“The Old Rules Are Out The Window”: America’s Political Parties Are Just Tribes Now
When it comes to politics, in 2015 we witnessed nothing less than a paradigm shift. The old rules are out the window. Technology and changing mores have conspired to lower barriers of entry—and acceptability. Gatekeepers no longer exist. What we have right now is closer to direct democracy than we’ve ever seen, and our civilization is regressing as a result.
One party (the Democrats) already represents the liberal half of the nation. The other half seems to consist of modern, Buckleyite conservatives, but also an increasingly large horde populist, nationalist, individualistic Americans—who now have a megaphone and a vessel in the form of Donald Trump.
Times change, and political parties adapt or are replaced. And make no mistake; if the Party of Lincoln becomes the Party of Trump, it would essentially redefine what it means to be a Republican. Conservatism, a coherent political philosophy, looks as if it’s being replaced by messy right-wing populism.
Just as the political parties sorted themselves out so that there are no more “conservative Democrats” or “liberal Republicans,” I fear we may be entering a new stage where there are essentially two distinct political tribes: One tribe consists of minorities and educated elites, while the other tribe increasingly consists of working-class whites.
The trends that brought us this situation have been in existence for decades, but 2015 may be remembered as the year when we broke apart, and political differences became primary cultural signifiers. Disagreements about ideological principles, or even policy preferences, seem to be taking a back seat to identity politics. It doesn’t matter what you believe in so much as what grouping you belong to, and how willing you are to fight for the sliver of America you represent. 2015 was the year of tribalism. Our politics are less high-minded than ever.
If tribes strike you as primitive, it’s not just you. Tribes tend to assign leadership, not based on experience or wisdom, but based on strength. Much of what we are witnessing today is very base (no pun intended) and essentially comes down to machismo: The other guys are out to get us so we need our toughest guy to get them first. This is the major rationale for Trump supporters, who see him as an “alpha” in a sea of wishy-washy Beltway insiders.
Conservatives once hated identity politics and victimhood—but then again, we once supported free trade, too. Perhaps our disdain for tribalism was always a high-minded, yet doomed, effort to suppress the natural, carnal state of a fallen humanity. You and I may view politics as being about ideas and human flourishing, but a lot of people believe it’s really about power—about making sure scarce resources are allocated to “our” people.
Although I didn’t see the Trump phenomenon coming, I think I sensed the populist zeitgeist that led both to him and to this larger breakdown into tribes. Here’s something I wrote back in April for the Beast—long before Trump was in the race:
…I think there is a huge underserved constituency in the GOP—and that constituency is what might best be termed populist conservatives. These folks tend to be white and working-class and who feel they’ve been left behind in America. They are culturally conservative—but they also want to keep government out of their Medicare.
Mitt Romney was arguably the worst candidate Republicans could have ever nominated to appeal to this constituency. But while candidates like Huckabee and Rick Santorum flirted with going full populist, something always seemed to keep them from really doubling down on it.
… The last time someone really tried this was when “Pitchfork” Pat Buchanan, and then Ross Perot, ran in 1992. It resonated then, but that was before the “giant sucking sound” really kicked in. Whether it’s globalization or immigration—or whatever “-ation” might have taken your job—it stands to reason that the same grassroots phenomenon that helped Buchanan and Perot tap into an underserved constituency might be even more potent today
I still think there’s a decent chance that this fever—which has been aided by an economic downturn, Obama’s election, and the rise of ISIS—will break. And I think that the rules governing the way the GOP allocates delegates will probably benefit someone who is a more mainstream and thoughtful conservative, like Marco Rubio.
It’s easy to see how a Rubio presidency could help reorder things in a different way—in a way that I believe would be healthier both for America and in terms of making sure conservatism can survive and thrive in the 21st century. A Rubio presidency would have the potential to grow the conservative movement by modernizing (not moderating) it—to make it more appealing to Hispanics, urbanites, and millennials. If conservatism is about ideas like freedom and entrepreneurship, not merely cultural signaling (the stereotype being that the definition of a conservative is a white guy with a gun rack), then there’s no reason the guy who orders an Uber shouldn’t be a conservative.
But this only works if the conservatives want to actually grow their numbers by choosing a modernizer. The last CNN/ORC poll I saw suggested that if you add Trump’s supporters together with those of Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, you were at about two-thirds of the national GOP primary voters. The rejection of candidates favored by the GOP establishment this past year has been unprecedented. The Republican base, at least right now, is rallying to the candidates who embrace this new tribalism.
Earlier, I said the rules have changed. And, indeed, they have. Conservatives used to care about electing men and women who have wisdom, experience or expertise, and will comport themselves in an appropriate or “statesmanlike” manner, and who have a conservative temperament. They were deeply invested in defending abstract concepts like a culture of life, the rule of law, and religious liberty, while also worrying about things like unintentional consequences. They wanted to unleash the power of a free market (of products and ideas) to encourage human flourishing.
These are the hallmarks of conservative philosophy, consistency, and a coherent worldview—something that looks increasingly passé to Republican voters.
In some cases, much of today’s GOP base is skeptical or even hostile to these conservative values. For example, they believe a conservative temperament is an antiquated concept guaranteed to produce weak leaders who won’t fight, and that conservatism as a temperament was essentially designed to fail. How else can you explain the near-triumph of contemporary liberalism, and the fact that the GOP has only won the popular vote in a presidential election once since the end of the Reagan era?
It’s hard to summon people to their better angels when those people feel aggrieved. It’s hard to advise those people to “keep your head when all about you are losing theirs”—when there are literal beheadings taking place around the globe. The problem is that people like me are calling for civilized behavior and for modernization at a time when Republican voters want to get medieval. 2015 belonged to Donald Trump. But the real question is this: who will own 2016?
By: Matt K. Lewis, The Daily Beast, January 2, 2015
“Just Being A Strong Conservative Doesn’t Help The Party”: Cruz And Rubio Engage In Battle For Nevada Mormons
Deep divisions among Nevada Republicans over a $1 billion tax increase pushed by the state’s Republican governor are helping to shape the battle between Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas to win this state’s presidential caucuses — the first nominating contest in the West.
Rubio’s backers are eagerly eyeing Nevada as they look for an early-voting state the candidate could win. Although Rubio is widely seen as one of the leading contenders for the GOP nomination, the early primary states mostly look unpromising for him.
Cruz, by contrast, leads the polls in Iowa, which holds the first contest of the season on Feb. 1, and is well-positioned in several other conservative states that hold early contests.
With the stakes high here, the two freshman senators are vying to gain the support of a key voting bloc within the state’s GOP — members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who mostly lined up behind fellow Mormon Mitt Romney in the last two election cycles.
Mormons make up only about 4 percent of the state’s population, but their influence in Nevada’s Republican caucuses is much greater. In 2008 and 2012, members of the church accounted for nearly a quarter of Republican caucusgoers, entrance polls showed.
Both Cruz and Rubio — who attended an LDS church in Las Vegas in his youth — have enlisted politically prominent members of the church, and now the fault line on taxes that split the state’s Republicans this spring and summer has come to the forefront.
Rubio’s side includes prominent backers of the tax increase, aimed at expanding the state’s budget for schools, which Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval pushed through the GOP-controlled Legislature in May and June. The tax hike, the largest in state history, was strongly opposed by a large portion of the Republicans in the Legislature.
Also among Rubio’s backers is Bruce Woodbury, a Mormon and former Clark County commissioner who is so admired in southern Nevada that the I-215 beltway around Las Vegas is named after him.
Four years ago, Woodbury appeared in radio advertisements urging supporters to vote for Romney. He plans a similar effort this cycle for Rubio, working alongside the campaign’s state director, Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison — another prominent Mormon — to build support ahead of the Feb. 23 caucuses.
“An essential factor is winning the election in November,” Woodbury said after a recent Rubio rally in a hotel ballroom a short drive from the Las Vegas Strip. “He has all the essentials: a powerful life story, he’s moderate — he can appeal to all segments of the electorate.”
His son, Boulder City Mayor Rod Woodbury, and two City Council members — all church members — also back Rubio.
Among the leaders of the opposition to the tax increase was Assemblyman Ira Hansen, a Republican who represents Sparks, just east of Reno. Hansen, also a Mormon church member, is now part of Cruz’s state leadership team.
“You see it at the national level and here: Cruz folks are much more conservative than Rubio’s,” said Hansen. “When it comes to social issues, when it comes to tax increases, if you’re a conservative — a true conservative — then Ted Cruz is your candidate.
“I think that Mormons and just Republicans in general want a true conservative who will stand for conservative values in Washington, D.C.,” he said.
Hansen says Rubio’s past support of bipartisan immigration reform, which included a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally, is also a negative for him in the state’s caucuses. It’s an issue on which Cruz has repeatedly assailed Rubio, saying that the Florida senator supports “amnesty” for those who have violated immigration laws.
Rubio’s campaign has two field offices in the state — one in Las Vegas, the other in Reno — and nearly a dozen paid staffers. The Cruz campaign has a similar infrastructure.
Cruz has enlisted Paul Workman, a former bishop in the Mormon church and a member of Romney’s 2012 Nevada finance committee, who says his job is to make sure LDS members know about Cruz’s record as a conservative.
Cruz “talks about his faith with confidence and how it guides him,” Workman said. “There’s a real openness to other faiths that he has. It appeals to me and I’m sure other Mormons as well.”
At a recent religious round table in Las Vegas hosted by the Cruz campaign, Workman spoke with evangelical Christian pastor Rafael Cruz, the Texas senator’s father. The two talked about Mormon doctrine — of salvation, atonement and family — and how to appeal to LDS voters. Workman says he was impressed by the elder Cruz’s knowledge of Mormonism, which he says will help bolster the senator’s LDS support.
Rubio supporters, however, say Cruz’s brand of staunch conservatism will not help the party win in November.
Heidi Wixom, a mother of six, lives a few blocks from a Mormon church in her eastside Las Vegas neighborhood. After rallying behind Romney in the last two elections, she remained torn for much of the summer and fall about which candidate to back. Electability in November was vital in her decision to support Rubio, she said.
“Just being a strong conservative doesn’t help the party,” she said. “You have to have shown you can work alongside Democrats; even if right now that doesn’t seem ideal, it will pay off in the general election.”
By: Kurtis Lee, The National Memo, January 2, 2015
“Below Par”: Donald Trump’s Ardent Courtship Of Bill And Hillary Clinton
Nobody should be surprised that the Washington press corps, perennially obsessed with Bill Clinton’s real and imagined private life, would seize upon any chance to revisit that favorite topic, especially if that means mimicking Donald Trump. They’ve never quite gotten over the departure in disgrace of their favorite pornographer, the former independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.
What the political press mostly fails to explore is the overall absurdity of Trump’s new Bill-bashing gambit. They may wonder aloud how a misogynist bully can accuse anyone else of “sexism” or “abusing women,” but if Trump got the same treatment as Clinton, the media would remind us every day of his vile attacks on Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, his distasteful remarks about his suppressed desire to “date” his daughter Ivanka, and his alleged battering and marital rape of his former wife Ivana.
Like so much of Trump’s loud talk, his disparaging remarks about Bill and Hillary Clinton have scant credibility, at least to anyone who knows anything about him. Whatever he claims to think of them now, he has spent years sucking up to the Clintons in the most abject way. His one-sided courtship of the former First Family goes well beyond Trump’s ridiculous insistence that they attend his wedding to his third wife in Florida.
Although he now claims to deplore Bill Clinton’s misbehavior, Trump awarded the former president a free membership at his Trump National Golf Club, just a few miles from the Clinton home in Westchester County. Still a member to this day, Clinton has long enjoyed all kinds of special privileges at the club, where he maintains a locker in a special VIP section near those of former Yankees manager Joe Torre and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Not only has Trump boasted repeatedly about Clinton’s membership and displayed pictures of them together, but on Clinton’s 65th birthday a few years ago, he cleared the course so that the Clintons, including Chelsea and her husband, could play a leisurely foursome there.
Gullible wing-nuts who admire Trump and hate Clinton won’t like hearing any of these facts, of course. But the impeccably far-right Washington Free Beacon told the story not so long ago, illustrating it with fun photos. (Evidently the Beacon story was designed as a “racist” smear of Clinton, but that fizzled.)
This silly episode illustrates once more why only the very dimmest Americans believe that Trump “tells it like it is” and “says what he really thinks.”
By: Joe Conason, Editor in Chief, Editor’s Blog, Featured Post, The National Memo, January 2, 2015
“Bill Cosby, Tamir Rice, And The Power Of Prosecutors”: The Discretion Of A Single Unaccountable Prosecutor
What do Bill Cosby and Tamir Rice’s have in common? Their cases reveal the immense power of prosecutors.
Consider the fact that in 2005, Andrea Constand told police that Bill Cosby gave her drugs and sexually assaulted her. Why wasn’t he charged? The prosecutor didn’t think there was enough evidence.
Ten years later, Cosby is charged. Why? Partly because of new bits of evidence—Cosby’s admission that he sometimes gave women drugs in order to have sex with them, and at least 50 other accusations against him. But mostly, because now there’s a different prosecutor, Kevin Steele.
These are judgment calls, in 2005 and 2015.
Now consider the cases of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner. None of the police officers responsible for their deaths were ever charged—not convicted—charged. In all three cases, prosecutors practically told grand juries not to indict.
In Ferguson, Robert McCulloch decided to simply present all the evidence to the grand jury, rather than make a case against Officer Darren Wilson. In Staten Island, Darren Donovan, a Republican with extensive ties to the police department, failed to secure an indictment against Daniel Pantaleo, whose chokehold led to Eric Garner’s death. And most recently, in Cleveland, Tim McGinty stated openly that he didn’t believe anyone should be charged in the shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.
Set aside, for the moment, the facts of these cases. What’s striking in all of them is that county prosecutors and district attorneys, singlehandedly and without oversight, decide the fates of the accused. More judgment calls, unreviewed and unreviewable.
True, there is some oversight: most of these prosecutors are elected. If voters don’t like how they’re doing (or not doing) their jobs, they can vote them out of office. Indeed, in the case of Bill Cosby, then-D.A. Bruce Castor’s decision not to indict in 2005 became an issue in his election battle with Kevin Steele this year.
But is this really “oversight”? As The Daily Beast reported last September, voters often know next to nothing about the candidates running for positions as prosecutors or judges. Turnout is extremely low, especially in off years. And when voters are paying attention, they are bamboozled by the only campaign message that seems to work: “tough on crime.”
This year, for example, Steele ran on his “98 percent conviction rate” and “tough sentences for sexual predators.”
That’s what people want, right? They see prosecutors as agents of the criminal justice system, and everyone wants less crime.
This leads to two perverse incentives for prosecutors. First, they have an incentive to over-charge criminal defendants and secure convictions more than justice. Second, they have an incentive not to charge police officers, who after all are fighting crime every day, and with whom they work closely on a daily basis.
In principle, if Officers Pantaleo, Wilson, and Loehmann violated the law, then they are criminals. But in practice, they are policemen, and perceived as the opposite of criminals. Voters who want to get tough on crime do not want to get tough on cops.
So not only is there no meaningful oversight of prosecutors, but the oversight that does exist is skewed to specific outcomes and behaviors, not impartiality and performance.
Now back to Cosby. If you pay close attention to what Steele said this week, you’ll notice that he went out of his way to mention the new evidence that has come to light in the last twelve months. “A prosecutor’s job is to follow the evidence wherever it leads and whenever it comes to light,” he said, announcing the arrest.
In part, this was to explain the nearly twelve-year gap between the crime and the charge. But in large part, it was to explain why Cosby is being charged in 2015, but wasn’t in 2005.
And what is that new evidence? Only what is known as “habit evidence”: that Cosby admitted to drugging and having sex with other women. But not Constand—however ludicrous it may seem, Cosby’s position is that she consented.
Is habit evidence really enough to reopen a closed case and file charges? Again, that’s another judgment call. Like Judge Robreno’s decision to unseal the damning deposition records, Steele’s decision was basically up to him.
Of course, Steele chose to make it an election issue as well. He’d look foolish if, having just accused Bruce Castor of doing nothing, he did nothing too. But again, that was Steele’s decision. Just as prosecuting “America’s Dad” in 2005 might have made Castor look bad, prosecuting America’s Rapist in 2015 makes Steele look good.
We imagine that district attorneys and other prosecutors are motivated by truth, justice, and the American way. But in fact, they are elected officials who paint in broad strokes for a mostly-ignorant public; who, unlike judges, cannot be held accountable for their misconduct by oversight boards; and who exercise discretion so broad that the disposition of justice often lies entirely within their judgment.
Finally, of course, Tamir Rice and Bill Cosby have more in common than under-zealous prosecutors: both African American males, one quite young and one quite old, operating in a system in which 95 percent of prosecutors are white and local police forces are 88 percent white.
For decades, Cosby was protected by his wealth, celebrity, class, and connections, particularly at Temple University. But he is the exception, not the rule. Black men comprise 6 percent of the U.S. population, but 35 percent of the prison population. They receive sentences roughly 10 percent more severe than white defendants convicted of identical crimes. And when they are perceived to be older than they are, bigger than they are, more dangerous than they are, or more violent than they are, their 88 percent-white police officers and 95 percent-white-prosecutors exercise “discretion” in remarkably similar ways.
The United States is the only country in the world that elects prosecutors based on sloganeering and then holds them to no standard other than majority whim. After nearly 12 years, Bill Cosby has indeed been charged with a crime. But only because a prosecutor decided to do so—this time.
By: Jay Michaelson, The Daily Beast, January 1, 2016
“Another ‘Trump’s In Trouble’ Story”: Even Trump’s Former Campaign Aide Doesn’t Think He’ll Win The Nomination
The end of the year brings another entry into the Trump won’t win oeuvre (of which I am not only a connoisseur but also contributor). The interesting twist is that the latest warning storms ahead for the tyrant of Trump Tower come from a (possibly disgruntled) former campaign aide.
Former Trump aide Sam Nunberg, who started consulting with Trump in 2011, joined him full time in 2014 and got sacked shortly after Trump got into the race because of a series of racist Facebook posts, shared his concerns about the Trump trajectory with The Daily Beast’s Tim Mak.
Falling poll numbers in the first key states, a lack so far of reserved advertising, a low net favorability and underperformance in the college-educated voting bloc that dominates the early presidential contests – all these contribute to a darkening forecast for the Trump campaign, Nunberg argued.
The way Nunberg sees it, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will cruise in Iowa and the long-heralded (including here) coalescing of the establishment behind Marco Rubio will occur in time for the Florida senator to win that primary.
If Trump loses Iowa and New Hampshire, he’ll stumble into South Carolina. “Once Cruz wins Iowa, and if he beats Trump in New Hampshire, which he very well could, Cruz would win South Carolina, from a momentum perspective,” Nunberg predicted.
If this scenario plays out, Nunberg doesn’t “see a pathway to the nomination – he certainly wouldn’t be the frontrunner anymore, and his numbers will start to fall.”
It’s an intriguing scenario. Certainly the conventional wisdom – and polling – have lined up behind the idea of a Cruz Iowa victory. The New Hampshire case isn’t quite so strong given that Trump still has a comfortable lead there. Of course the caveat is that even now, a little more than a month before the first ballots are cast, polls are not necessarily reliable. As FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver has noted, something like 40 percent of Iowa voters and half of New Hampshire voters decide who they’re supporting in the last week before they go to the polls.
Nunberg told Mak that his decision to speak out was the result of a concern that Trump may not be getting a clear picture of his impending doom. But there are indications that he may be getting the message. For one thing, the veiled suggestion that Ted Cruz is an inauthentic evangelical because he’s from Cuba has returned to Trump’s stump speech (because God only knows that Donald Trump is a true evangelical). At the same time, Trump’s Iowa organization is ramping up, per the Wall Street Journal. And the retired reality TV star has started saying that he’s actually going to spend money on television ads in the new year.
At the same time Rubio’s rivals for the establishment mantel have started gunning for him, with both a pro-Jeb Bush super PAC and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie slamming the Floridian for absenteeism. I suppose it makes sense for the various traditional candidates to want to wipe each other out in an attempt to get a solo shot at Trump and/or Cruz, but The Donald’s free pass continues to amaze.
By: Robert Schlesinger, Managing Editor for Opinion, U.S. News & World Report, December 30, 2015
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