From the Archives: Populism at the Polls
From the Archives: Populism at the Polls
From the Archives: Populism at the Polls
Two recent polls provide a murky picture of the upcoming midterm elections. According to a New York Times/CBS poll, 70 percent of Americans disapprove of the current Congress, but more disapprove of congressional Republicans than Democrats. A Politco/George Washington University poll largely corroborates these figures, although it finds less of a gap between distaste for Republicans and Democrats.
Yet the opening sentence of Politco?s poll analysis reads, ?Voters, by a 9-point margin, believe Republicans will pick up both the House and the Senate, even though they are evenly divided over whom they intend to back in six weeks.? The NYT/CBS poll relates a similar incongruity: when asked, ?Do you think most members of Congress have done a good enough job to deserve re-election, or do you think it?s time to give new people a chance?? 78 percent responded in favor of fresh blood, while only 55 percent feel that it?s time for their own representative to bow out. This gap between perceptions of one?s own congressperson and all the others is historically typical, yet a majority hasn?t expressed a desire for a new representative in their own district since the eve of the 1994 elections, when 53 percent did. While it?s easy to dismiss as unimportant what people think about how others will vote or about the effects of their own votes, such perceptions could have an effect on how many of each party head to the voting booth on November 2.
Which party will do a better job turning out the vote? Ed Kilgore writes at the New Republic, ?[T]he events of this primary season confirm the picture of an exceptionally excited Republican Party that is moving to the ideological right as fast as is practicable.? But the NYT/CBS poll reveals distrust of the populist far Right: only 14 percent said they were more likely to vote for a candidate if they identified with the Tea Party, while 28 percent said they were less likely to vote for such a candidate. Even worse was the Sarah Palin seal of approval: 12 percent said they were more likely to vote for a Palin-approved candidate, and 37 percent less likely. (Palin?s approval numbers are now at their lowest since she rose to the national spotlight in 2008).
In the end, these poll numbers don?t reveal anything definitive about the midterms; the robotically reliable Nate Silver still forecasts a Democratic-majority Senate and a Republican-majority House, but finds lots of room for interpretation. Of the Tea Party he writes:
Undoubtedly, in my view, they have done the [Republican] party more good than harm over the past year and a half, bringing it back from what pundits assumed was the brink of irrelevance?to a position where they are poised to make electoral gains that could rival or exceed 1994.
But in order to achieve those gains?not a fairly ordinary gain of 20, 30 or even 40 House seats, but the earth-shattering, upside results that Republicans are dreaming about?they will need for three basic things to happen. First, they will need a solid majority of independent voters to select their candidates. Second, they will need the Democratic base to be uninterested in the election. And third, they will need their own base to be enthused.
Amid debates about the role the Tea Party has played and will play in the fortunes of Democrats and Republicans this November, Dissent editorial board member Kevin Mattson made a principled argument against populism at the American Prospect:
We shouldn’t fear our own capacity to explain our political positions to people in a way that doesn’t pander to their anger. Liberals should embrace the difficult responsibility and balancing act of ensuring that political debate remain as rational as possible, that civility not be broached, that respect for expertise and intelligence be respected. All the while accepting the idea that what we really want to win is the respect of voters who trust us to govern, not just make them feel good about themselves.
A group of Prospect writers wrote responses to Mattson, posted yesterday.
Following the last Republican insurgency in 1994, Sean Wilentz wrote in Dissent of the multiple right-wing populisms that helped shift congressional control to the Right. ?Judging from the last election, American voters have hit the boiling point. They hate taxes, big government, and spending on the poor. They hate the Washington political establishment. They hate the smug, liberal cultural elite. In fact, they hate anything liberal. They love Rush Limbaugh.? While the different strands of populism Wilentz described seem to have coalesced in the Tea Party, the warning he issued at the end of his article resonates in today?s debates. ?It may not be too late to salvage and modernize the nobler traces of the old populist tradition for the next century. If these efforts fail, the only populism that will matter will be the populism of our worst political foes.? Read the whole article here.
