Summary: Political commentary often reveals more from its blindness than its insights. For example, a widely-cited analysis at Salon by journalist Andrew O’Hehir tells us some entertaining harsh truths — but avoids deeper, useful insights that would disturb his Outer Party readers (i.e., politically passive managers and professionals).
“Two despised frontrunners, two dying parties & a deeply broken system”
By Andrew O’Hehir (journalist) at Salon.
“How did we get here? Trump & Clinton may be the most hated frontrunners in history, dueling symbols of a duopoly in decay.”
He opens with some myth-making, the Left’s efforts to fit events into their standard narrative. It conceals the important dynamics of campaign 2016, things too disturbing for the Left to see.
So here’s what’s happening: Our political system is profoundly broken, and although many of us have understood that for years, this has been the year that fact became unavoidable. Both political parties are struggling through transparently rigged primary campaigns that have made that ludicrous process look more outdated than ever. Nobody cares about the Democratic vote in Wyoming and it’s not going to matter, but when Bernie Sanders dominates the caucuses in that empty, dusty and Republican-dominated state and wins seven of its 18 delegates, doesn’t that sum up the whole damn thing?
O’Hehir is making a purely emotional appeal in defiance of the facts. He gives no evidence that the GOP race is rigged; Trump’s votes have closely mirrored his poll results. As for the Democrats, several political scientists have shown that the results are not “rigged”. NY Times political blogger Nate Cohen has a model showing that “9 percentage points better in primaries than in caucuses“. More seriously, Alan I. Abramowitz (Prof of political science at Emory) has a model of the 2016 Democratic primaries…
“This model uses three predictors from the Democratic primary exit polls — percentage of African-American voters, percentage of self-identified Democrats, and region — and it explains 90% of the variance in 19 primaries to date for which exit poll data are available, excluding Sanders’ home state of Vermont…”
Scatterplot of Clinton vote share in Democratic primaries by her Clinton vote share
Next O’Hehir gives a somewhat more accurate summary.
“Both parties are also struggling to control long-simmering internal conflicts that have come boiling to the surface this year, and in both cases the leadership caste is wondering whether it’s time to burn down the village in order to save it. In the larger analysis, both parties are struggling to ignore the mounting evidence of their own irrelevance. One of them is struggling with that in a more public and more spectacular fashion at the moment, but the contagion is general.”
I agree. The gap between the GOP’s elites and its core has clearly grown unsustainable, as seen in their views about so many key issues — foreign wars, shifting the tax burden from the rich to the middle class, and cutting Social Security & Medicare. Ditto for the Democrats, with their elites’ fondness for Wall Street and foreign wars.
But, as usual, the real question is why? What created this situation? O’Hehir gives a long analysis consisting mostly of “just-so stories“. Eventually he gets to the core of the problem (red emphasis added). Got to live the conclusion: politics doesn’t follow his narrative, so it “doesn’t make sense.”
“Contention is the essence of politics. But what we’re facing this year, in a likely fall campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, is something different and quite likely without precedent that symbolizes the terminal decay of politics. It’s not contention; it’s more like universal distaste. …
“The nationwide Clinton-Trump hate-fest can be viewed as the continuation or culmination of a long-term downward trend that is easy to summarize: Americans don’t much like either political party or the people they nominate. There are peaks and valleys within that downward arc, to be sure, and significant deviations from the mean: Sometimes people dislike one party considerably more than the other (right now the Republicans are in the doghouse) and occasionally an individual candidate breaks through the antipathy…
The proportion of American adults who identify as either Republicans or Democrats is at or near all-time lows. …American politics don’t make sense, and are driven by subterranean fears and desires more than logic or reason. …{This is} the year when our political system enters a period of unmistakable and perhaps terminal decline.
More accurate and useful conclusions
“الكلاب تنبح والقافلة تسير.” {The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.)
— Ancient Arab proverb.
In the grand tradition of modern America O’Hehir looks everywhere but in the mirror to see our problem. Our national motto is “not my fault.” His 2,300 word long whine describes us as consumers complaining that the candidates on the menu don’t meet our standards. As special snowflakes who deserve so much more than we receive.
O’Hehir says “the system is broken”, a passive tense evasion of our passivity and apathy. If we don’t work the political machinery bequeathed us by the Founders, then others will do so — for their own benefit. It’s the Great Circle of Life, just like in the Disney films — in which we have chosen to be prey.
But we can become citizens. America’s political machinery remains powerful, needing only the energy of its citizens as fuel.
For More information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, Campaign 2016, reforming America: steps to new politics, and especially these…
- Stand by for political realignment in America!
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- How the Democrats became Liberals for the Rich.
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- Populism arises amidst American workers abandoned by both Left & Right.
