Monthly Archives: June 2017

Obscuring census data to give "conservative districts more than their fair share of representation." Preventing access to the vote. Decrying "socialized medicine." Trying to end Social Security using dishonest vocabulary like "strengthened." Lionizing Lenin. Attempting to institute voucher programs to "get out of the business of public education." Increasing corporatization of higher education. Harboring a desire, at heart, to change the Constitution itself.

This unsettling list could be 2017 Bingo. In fact, it's from half a century earlier, when economist James Buchanan an early herald of libertarianism began to cultivate a group of like-minded thinkers with the goal of changing government. This ideology eventually reached the billionaire Charles Koch; the rest is, well, 2017 Bingo.

This sixty-year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and eventually take the government itself is at the heart of Democracy in Chains. It's grim going; this isn't the first time Nancy MacLean has investigated the dark side of the American conservative movement (she also wrote Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan), but it's the one that feels like it was written with a clock ticking down.

Still, it takes the time to meticulously trace how we got here from there. Charles and his brother David Koch have been pushing the libertarian agenda for more than 20 years. A generation before them, Buchanan founded a series of enclaves to study ways to make government bend. Before that, critic and historian Donald Davidson coined the term "Leviathan" in the 1930s for the federal government, and blamed northeasterners for "pushing workers' rights and federal regulations. Such ideas could never arise from American soil, Davidson insisted. They were 'alien' European imports brought by baleful characters." And going back another century, the book locates the movement's center in the fundamentalism of Vice President John C. Calhoun, for whom the ideas of capital and self-worth were inextricably intertwined. (Spoilers: It was about slavery.)

It's grim going; this isn't the first time Nancy MacLean has investigated the dark side of the American conservative movement ... but it's the one that feels like it was written with a clock ticking down.

Buchanan headed a group of radical thinkers (he told his allies "conspiratorial secrecy is at all times essential"), who worked to centralize power in states like Virginia. They eschewed empirical research. They termed taxes "slavery." They tried repeatedly to strike down progressive action school integration, Social Security claiming it wasn't economically sound. And they had the patience and the money to weather failures in their quest to win.

As MacLean lays out in their own words, these men developed a strategy of misinformation and lying about outcomes until they had enough power that the public couldn't retaliate against policies libertarians knew were destructive. (Look no further than Flint, MacLean says, where the Koch-funded Mackinac Center was behind policies that led to the water crisis.) And it's painstakingly laid out. This is a book written for the skeptic; MacLean's dedicated to connecting the dots.

She gives full due to the men's intellectual rigor; Buchanan won the Nobel for economics, and it's hard to deny that he and the Koch brothers have had some success. (Alongside players like Dick Armey and Tyler Cowen, there are cameos from Newt Gingrich, John Kasich, Mitt Romney, and Antonin Scalia.) But this isn't a biography. Besides occasional asides, MacLean's much more concerned with ideology and policy. By the time we reach Buchanan's role in the rise of Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet (which backfired so badly on the people of Chile that Buchanan remained silent about it for the rest of his life), that's all you need to know about who Buchanan was.

We are, 'Democracy in Chains' is clear, at a precipice.

If you're worried about what all this means for America's future, you should be. The clear and present danger is hard to ignore. When nearly every radical belief the Buchanan school ever floated is held by a member of the current administration, it's bad news.

But it's worth noting that the primary practice outlined in this book is the leveraging of money to protect money and the counter-practice is the vocal and sustained will of the people. We are, Democracy in Chains is clear, at a precipice. At the moment, the first practice is winning. If you don't like it, now's the time to try the second. And if someone you know isn't convinced, you have just the book to hand them.

Genevieve Valentine's latest novel is Icon.

Read more from the original source:
'Democracy In Chains' Traces The Rise Of American Libertarianism - NPR

Photo: Sandy Huffaker/AFP/Getty Images

The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group has a new survey of the electorate that explodes many of the myths that we believe about American politics. Lee Drutman has a fascinating report delving into the data. I want to highlight a few of the most interesting conclusions in the survey.

1. The Democratic Party is not really divided on economics. You think the Bernie Sanders movement was about socialism? Not really. Sanders voters have the same beliefs about economic equality and government intervention as Hillary Clinton supporters. On the importance of Social Security and Medicare, Sanders voters actually have more conservative views:

Where they mainly differ is on international trade and the question of whether politics is a rigged game. The ideological content of Sanderss platform is not what drew voters. It was, instead, his counter-positioning to Clinton as a clean, uncorrupted outsider.

2. Fiscal conservativesocial liberals are overrepresented. The study breaks down the beliefs of voters in both parties by income. The parties tend to cohere pretty tightly rich Republicans are much closer to poor Republicans than either is to the Democrats; and rich Democrats and poor Democrats share more in common than either does with Republicans.

Still, there are important differences. The richest members of both parties have more economically conservative and socially liberal views than the poorest members. That gives them disproportionate influence over their agendas and priorities.

3. Libertarians dont exist. Well, obviously, they exist just not in any remotely large enough numbers to form a constituency. Its not just hardcore libertarians who are absent. Even vaguely libertarian-ish voters are functionally nonexistent.

The study breaks down voters into four quadrants, defined by both social and economic liberalism. But virtually everybody falls into three quadrants: socially liberal/economically liberal; socially conservative/economically conservative; and socially conservative/economically liberal. The fourth quadrant, socially liberal/economically conservative, is empty:

The libertarian movement has a lot of money and hardcore activist and intellectual support, which allows it to punch way above its weight. Libertarian organs like Reason regularly churn out polemics and studies designed to show that libertarianism is a huge new trend and the wave of the future. Sometimes, mainstream news organizations buy what theyre selling. But the truth is that the underrepresented cohort in American politics is the opposite of libertarians: people with right-wing social views who support big government on the economy.

4. Trump won by dominating with populists. Republicans always need to do reasonably well with populists, which is why theres always a tension between the pro-government leanings of a large number of their voters and the anti-government tilt of the party agenda. The key to Trumps success was to win more populists than Mitt Romney had managed. The issues where 2012 Obama voters who defected to Trump diverge from the ones who stayed and voted for Clinton are overwhelmingly related to race and identity.

As Drutman notes, Among populists who voted for Obama, Clinton did terribly. She held onto only 6 in 10 of these voters (59 percent). Trump picked up 27 percent of these voters, and the remaining 14 percent didnt vote for either major party candidate. What makes this result fascinating is that, in 2008, Clinton had positioned herself as the candidate of the white working class and she dominated the white socially conservative wing of her party. But she lost that identity so thoroughly that she couldnt even replicate the performance of a president who had become synonymous with elite social liberalism.

Every election is different. But to the extent that 2016 has an ideological lesson for Democrats, it is that the subject the party is currently debating within itself whether or how far left to move on economics is irrelevant to its electoral predicament. The issue space where Clinton lost voters who had supported Obama was in the array of social-identity questions, revolving around patriotism and identity.

They may not need to solve this problem Trumps failures may well solve it for them. And to some extent, moral commitments to social justice may preclude the party from moving to the center on some or all of their social policies. But to the extent Democrats want to optimize their party profile to make Trump a one-term president, the social issues are where they need to focus.

Republicans will likely be emboldened by the results, though they only held the traditionally red districts by single digits.

By dominating early voting and convincing GOP voters that her opponent was out of mainstream, Karen Handel posted a comeback victory.

While Trump had an 18 point lead in the district, Republican Ralph Norman won by only a few points.

On the day of Georgias special election, rain is flooding Democratic sections of the district while leaving GOP areas relatively unscathed.

Hell be releasing a new EP every month for the next four years.

He opined that the zealot Pence might be worse on domestic policy than Trump. Its a sign the idea of impeachment is becoming real.

It has been made public after the trial of the officer, who was found not guilty last week.

While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried!

Brusselss Central Station has been evacuated, and police say the situation is under control.

It would be an extremely 2017 miscalculation for liberals to fall in love with sanctions just because Trump opposes them.

Ryan has routinely won landslides in his purple district. Randy Bryces incredible new campaign ad suggests that could change that.

The upper chamber is reportedly eyeing an approach to cutting the program that could be more draconian than what passed the House.

A plurality of Republicans think the special counsels investigation is impartial and 75 percent dont want Trump to fire Robert Mueller.

Conservatives spent years developing a plan for remaking the health-care system. The Republican Party has buried it forever.

The First Daughter will meet with Senators Marco Rubio and Deb Fischer to talk over the plan.

Government technology is bad, and the White House wants you to think they can fix it.

Is government transparency under attack or is Sean Spicer just being body-shamed?

Lower education levels, a larger minority population, and affection for Trump make this SC race a better bet for the GOP win than GA-06 next door.

They want to know why Flynn omitted information from his security clearance forms, which may be illegal.

The Americans death could lead to new travel restrictions and prompt the U.S. to put more pressure on China to rein in its neighbor.

Link:
New Study Shows What Really Happened in the 2016 Election - New York Magazine