A Guide for the Perplexed
- For libertarians, this is the national-security-state election.
- For liberals, this is the health-care election.
ADDENDUM: In the bullet points, I’m not saying liberals don’t care about the national-security state issues. The great thing about “The Netroots” is that they are the first vibrant antiwar and pro-civil liberties movement in either major party since the 1970s. (I say just this in my review of Yglesias’ book, which may at some point see the light of day.) I’m talking about priorities here. An Obama administration that implements some version of universal insurance coverage counts as a landmark achievement to progressives even if it leaves the structure of the Unitary Executive in place.
ADDENDUMBER: At least prior to FISA, Rasmussen-defined libertarians strongly supported Obama. They only make up three percent of the electorate, mind you. Interestingly, only 3% of “libertarians” would, per Rasmussen, “vote for some other candidate.” 5% were undecided.
Rasmussen-libertarians are by definition “economically conservative.” Since whatever else Barack Obama is, he’s not that, it’s clear that, at least for this cycle, Ras-Ls have prioritized their social concerns over their economic beliefs. This is pretty remarkable for a movement that is fundamentally about hating black people, homosexuals, liberals, and the poor.
(There’s another 15% of the electorate that is “fiscally moderate and socially liberal.” These voters are disproportionately women (59%), and “socially liberal” here probably translates primarily as “pro-choice.” But the segment likely contains some soft libertarian types – even the dreaded “left-libertarians”(!).)
For all I know, the Ras-L support for Obama will hold up through the FISA mess. If his lead erodes, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the voters go to Undecided or Other (Barr) rather than McCain.
ADDENDUMBEST: Netroots types will continue to try to “elect more and better Democrats,” by which among other things they mean Democrats who support civil liberties and oppose promiscuous wars, and bless them for it. But implementing progressive economic policies in the meantime is a win.
I understand the calculation, but I think it’s wrong. What the moment required was the wholesale repudiation of Banana Republicanism. (The moment was 2006 to this election cycle.) Because the GOP itself will regain power. If it regains power while the same lovely Unitary-Executive tools are lying around, things will be even worse next time. The only way to stop that would have been to destroy the structure of the Bush-era GWOT apparatus and its precepts root and branch – to visit political, professional and legal consequences on its architects.
The Democratic-Party power structure has actively avoided inflicting legal consequences on the architects of torture, unbridled surveillance and aggressive war. The Serious People have avoided inflicting professional consequences on the malefactors too, since the Serious People are themselves malefactors. That left the hope of political consequences. But political consequences only exist if the offending party loses on the offending issue. So when Democrats cave on FISA, accept the Republican narrative that funding withdrawal rather than war is somehow stranding the troops, pass the military commissions act, and support jingoistic resolutions on Iran and Syria, they make it harder to interpret any Republican defeat as a political consequence of GWOT-era Bushism. (If Yglesias’s thesis is correct, they also make it harder to win, but leave that aside.)
And it’s possible Dems are fooling themselves about priorities. Because Banana Republicanism can be turned directly against them. This is exactly what the US Attorneys scandal was about, after all. It’s harder to implement progressive economic policies from jail, or when concerned people can drop by with long transcripts of phone conversations you’d rather not see in print. And those wars? Expensive.
But I would say all that.
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
July 12, 2008 @ 1:14 am
For libertarians, this is the national-security-state election.
Same with me. Healthcare isn’t an issue I’ve considered important to the election (largely because I don’t think anything significant will happen). I think this is where we disagree:
But political consequences only exist if the offending party loses on the offending issue.
Sometimes there are political consequences just because the underlying facts change. Republicans across the NE lost because the party no longer fit the NE across of a range of issues. I think it’s a mistake to say that it was a function one gigantic mistake–Iraq–for which the politicians were punished. Lincoln Chafee didn’t lose because he voted against the invasion. He lost because he was a Republican.
Comment by Frank —
July 12, 2008 @ 1:33 am
I think that the basic problem here is in the perspective of the Democratic leadership. They can’t get away with what the Republican leadership can do, but what the Republicans can get away with describes the limits of the possible for the Dems.
Letting the Republicans get away with shit, increases their own potential power.
The good ones are still willing to do the right thing, but obviously they are in the minority.
I’m not disappointed, since I never expected to get my privacy back. I just tell people to vote for Democrats to avoid losing more rights. My guess would be that freedom of the press and assembly will be the next to go when Republicans get back in power.
Comment by Katherine —
July 12, 2008 @ 1:46 am
Well, the thing is, I pretty much agree with you. I chose my primary candidate prioritizing national security state issues over health care issues, though obviously that’s not working out like I hoped. My involvement in the campaign is going to be mainly be writing position papers which probably won’t be listened to on the need to inflict consequences on the architects of torture, unbridled surveillance and aggressive war. And failing that, to at least open the files & let the truth out & try to turn public opinion decisvely against the whole mess to reduce the likelihood that the next GOP administration takes us further down the road to ruin. But yes, not getting this & getting a progressive economic agenda is much better than getting neither. And court appointees that are less likely to throw all my & my allies’ cases out, some chance of prosecutions for Nisoor Square, and a temporary respite from torture & starting new aggressive wars are not much, but not nothing.
I think Tim’s right as far as not being able to isolate the reasons the GOP loses, too. A loss in November is probably not going to function as a repudiation of the unitary executive, torture etc. but it’s at least not implicitly ENDORSING those policies by voting their architects back into power. Bush didn’t run on torture in 2004, but shall I quote you John Yoo’s statement about how “the issue is over” because the public took the GOP’s side?
And a GOP loss in 2008 would certainly function partly as a rejection of the Iraq war.
Comment by Avram —
July 12, 2008 @ 2:23 am
This is pretty remarkable for a movement that is fundamentally about hating black people, homosexuals, liberals, and the poor.
We don’t actually know how much the Rasmussin social-liberals/economic-conservatives overlap with the membership of the Libertarian Party.
Comment by b-psycho —
July 12, 2008 @ 2:24 am
No surprise there, sadly. The one distinguishing trait of the average politically active person is that, if pressed to choose, they’d much rather be “safe” than free.
I don’t know whether it’s due to sheer ignorance, genuinely not caring about it, or if concern about civil liberties is simply interpreted as so dorkish that the slightest whiff of philosophical argument gets the internal “LALALALALA I’m not listening!!” reaction. As a human being knowing that everyone has their preferences, I don’t expect everyone to engage in those type of dialogs. Yet, to be honest, that doesn’t stop me from feeling that a society that can’t maintain majority support for basic rights deserves to fucking die off.
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July 12, 2008 @ 5:24 am
Obama wants to expand Bush’s faith-based effort…
Taking a page from President Bush, Democrat Barack Obama said today he wants to expand White House e…
Comment by Hal —
July 12, 2008 @ 5:28 am
First, what Avram said in comment 4. It may be shorthand for you, but your assertion that this is 1-1 libertarian seems statistically unsupported.
But in any event, the issue is that people face “prisoner’s dilemmas” all the frickin’ time. They make shitty choices that aren’t what they want because of the way the rules of the game are set up, and the “rational” action actually forces them into that shitty decision. See Tom Slee’s No One Makes You Shop At WallMart for a zillion examples and discussion.
Jim is making a huge broad brush assertion of people’s revealed preference because they don’t react the way he wants them to – the way he believes that they should if they really, really, REALLY meant what they said about civil liberties.
As b-psycho points out in comment 5, there’s a bit more to the decision making than what Jim would lead us to believe here. For a lot of people, having health care is a serious issue – probably so serious that their kids are dying or malnourished or they’re just about broke because of the bills they have for whatever just went wrong in their life.
And if it isn’t health care, it’s the fact that the economy is in the crapper, they’re losing their house because of a stupid loan they got themselves into. Or it’s because they just went bankrupt because of health care bills for grandma and they’re losing their house because of that.
The FISA vote doesn’t even register with these people and any savvy politician knows it.
Trivializing other people’s priorities because yours is the most important ever is pretty common for humans – it’s how we operate. But I was hoping for a bit more maturity about the realities of the political process and understanding of how pathetically little the issues of civil liberties really mean to probably 99.9% of the American voting population.
But what the hey… Painting with a broad brush is what blogging is all about. It’s all comic book level drama and there’s never enough room in the margin to write down that elegant proof we have so we condense our arguments.
Still, Jim. I suppose we should expect one to be telling every democrat what they think and how completely f’d up they all are because they haven’t made the choices that you have the luxury of making.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
July 12, 2008 @ 6:46 am
Jim, I couldn’t agree more. We can be as certain as we ever are of anything in the external world that if the Democrats win, the Republicans will do everything they can both to sabotage Democratic initiatives and to protect their own, and that as soon as they return to power, the Republican machine will pick up with the state of things now as a starting point. I can’t imagine what fresh atrocities they’ll come up, but they can, and they’ll keep pushing and pushing until they’re stopped.
I find the widespread Democratic conviction that anything so simple as an electoral victory will break the back of the beast to be profoundly foolish and vigorously counter-factual. And since repudiating Banana Republicanism would require the kind of purge I think is necessary, naturally I think it’s a good idea for that reason as well as being the moral thing to do in itself.
Comment by jkc —
July 12, 2008 @ 8:28 am
Unless something starts a’changin’–and soon!–this is going to become the omigodwhatthefukiswrongwithcapitalism? election.
Comment by Nell —
July 12, 2008 @ 9:12 am
Hal takes the Bernard Chazelle role in a discussion of the same issues that happened at A Tiny Revolution (left-liberal). Jonathan Schwarz, blog owner, makes the positive case for activists prioritizing health care in comments.
Comment by Jim Henley —
July 12, 2008 @ 9:42 am
Jim: “I understand the calculation, but I think it’s wrong.”
Hal: You’re telling every Democrat “how completely f’d up they all are!”
Comment by Nell —
July 12, 2008 @ 9:53 am
Part of what makes me so angry and disgusted is that the choice is a false one. It would have cost the Democrats almost nothing politically to fight an expansion of spying powers. For that reason, I’m sure there’s more to the leadership collaboration than political calculation.
Hal’s right about where this sits in the broader public’s priorities, but that’s the same reason that would have made sticking to the Fourth Amendment relatively easy.
Comment by Jim Henley —
July 12, 2008 @ 10:03 am
Exactly. The very advent of the new bill came out of nowhere. After the Dems successfully killed telecom immunity back in the Spring, the issue retained precisely zero media buzz. Lack of telecom immunity was costing the Dems generally and Obama specifically zero political hardship. As Thoreau put it downblog, all they had to do on the issue was nothing.
And yet, Pelosi and Reid and Hoyer went out of their way to bring a Bush-friendly bill forth, and Obama took neither quiet nor noisy steps to stop them. After previously promising to do the maximum to oppose such a bill (filibuster at minimum).
Comment by Jim Henley —
July 12, 2008 @ 10:03 am
@Avram: It was still a stupid fucking generalization on Patrick’s part, regardless.
Comment by KCinDC —
July 12, 2008 @ 10:05 am
Isn’t the fact that only 3% plan to vote for a third-party candidate a good indication that the overlap is tiny?
Comment by jkc —
July 12, 2008 @ 10:28 am
@Jim @ 13:
This points back to the first sign we had that Pelosi is a very bad politician.
When she became Speaker in 2006 one of the first things she signaled was that impeachment was “off the table.” This is an example of what our Commander-in-President calls negotiating against yourself. It’s a really, really, really, REALLY(!) stupid thing to do. Presumably, Pelosi was frightened that impeachment proceedings would make her Democratic majority as unpopular as the ’90s post-impeachment Republican majority. But, in actuality, Pelosi made a huge concession to the Right–guaranteeing them the security of a full term–and got precisely nothing in return. In fact, she most likely garnered negative returns as the GOP knew it had a perfectly free hand.
Oh, and about that Congressional popularity? Last I checked, it’s at 9%.
Comment by Katherine —
July 12, 2008 @ 11:22 am
Yes, that’s the other thing: some of the key steps that I am hoping for from President Obama are actually much *easier* than getting a health care bill past a GOP filibuster, precisely because the executive is in charge of prosecution & declassification. No peeling off Republican Congressman needed, & you can delegate the controversial decisions to someone politically insulated.
Comment by Katherine —
July 12, 2008 @ 11:29 am
OTOH: what makes me somewhat more reconciled to the fact that health care is prioritized is that politics really are about coalitions, & democratic politics really are supposed to reflect the voters’ will, and a lot more voters in the democratic coalition genuinely care a lot more about health care & economic issues than all this rule-of-law stuff. That’s totally understandable to me; if I didn’t have health care, I probably would too. But, while coalition politics demands that members of the coalition sometimes taking a back seat, you can’t blow them off entirely for seven years & expect people not to get mutinous.
Comment by b-psycho —
July 12, 2008 @ 11:46 am
They need to start asking a reason WHY in those approval polls, so there’s a clear result instead of the numbers being contextless talking points.
For example:
1: do you approve or disapprove of how congress is doing?
2 (asked to whichever group is in the majority on question 1): what would you say is your main reason for that view?
As much as I wish the average view was that congress sucks because they’re letting a lame duck president that everyone hates already get away with criminal acts, that’s one of the rare views I think Glenn Greenwald is off on. My suspicion is that for every 1 person whose genuine do-not-cross issue is civil liberties, there are 9 casual populists, 4 of them being immigration restrictionists who think the US has too many Mexicans (they’re all Mexicans to them…) & the other 5 being people who generally assume the US economy is currently Lasseizfaireville — and, by implication, needs another New Deal — but can’t be bothered to consider whether it actually is or ponder specifics of the intervention they think is necessary. Politics-wise, the latter group has internalized the vague Keynesian view they were told in school and little else, and the passage of time give or take whatever drugs were their choice then even watered THAT down, to where all it consists of is saying “why won’t these politicians DO SOMETHING!” when the latest economic clusterfuck story comes out, and then changing the channel.
People can disagree, and will. What I can’t stand is people not knowing why they disagree. If someone can’t explain why they take a position on an important issue, I’d rather they STFU until they can.
Comment by Hal —
July 12, 2008 @ 11:58 am
Jim: “I understand the calculation, but I think it’s wrong.â€
Hal: You’re telling every Democrat “how completely f’d up they all are!â€
Geebus. And you fancy yourself a writer?
Okay, look at your first bit – it’s all about health care for the liberals. You’re select quote you pulled in your defense is about?
See? Absolutely nothing about health care at all! So you manage to – yet again – completely dismiss a point because you misread or misunderstand an argument.
TaDa!
Comment by Thomas L. Knapp —
July 12, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
Hrrmm, no visible trackback link, so here.
Pull quote:
“The Democrats have effectively turned ‘national security’ into a political Möbius strip.”
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
July 12, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
And you fancy yourself a writer?
Really? That’s the ground you–You’re select quote you pulled in your defense is about?–want to fight on?
Comment by matthew hogan —
July 12, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
One has to look at the calculus of the FISA thing which was based on gambling. If the Repubs vote for it, well no loss, as that’s what they are expected to do. If Dems vote against, it, maybe ok but as it only pleases us liberty and progressive types, and no net voters added, just the already pro-Obama constituency energized. No net gain.
ON THE OTHER HAND,if the Dems ie Obama voted against it AND there is a serious terror attack on US soil between now and the election (no conspiracy required, just a fair probability to factor in reasonably) the GOP will have a field day saying there was a smoking phone conversation but Verizon was afraid to turn it over because Obama stopped the immunity. And Obama is dead meat.
Meanwhile only us liberty types are annoyed, a small group with nowhere else to go and most of those, the progressives, will vote Obama anyway, for reasons of Santa Claus Health Care, racial progress, and anybody against McCain, and Barr is way off their radar.
It’s safer to let it pass, they calculate. On teh conscience side they feel it can always be modified later.
Comment by matthew hogan —
July 12, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
Oops, the “Obama is dead meat” belongs after the “obama stopped the immunity” phrase in my hasty comment entry above, not at the end.
Comment by b-psycho —
July 12, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
About the Rasmussen poll itself: At first I was surprised that conservatives made up the largest group. Then I remembered that “liberal” has been so thoroughly demonized that only the strongest of liberals will describe themselves as such. That, plus the preemptive post-mortems by many on the Right amounting to Bush Wasn’t Conservative Enough, likely means you can automatically discount a chunk of theese supposed staunch conservatives as people who don’t know what the term really means.
As for Rasmussen-defined libertarian 3rd party support: the popular view that some supporting a 3rd party is what got us two terms of Bush, plus the image of the Libertarian Party as being a bunch of kooks. Add in the lack of attention when the rare Libertarian non-kook comes along, the necessary fuzziness of their definition (this isn’t just Rasmussen’s quirk: I remember a different poll awhile back where a majority of the self-described libertarians somehow supported nationalized health insurance…) and — due to Barr — the latest view that the LP amounts to a political homeless shelter for disgruntled conservatives, and you have the overwhelming majority of Rasmussen-defined libertarians deciding it’s either McCain or Obama.
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
July 12, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
For libertarians, this is the national-security-state election.
A sort of a late nota bene comment on the above. If you look at the set of libertarians in ‘02 or the set of libertarians in ‘08 , you’ll see, I suspect, that a number of them voted GWB in ‘04. This despite the fact that a fair bit of the evidence that there was a national-security-state problem was in evidence by ‘04. My recollection is that Brink Lindsay of Cato noted the theoretical problem and then dismissed on Cornynian grounds, thus justifying his support for GWB.
Which, it seems to me, makes it fair to say the following. It may well be true that liberals, generally, rank healthcare reform above civil liberties. (I’m not sure even about that.) It’s not at all clear that liberals value civil liberties less than libertarians, as a class, do; what evidence there is that I’m aware of would seem to suggest the reverse.
Comment by Thoreau —
July 12, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
I’m as pissed with a lot of libertarians as I am with the leading Congressional Democrats. You (who are sometimes called Tim) are right to observe how many libertarians are fans of the security state. We libertarians need our own housecleaning, just as Democrats need theirs.
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
July 12, 2008 @ 3:47 pm
Thoreau:
I don’t doubt the difference between yourself and various security state libertarians (or former security state libertarians; Lindsay has explicitly seen the error of his ways, I think). The concern for civil liberties is the reason I started reading the blog.
But, insofar as you don’t spend your time purging and bloodletting in the libertarian set–whether out of distaste for such a project, or because you reasonably hope your friends will see the error of their ways shortly–perhaps you can understand why some Democrats are willing to give Dem politicians, like Obama, more leeway than you might yourself have given those politicians.
Comment by Jim Henley —
July 12, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
Tim, when I say “For libertarians,” I’m specifically referring to the ones already in what passes for any “liberaltarian” movement.
Purging and bloodletting the libertarian set probably has to be done by people with standing in that set in arenas where the purgees can be found. I doubt I count as the former these days and this blog surely does not count as the latter.
Thoreau, for his part, has been purging and bloodletting for years in places where it can be done, mostly on reason’s blog. He and Mona and Jennifer first came to my attention in that place for that activity.
As to your last sentence, sure. I understand completely. I suspect Thoreau does too, though I wouldn’t wnat to put words in his mouth.
Comment by Frank —
July 12, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
I don’t think it makes any sense to give powerful Democrats more leeway. And while I understand the urge to look for good intentions, but I don’t think there are any here.
It would be nice if Dems gave us a positive reason to vote for them, but they don’t. Here is a negative reason: Even if they were more evil than Republicans their lack of party discipline combined with effective opposition from Republicans means they get less evil done when in office. Full Stop.
Comment by Thoreau —
July 13, 2008 @ 1:42 am
Indeed, I recently got into some pretty nasty shit on another forum where some libertarians hang out. There seems to be this agreement in libertarianland that we should treat the war and torture and all that as something “debatable” and shake hands and say “Well, thank you for a spirited debate on complicated matters.” No, some stuff really is simple.
I hate this absolutist stance. I really do. But as much as I hate it, I cannot stand the game any longer. The objectively-pro-Stasi faction takes advantage of our best instincts, insisting that they be treated as Serious People. No, they’re the equivalent of those dumbass college kids who rave about awesome Cuba is. (Yes, they exist. Or at least they existed a few years ago when I was in grad school. I don’t notice them where I teach now, but it’s a commuter school so we don’t have a big campus activism culture.)
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
July 13, 2008 @ 2:53 am
I know what you mean about not liking the absolutist stance, Thoreau. But I’m in the same position. I mean, by and large people don’t die if the marginal tax rate is X rather than Y, and even when there’s real harm emerging from one choice over another, most of our (or at least my) disagreements can reasonably assume that nobody wishes harm to anyone except genuine bad-doers and even then constrained by law, decency, and sense.
But when it comes to the continuing champions of our country’s policies on war and torture…they’re deliberately approving the suffering and death of innocent people, routinely, not as an accident but as a goal. That’s evil shit and I can’t pretend I respect like I do a disagreement over water use regulation.
Comment by joe —
July 13, 2008 @ 9:55 am
For liberals, this is the anti-war election.
Comment by Noumenon —
July 13, 2008 @ 11:53 am
* For libertarians, this is the national-security-state election.
* For liberals, this is the health-care election.
To see the difference, look at this inside-the-Beltway defense of the vote from the Post Politics Hour:
That’s what the Democrats regard as “accomplishments.” Passing a bunch of money out to potential voters and “helping people.” Maintaining the rule of law and any limitations on the power of the executive branch? Hey, that sounds like a good bargaining chip!
Comment by Eric the .5b —
July 13, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
I dunno, depends on the coalition member. Gay rights folks still support the Blues after the last 15 years or so of clear disinterest by the party. Naturally, the Blues just keep saying, “What, you want the Reds in charge?” to keep them in line.
And to be honest, some of the Red-leaning self-described libertarians are still, in 2008, talking about how McCain is better economically and it isn’t all *cough* single-issue civil liberties stuff.
It’s better not to repeat history in a Blue tone. In fact, I think it’s important to set out a clear point:
If “liberaltarianism” or “fusion” exists, it’s not an alliance of Bluish folks and libertarians. It’s an alliance of the liberals and libertarians who actually consider civil liberties vital.
That’s a small subset of the former and a rather larger subset of the latter. Bluish folk just into power for their team and “but Obama’s so leftist!” crypto-Reds need not apply.
Now, I honestly don’t know whether “it” exists beyond the fact that both sets of people will end up supporting similar things and opposing anti-liberty actions. I really suspect that the binding up of interests among most bluish folks who view civil liberties as narrow “single issue” and “special interest” stuff means that there’s no cooperation to be had beyond those sets of people.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
July 13, 2008 @ 8:05 pm
Very well put, Eric, and I agree a lot.
Comment by ChrisWWW —
July 14, 2008 @ 11:29 am
Good luck getting Ralph Nader or Bob Barr in the White House