Just Make It Competitive

Or: the piece in which I try to make an argument in favor of partisanship.

Alternet has a very nice article on liberals' inability to connect with Southern white men. This communication gap is far from inevitable, and its to liberals' own detriment that they cannot find ways to bridge the divide. As Lynn Stuart Parramore writes,

What liberals and progressives don’t seem to understand is that you don’t counter a myth with a pile of facts and statistics. You have to counter it with a more powerful story. And that’s what Obama and the Democrats have repeatedly failed to do. White Southern men want a story that makes them feel proud of America and what it can accomplish. I’m troubled when I hear lefties heap scorn upon the South, partly because I know that the antagonism is precisely what the Mitt Romneys of the world hope for. They want to divide us and keep those regional antagonisms stoked so that the cynical Southern strategy continues to work. Every time a San Franciscan or a New Yorker rails against “rednecks” in the South, he has done Karl Rove’s work for him.

I have argued before that there is an ancient strain of populism in the South – particularly in places like North Carolina – that Democrats could tap into to speak to the white Southern man in terms that might appeal to him. But the truth is, the Democrats have been marinating in their own pro-business snake oil for so long that they have often forgotten what they might have in common with the unemployed mill worker or the Wal-Mart check-out guy. FDR did not make that mistake. He turned on the electricity at my granddaddy’s tobacco farm and I can tell you that the man, as conservative as he may have been, never forgot it. Instead of hating the white Southern man, why can’t Democrats take a little more time to talk about what they actually might do for him?

This should be a powerful argument for most people interested in electoral politics, and it's even more appealing in the abstract (racism is easier dismissed when it's not experienced).  Unfortunately, the standard liberal response to the idea of "reaching out to the south" tends to take on some form of reeducation. "If we can just teach them not to blindly follow [insert hated conservative movement]," they say, "America would be such a better place."

Unfortunately, this line of thinking avoids an important, yet somewhat ticklish, issue: our political system, and the country in general, derives enormous benefit from disagreement. While most of us might find much of conservative thought distasteful, especially the racist, feudalistic sides of it, there's a strong argument out there that says partisanship actually benefits the electorate as a whole.

How? Since, we don't truly have a dominant coalition, our major parties must find ways to attract the interests of various groups. No party will allow itself the become a permanent minority, which provides a large amount of incentive for our politics to evolve. Even under a two-party system, there is probably enough incentive to compete to bring as many different groups into politics as possible. Hence, you all of the sudden have a conservative "wave" over immigration policy and a whole series of thought pieces on how they can better connect with Latinos.

Contrast this to a political system like Italy's, which is so fractured and chaotic that a huge portion of political decision-making becomes about protecting each other and lavishing favor's on each other's constituencies. This can be thought of as a form of cartelization, which works towards reducing competition between different parties in favor of incumbents. While we might often find the competition between our two parties distasteful, there's clearly worse alternatives.

I don't want to blithely conclude that two-party systems are better than multi-party. There doesn't seem to be any evidence either way. More importantly, I think we should be concerned about how our political system encourages large amounts of competition, which has the effect of increasing accountability and expanding political inclusion.

In this sense, a Republican party (regardless of ideology) that caters to only a very small segment of society is a bad idea. I think we should be relieved that there is at least some prominent party members discussing ways of expanding its appeal. "Growing the base" has been one of the best things to have happened to Democrats, regardless of your personal opinion of Robert Rubin.

In the end, we should be hoping for ideas that translate across interest groups (conservative hindus! liberal rednecks!), which would continually open up opportunities for competition and party evolution. This also provides a framework for more Democrat outreach, especially places like the South. North Carolina is considered by most to be a swing state, and it could serve as the launching pad for liberal outreach throughout the region. No coalition is permanent, and Republicans will eventually make inroads with currently "safe" liberal voting blocs like Latinos and African-Americans. Democrats should be planning to do the same.

That also leads to an argument of expanding franchise in the US, but I guess I'll leave for another time.