Monday, September 28, 2009

Elections and Polls Matter: Head Counts Signal When Policy To Be Continued By Other Means

Rasmussen released a poll that shows the level of support for the Democrats' government-run healthcare program has hit an all-time low of 41%. The percentage of those opposed is now put at a staunch 56%. When the polls suggest a 60-40 split on a policy issue, it signals a danger sign for politicians to tread carefully.

Some may object that public opinion polling is an inexact science (it is), and polls can be rigged to convey a certain given result (they can be). But beyond the rebuttal that Rasmussen's polls in particular have been shown to be both accurate and robust, there is a simple reason that his poll (and polls in general) should be taken seriously: They provide a head count.

I'm not just talking about a head count in regards to elections, although this is useful information also. But in classical political terms, polls provide a head count in the event of a hypothetical civil war (hypothetical being the operative word). Democrats would be well advised to take massive opposition to their political program seriously, for a myriad of reasons; at least according to well-respected political analysts.

Political scientist Adam Przeworski explains:

Yet I think that voting does induce compliance [to governmental coercion], through a different mechanism. Voting constitutes "flexing muscles": a reading of chances in the eventual war. If all men are equally strong (or armed) then the distribution of vote is a proxy for the outcome of war. Referring to Herodotus, Bryce announces the he uses the concept of democracy "in its old and strict sense, as denoting a government which the will of the majority of qualified citizens rules, taking qualified citizens to constitute the great bulk of the inhabitants, say, roughly three-fourths, so that physical force of the citizens coincides (broadly speaking) with their voting power (italics supplied). Condorcet claims that this was the reason for adopting majority rule: for the good of peace and general welfare, it was necessary to place authority where lies the force. Clearly, once physical force diverges from sheer numbers, when the ability to wage war becomes professionalized and technical, voting no longer provides a reading of chances in a violent conflict. But voting does reveal information about passions, values, and interests. If elections are a peaceful substitute for rebellion (Hampton 1994), it is because they inform everyone who would mutiny and against what. They inform the losers - "Here is the distribution of force: if you disobey the instructions conveyed by the result of the election [or poll - ed.], I'll be more likely to beat you than you will be able to beat me in a violent confrontation" - and the winners - "If you do not hold elections again or if you grab too much, I will be able to put up a forbidding resistance." [See the Democrats' recent proposal to repeal the 22nd amendment.] Dictatorships do not generate this information; they need secret police to find out. In democracies, even if voting does not reveal a unique collective will, it does indicate limits to rule. Why else would we interpret participation as an indication of legitimacy, why would we be concerned about support for extremist parties?

In the end the miracle of democracy is that conflicting political forces obey the results of voting. People who have guns obey those without them. Incumbents risk their control of governmental offices by holding elections. Losers wait for their chance to win office. Conflicts are regulated, processed according to rules, and thus limited. This is not consensus, yet not mayhem either. Just limited conflict; conflict without killing. Ballots are "paper stones," as [the socialist] Engels once observed.

(Przeworski, Adam. "Minimalist Conception of Democracy: A Defense." In The Democracy Sourcebook. Dahl, Robert, Ian Shapiro and Jose Antonio Cheibub. (Eds.) (2003). MIT Press. Cambridge, MA. pp. 15-16.)

An objection from the Democrat side of the aisle can be anticipated. Didn't Obama win the election? Doesn't that give the president the mandate to push through his agenda, even over unyielding opposition?

There are many good reasons why this isn't the case.

Obama's victory of 52.9% of the vote over John McCain's 45.7% of the vote does not constitute a "mandate" by most historical presidential standards. The electoral college tally of 365 to 173 also does not qualify as a bona fide mandate to enact one's agenda en toto. By comparison, in 1984 Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale with a popular vote margin of 58.8% to 40.6% and he racked up a jaw-dropping 525 electoral votes. It is safe to say that after that election, after having seen Reagan's policies for four years, and after sizing up the messenger of the liberal agenda, the public trusted and supported Reagan and his policies.

In the 2008 election, Obama captured just over half the popular vote, and his opponent McCain was conceivably withing striking distance, if a few events would have played in his favor (the economic "crisis" that sprung up within hailing distance of the election and McCain's fumbled reaction to it did not aid his cause). McCain was not a fair bellwether for ideological conservatism, even considering his conservative-populist running mate. Numerous polls, especially the Battleground polls, suggest that conservatism is a stronger (even though neglected) undercurrent in American politics than either party currently assumes (according to the poll between 58% and 63% self-identify as "conservative" or "very conservative"). The candidacy of John McCain shows that the Republicans miss this point. Thus there was a latent conservative opposition not accounted for with the election of Obama over McCain.

This dismissal of ideological conservatism by both parties was exacerbated by the media coverage of both President Obama and former President Bush. While Bush was demonized and caricatured ad nauseum by the Democrat attack dogs in the press daily during his administration, Obama was glorified and held aloft as a transcendent figure during his campaign. The drawback to this tactic is two-fold: In the first place, it is risky to try to gain votes simply by trying "not" to be someone else. This may get you through the election, but it will not play nine months into your administration. In the second place, when the American public finally gets to know the "un"-candidate, presumably after the election (the infamous chat between Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose shortly after Obama won the election, when the question "Do we really know Barack Obama?" arose comes to mind), when the people see the president "warts and all" - there is a danger of a rapid deflationary effect in public approval.

Thus a media-manipulated victory comes with a price. A country is not run through the media, though solipsist neo-marxists may truly believe this to be the case. The problem with too much media coverage of Obama is just that: Too much media coverage of Obama. While the Old Media think they may be able to run interference for a president who lies as casually as he rolls out of bed to put on his Sunday slippers, the fact is that the public is armed with the Internet and can play - and replay - his every video and audio utterance and witness for themselves his continual indiscretions with the truth.

Returning to the question of whether or not Obama and the Democrats can impose their will on the American people. The answer is they can - at their own peril.

Contextually, political scientists such as Gabriel Almond and Seymour Martin Lipset have been arguing we are a democracy since at least the 1950s, and since the 1970s, Robert Dahl's "Polyarchy" (a modified form of democracy) has led the way as far as theoretical models of democratic governance go. But America is not governmentally-structurally a democracy, we are a constitutional Republic; our system was designed with checks and balances specifically to prevent democracy and monarchy (Aristotle in Politics thought democracy to be the most unstable form of government and one leading directly to tyranny under a demagogue).

There is an important reason for the change in parlance mid-century from republic to democracy. The neo-marxist Gramscian strategy of a "long march" through the public institutions of America - the news media, the universities, the public schools, Hollywood, the arts - is an attempt to mold public opinion to support socialism, all in the name of "democracy." Democracy as a political form is thus instrumental to the cultural revolution the neo-marxists have tried to pull off through their takeover of entertainment and news media. Once the majority of Americans support giving up their freedom, so the thinking goes, the trumpeted demagogue can coax the people to vote away their rights. The resisters can then be marginalized, and bullied by condemning them with such name-calling as "extremists" and "the party of no" (as if the Democrats were the "party of yes" under Bush). The cult of personality the neo-marxists erected around Obama was meant to insulate him, to evoke strong loyalty associations and feelings of sympathy whenever anyone opposes him or wants him to fail. His minority status as the first black president merely reinforces this effect. Since most Americans are not racists and do not want to be associated with racists, this "race card" is played relentlessly on Obama's opponents in order to marginalize them further.

Yet the media and the Democrats must now face the fact that their tactics have backfired as they have failed to fully see the consequences of their actions - a most apropos ending for arrogant statists who think they know everything. They have clearly failed to talk the clear majority of conservative Americans out of their rights. By pushing their agenda too far and too fast, and most importantly, with blatant disrespect for the American public and especially the political opposition, they awoke the conservative majority and have pulled many "moderates" and "independents" over to their side. The future reeks of political disaster for the Democrats - whether or not they pass the remaining items on their leftist agenda.

The Democrats have stared into the abyss - and finally, the abyss stared back.

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