By Clive Crook
Even many Republicans agree that
they lost the battle over the shutdown and the debt ceiling. The
Tea Party walked the country to the edge of economic ruin and
their party to the edge of political catastrophe until
Republican leaders in Congress flinched. Maneuvering themselves
into that defeat was an act of insane recklessness by
Republicans and a political gaffe of the first order. Perhaps
they’ll do it again in a few months.
Democrats, though, have little to celebrate -- and I’m not
talking about the shambolic rollout of the health-insurance
exchanges. Republicans saw their approval numbers sink with the
debt-ceiling standoff, but not nearly as badly as you might have
guessed. This should be making Democrats think.
Opinion polls put them between five and 10 percentage
points ahead of the Republicans, about where they were in the
first few months of the year. President Barack Obama has a net
disapproval rating of between five and 10 points. At the start
of the year, he had a net approval rating of more than 10
points. The balance flipped to negative in the summer, and the
debt-ceiling fight didn’t flip it back.
These poll numbers hardly let the Tea Party off the hook.
If you ask me, the politicians who designed the strategy of
threatening to default and the others who went along with it
have shown themselves unfit to hold public office. Yet
Republican leaders bowed in the end to what they saw as the
prospect of certain defeat, not to an actual landslide of
support for the Democrats and the president.
Mild Backlash
Why has the anti-Republican backlash, such as it is, been
so mild? Here’s an obvious yet strangely neglected answer: Much
of the electorate, while deploring the Tea Party’s nihilistic
tactics, thinks the movement has a point.
News flash: Most Americans don’t share the Democratic
Party’s instinctive devotion to higher taxes and a bigger
federal government. An enraged and unhinged minority of voters
apparently wants to see the liberal agenda attacked by any means
necessary, even if it means paralyzing the government and
wrecking the economy. But a far wider segment wants to see the
progressive program at least questioned and held in check -- and
who will do that, if not the Republican Party?
The answer to that question could have been and should have
been the president. Many Democrats criticize Obama for being too
centrist and accommodating, but this is a false reading. True,
Obama has often given ground under pressure, which has made him
look weak. But when has he ever led the country to a workable
compromise, rather than being led there? He’s always the
reluctant centrist, never the centrist by conviction.
Think of health-care reform. The White House outsourced
this enormous project (whose goals, by the way, I’m all for) to
a Democratic Congress guided by the principle that “elections
have consequences” -- meaning, never mind the other side’s
objections and the idea that a reform of this scope should have
bipartisan support. Republicans did push back and Obama did make
concessions, but the president was never in charge and never
wanted to be.
Or think of fiscal policy. What has Obama done to advance
the discussion that the country still needs on tax and
entitlement reform? He appointed a presidential commission to
advise on the issues and then, in effect, disowned it. All one
can really say about the president’s fiscal preferences is that
he thinks higher taxes on the rich and higher public spending
are, other things equal, good ideas. Obama doesn’t stand for
fiscal discipline; he has fiscal discipline thrust upon him.
Geographic Divisions
Or think of states’ rights. This is a politically divided
country, with big divisions running along geographical lines. An
arrangement that circumscribes the federal government’s role,
leaving as much as feasible to be decided by states -- an
arrangement like the one envisaged in the Constitution -- has
much to be said for it. Obama could speak up for that idea, but
doesn’t. He could acknowledge, and perhaps even believe, that
the burden of proof lies with those who propose expanding
federal powers, but doesn’t. It’s worse than that: You cannot
say “states’ rights” to many Democrats without being accused
of racism.
There’s another theory to account for the mildness of the
backlash against the Republicans’ irresponsibility -- and this
rival explanation, much favored by their critics, is actually a
big part of the Democrats’ problem. It’s the idea that voters
are just so stupid. One of the things that strikes me as a
foreigner living in the U.S. is that American metropolitan
liberals despise every kind of bigotry, except the kind directed
at the dumb hicks who inhabit the middle of the country. I mean,
those people vote Republican!
Trust me, the kind of naked class prejudice that is no
longer acceptable in polite U.K. society is rife in Washington
and other redoubts of American liberal condescension -- and the
flyover people know it. Nobody likes to be talked down to,
Americans least of all. If Democrats could bring themselves to
respect the people they say they want to help, the Republican
Party would be in deep trouble. On this, the Tea Party has no
cause for concern.
Who’s stupid? The electorate for thinking it needs reckless
irresponsible Republicans to keep Obama and the Democrats in
check? Or Democrats, for proving at every opportunity that that
view is correct?
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