

Example: the US First Amendment is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  With respect to that statement, conservatives are uncompromising.  In their view, there is nothing worth trading any of it away.

This just brings me back to my first post in this thread.  Compromise isn't dead; it just appears that way because the people seeking change want it rapidly and want large returns on small concessions.

 

[beirnini]

Yes, conservatives could have a longer list of principles then independents and left-leaners. They could also have a shorter list. We don't have anything but opinions to support either position. What we do have is a presumably rigorous poll/polls and analysis indicating the relative value of compromise between all three groups. If number of principles is a potentially confounding variable I would expect that it's accounted for in the appropriate manner.

Compromise isn't dead; it just appears that way because the people seeking change want it rapidly and want large returns on small concessions.

Seeking substantial change through small concessions is the definition of uncompromising. As indicated by Pew all identifiable groups of the electorate now value compromise equally poorly, which is to say they're all equally uncompromising, which is to say they're all essentially "seeking change, want it rapidly and want large returns on small concessions." Semantics aside, how can one conclude anything other than that compromise has all but "died in the electorate"?

The question I've tried to raise is that while the sudden and dramatic change in independents and left-leaners is readily explainable the consistency in conservatives is not. Sorry to say but I've yet to be dissuaded by anything more persuasive then what I've submitted for consideration.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>The question I've tried to raise is that while the sudden and dramatic change in independents and left-leaners is readily explainable the consistency in conservatives is not.

But it is.  In the US, the constitution and structure of government (how it is chosen, how it functions) favours the conservative position - or, more accurately, conservatives are those who favour the constitution etc (which is why they are deemed conservative).  And they hold a positional advantage: many of the provisions they favour are unambiguously stated (uncompromising) (eg. Bill of Rights), and the structure of government is designed to thwart significant change without broad support.  They already have most of what they want, and they continue to have it by simply refusing to compromise - to trade any of it away.

Conversely, some of the things progressives wish to achieve are unconstitutional, and require amendments.

We should expect progressives to favour "compromise" as an abstract value more than conservatives.  Nevertheless, I observe that once progressives think they have secured a position they desire, they become rigidly uncompromising and start applying matching terminology: the debate is over, the science is settled, the issue is settled, etc.