Remapping the Culture Debate

[BR_Parkway]

Who is shaping the party's message? The whole article needs to be read, the 4 paragraphs just don't tell the whole story with enough understanding

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=10831

The data contradicted the slew of polls that show Americans to be strong supporters of Democratic issue positions, such as universal health care, despite voting habits that have made Republicans the dominant political actors. Instead, American Environics’ extensive plumbing of Americans’ attitudes laid out a darker, more nuanced vision of what the nation actually believes. Far from being a purely dour assessment, though, in it can be found the seeds of a new understanding of the interrelationship of culture, the economy, and politics -- broadly defined -- that should give progressives hope.

<snip>

Even those who have been most focused on populist economics have started coming around to this new view. Shortly after the 2004 election, the Center for American Progress launched a series of meetings with liberal religious leaders that ultimately gave rise to a new project on religion and values, which will work closely with Shellenberger and Nordhaus. Post-election, the Democratic National Committee’s pollster, Cornell Belcher, preached the wisdom of situating traditional Democratic appeals in the language of values, while DNC Chair Howard Dean traveled the country teaching the new talk. Progressive actions on the ground reinforced the utility of the new approach, and in 2005 Tim Kaine took the statehouse in Virginia, where nearly half of state residents attend church at least once a week, by running a campaign that presented him to voters as a person of faith. “That old sign in the 1992 Clinton headquarters that read, ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’ no longer applies,” writes Catholic University political professor John Kenneth White, in the new book Get This Party Started: How Progressives Can Fight Back and Win.

<snip>

“s powerful as the concern over issues is, the introduction of cultural themes -- specifically gay marriage, abortion, the importance of the traditional family unit, and the role of religion in public life -- quickly renders them almost irrelevant in terms of electoral politics at the national level,” Agne and Greenberg wrote. “Particularly among non-college educated voters, cultural issues not only superseded other concerns, they served as a proxy for many voters on those other issues.”

When it came to defining themselves in the nation’s ongoing cultural battles -- such as the battle over “family values” -- Democrats had virtually ceded the field to Republicans, presenting an uncertain face to the public. Voters, the research showed, were looking to cultural and lifestyle markers to determine whether or not a candidate was, in fact, going to do right by the economy, the Democrats’ one persistently strong area. The Democracy Corps pollsters concluded that voters saw traditional Democratic economic concerns as having little to do with them, being mainly “manifested in costly government social programs or political alliances with labor unions and minorities.” The party’s inattentiveness to cultural matters had, paradoxically, left these voters with “absolutely no sense that Democrats have a viable alternative vision that would truly promote broad economic growth or increased prosperity for working Americans.”

[Warpy]

1. The Atlantic Monthly had a huge section on the culture war

in its January issue. It's well worth going to the library to read. It's one of the few openly critical articles of the god squad and morality police I've read in that magazine, infamous since it ran it's "Dan Quayle was Right" cover story after he made an ass of himself railing about single motherhood on a TV sitcom. It's online, I just looked. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200601

More and more people are getting uncomfortable with the morality bullying coming from the far right. I agree with the article posted above that it's a golden opportunity for the Dems to tie economic issues with Christian morality. Whether or not they will do so is the subject of much debate. Certainly the DLC and DINO types at the center of party power seem disinclined.

On edit: added link

[Burning Water]

2. I think that this quote

People appreciate that I have a moral yardstick, and, even if they don’t have the same one, they appreciate that I have one and it’s not all about what a speechwriter puts in front of me or what a pollster tells me,” the governor-elect told the Prospect. That moral yardstick may be just the tool Democrats need. just about sums up the thrust of this article.

I'm not sure that I agree, completely. Even if a candidate has a moral yardstick, I don't believe that it can vary too far from the individual voter's, unless the other candidate's varies more. That's why, for instance, that Bush never loses his base, despite the very unconservative things that he sometimes does. For instance the huge growth in government spending. The base may be upset, but don't see things improving with a Democratic President . Why? Because our moral yardsticks and their moral yardsticks are measuring different things.

I mean, look at it. What could Bush do that would cause any of us to ever vote for him, if he could run again?

[Cary]

3. I like the fact that smart people are looking at this and developing. . .

strategies. I think that is truly lacking among our current crop of Democrats. However I'm not liking the message in part because rightists have bashed us over the head with these concepts before. Who doesn't recall the "you just don't get it" and "there is no more class war because poor people have air conditioners" memes?

Unions, on the other hand, are a big problem. The article mentions the fact that union membership is down. The unions must figure out how to be relevant in a service economy. Currently most people's relationship with unions is negative, like when their small business is raked over the coals because the owners neglected to pay benefits for Mexican workers who would never use them anyway.

I don't know what you do about a shift towards authoritianism and anti-intellectualism generally. I wish the article would have addressed that in more detail. Actually I wish Democrats would address all of that more effectively and I am not as comforted as the authors of this article suggest that I ought to be.