Kevin Drum hits on a fundamental shift (via Andrew Sullivan):
Despite all the grief she’s gotten, I continue to think that the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate represents the breaking of a consensual cultural barrier far more fundamental than most people realize. … She was chosen purely at the level of celebrity, and an awful lot of people seemed to be just fine with that.
I fear he’s right.
What is it about McCain’s campaign slogan – plastered on his podium – that makes people uneasy?
(Picture via Huffington Post).
In light of all the terrific comments to my original post, here is the original unedited version of my column.
Two years ago almost to the day, I sat at a coffee shop in Washington, D.C. talking about the upcoming U.S. election with a good friend who was an editor at a major political monthly. Having never been a fan of George W. Bush, I said nonetheless that the president might be a transitional figure, his administration essentially holding back a tectonic populist, rightward shift in American politics. I told my friend I was fearful of what could come next. He looked me squarely in the eye and said simply: “That’s not what frightens me. What has me terrified is the right-wing backlash that will come when a more liberal, left-leaning administration takes office in January 2009.”
I’ve since come round to his way of thinking. Barring some unusual unforeseen event, Barack Obama can count on victory in next week’s election. He is running a considerable lead in the national polls and even in the electoral college, and he appears to have mobilized huge numbers of younger and African American voters who will push him to victory in the key swing states he needs to win the Electoral College. He has the money – more than $150 million dollars raised just in September – to counter virtually any negative advertising. But his job once in office will be harder than he could have anticipated.
When people like Colin Powell say Obama is a “transformational figure,” they’re suggesting that an Obama administration can somehow heal the deep divisions within the American electorate and move the country forward, the way Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression. And certainly projected Democratic majorities in Congress make that kind of transformation appear plausible.
I wish that would happen. But I doubt it will, and the reason is simple: the divisions run too deep. The realignment that propelled and kept FDR in office is not happening today. American politics is distinguished today by shifting electoral coalitions, candidate-centered elections, and what some political scientists call de-alignment. America isn’t just suffering from political polarization but a burgeoning economic divide and class war.
Since 1980, the year Ronald Reagan was first elected, the U.S. economy has been undergoing a shift more thorough and massive than the rise of industrial economy a century and a half ago. Since then, 20 million jobs in the creative sector have been created, and the ranks of what I call the creative class has grown to 40 million – nearly a third of the workforce. That group has become a powerful force in American politics, and they are squarely behind Obama. New York Times columnist David Brooks recently reported that Republicans have all but lost creative professionals working in law, medicine, and high-tech. Obama leads McCain among those with a post graduate education 59 to 36 percent; and among those with a college education 50 to 44 percent. And the Democratic candidate leads younger 18-29 year old votes, 65 to 31 percent.
Up to this point, Republican party strategists have exploited this shift to their party’s advantage, beginning with the ever prescient Kevin Phillips’s identification of the “silent majority” of white working-class voters in 1968. The rise of the creative economy generated not just a new class, but a shift in social values. Tolerance, diversity, and self-expression became prized, and not just because of the hippies, student movement, or even what Christopher Lasch called the culture of narcissism. Diversity and self-expression are necessary for the creative economy to flourish and function. It’s little wonder than that Silicon Valley, ground zero of the high-tech revolution, grew up in the shadow of San Francisco.
As the creative economy grew and became more concentrated in locations like San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Boston, and Washington D.C. – what we now know as blue America – the working class fell further and further behind. Globalization was shipping jobs overseas and the main institutional supports that led to higher working-class incomes during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s – powerful U.S. companies and powerful unions – were simultaneously being undercut. The great genius of Karl Rove was to seize upon the church as the one remaining constant in the lives of working Americans, and use it to his political organizational advantage.
The rise of ”hockey moms,” of “Joe Six-Pack,” and “Joe the Plumber” in this election cycle testify to this growing sense of unease. This is the kind of economic split that Obama tried to capture with his now infamous “bitter-gate” statement, which he now says he regrets. But what can we expect from people who know that the economic system is leaving them behind?
This class divide is overlaid on America’s economic and political geography. The rise of the creative class and its geographic centers which form the innovative engines of the U.S. economy, are also reshaping its politics. This goes beyond traditional Democratic bastions like big city New York, Chicago, and L.A. and, high-tech centers like San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and Washington D.C.; or university districts like Austin, Boulder, and Raleigh-Durham.
My team and I looked at the state-by-state polls and compared them to our measures of the creative economy – a broad index of technology, talent, and tolerance. Blue states had a median creativity index score of more then red states (.68 versus .38), with purple swing states in the middle. Virginia and Colorado, two former staunchly red states that Obama is currently winning by six or seven percent, have seen significant increases in their college-educated populations in recent years.
As these states have become more highly educated, more urbanized, more high-tech, and more diverse, notes Financial Times columnist Edward Luce, they have moved from Republican red to Democratic blue. As Republican congressman Tom Davis recently opined, U.S. politics, including his own district of Northern Virginia, is being reshaped as high-tech economies lean more Democratic. As he put it simply: “Economic development works.” He decided not to seek reelection.
Political scientist Andrew Gelman show that economic geography now outweighs personal income as the key faultline in American politics. Richer Americans continue to vote Republican and poorer ones are overwhelmingly Democratic, but upper-middle class, richer states like California, Massachusetts, and New York vote and perhaps now Virgina and Colorado vote blue, because richer more creative class voters there are more open-minded and no longer simply vote for their immediate pocketbooks.
And both states are microcosms of the deeper class divide across America. Outside of high-tech, highly educated, ultra-professional and diverse Northern Virginia and away from the creative class Denver-Boulder corridor, both are hot-beds of socially conservative populism – where anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-urban sentiments run high. Colorado after all is home to the ultra-conservative Focus on the Family, while Virginia Beach is the headquarters to the Christian Coalition originally founded by Pat Robertson.
These class divides will only deepen as the economy worsens, and America’s economic geography becomes ever more polarized and unequal. And a strange kind of reactive populism, much worse than anything we’ve seen before, is likely to rise. McCain’s defeat in 2008 at the hands of Obama will shift the balance of power toward the conservative wing of the Republican party – toward figures like Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin who combine social populism with uncanny media skills and the ability to project themselves onto America’s popular culture. Unless Obama can fashion a broad inclusive appeal that extends the benefits of the creative economy to working and service economies, the bitterness he himself acknowledged, in a moment of uncanny candor, will only grow deeper and America will grow more divided and ever more polarized.
If you think the stock market has been volatile, we are in uncharted political waters. Get ready for an extended period of volatility and conflict in American politics. You heard it here first.
My latest Globe and Mail column:
Two years ago almost to the day, I sat at a coffee shop in Washington, D.C., talking about the upcoming U.S. election with a good friend who was an editor at a major political monthly. Though never a fan of George W. Bush, I suggested that the President might be a transitional figure, his administration essentially holding back a tectonic populist, rightward shift in American politics. I told my friend I was fearful of what could come next. He looked me squarely in the eye and said simply: “That’s not what frightens me. What has me terrified is the right-wing backlash that will come when a more liberal, left-leaning administration takes office in January, 2009.”
I’ve since come around to his way of thinking. Barring some unforeseen event, Barack Obama can count on victory in Tuesday’s election. He is running a considerable lead in the national polls and even in the electoral college, and he appears to have mobilized huge numbers of younger and African-American voters who will push him to victory in the key swing states. He has the money – more than $150-million raised just in September – to counter virtually any negative advertising. But his job once in office may be harder than he anticipated.
When people like Colin Powell say Mr. Obama is a “transformational figure,” they’re suggesting that an Obama administration can somehow heal the deep divisions within the American electorate and move the country forward, the way Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression. And certainly projected Democratic majorities in Congress make that kind of transformation appear plausible.
I wish that would happen. But I doubt it will, and the reason is simple: The divisions run too deep. The realignment that propelled and kept FDR in office is not happening today. American politics is distinguished today by shifting electoral coalitions, candidate-centered elections, and what some political scientists call de-alignment. America isn’t just suffering from political polarization, but a burgeoning economic divide and class war.
Since 1980, the year Ronald Reagan was first elected, the U.S. economy has been undergoing a shift more thorough and massive than the rise of industrial economy a century and a half ago. Since then, 20 million jobs in the creative sector have been created, and the ranks of what I call the creative class have grown to 40 million – nearly a third of the work force. That group has become powerful in American politics, and it is squarely behind Mr. Obama. New York Times columnist David Brooks recently reported that Republicans have all but lost creative professionals working in law, medicine, and high technology.
Republican strategists have exploited this shift to their party’s advantage, beginning with the ever-prescient Kevin Phillips’s identification of the “silent majority” of white working-class voters in 1968.
The rise of the creative economy generated a shift in social values. Tolerance, diversity, and self-expression became prized. Diversity and self-expression became necessary for the creative economy to flourish and function.
As it grew and became more concentrated in locations such as San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Boston, and Washington D.C. – what we now know as blue America – the working class fell further and further behind. Globalization shipped jobs overseas, while institutional supports that led to higher working-class incomes during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s – powerful U.S. companies and powerful unions – were simultaneously being undercut. The great genius of former Bush political strategist Karl Rove was to seize upon the church as the one remaining constant in the lives of working Americans and to use it to his political organizational advantage.
The rise of “hockey moms,” “Joe Six-Pack,” and “Joe the Plumber” in this election cycle testifies to this growing sense of unease. This is the kind of economic split that Mr. Obama tried to capture with his infamous “bitter-gate” statement, which he now says he regrets. But what can we expect from people who know that the economic system is leaving them behind?
This class divide is overlaid on America’s economic and political geography, with the U.S. economy being driven by centers of innovation such as San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and Washington D.C.; finance, entertainment, and media cities such as New York and Los Angeles; and university-anchored tech centers such as Austin, Tex., Boulder, Colo., and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
My team and I looked at the state-by-state polls and compared them to our measures of the creative economy – a broad index of technology, talen,t and tolerance. Blue states had a higher median creativity index score than red states (.68 versus .38). Mr. Obama leads John McCain among those with a postgraduate education 59 to 36 percent; among those with a college education 50 to 44 percent; and among 18-to-29-year-olds 65 to 31 percent.
As Republican congressman Tom Davis recently opined, U.S. politics, including in his own district in northern Virginia, is being reshaped as high-tech economies lean more Democratic: “Economic development works.” He decided not to seek re-election.
These class divides will only deepen. Fear and anxiety will probably get worse. And a strange kind of reactive populism, much worse than anything we have seen before, could be on the rise. Unless Mr. Obama can fashion a broad, inclusive appeal that extends the benefits of the creative economy to working and service economies, the bitterness he himself acknowledged, in a moment of candor, will grow deeper.
If you think the stock market has been volatile, get ready for an extended period of volatility and conflict in American politics.
Is consumerism a possible forecast of an election? There’s a new store at Reagan National Airport, aptly titled, ‘America’ in Terminal B. While waiting for my flight last week, I popped in to check out the array of fun election gadgets. While cashing out with a few Obama bobble heads and a tin of Bush administration ‘indictmint’ mints, Richard asked the cashier which candidate was selling more products. She eagerly reported that Obama was way ahead in sales, outpacing McCain and Palin by double. Here’s a small shop titled America in one the busiest airports in the nation’s capital which already swings democratic but hosts tourists from all over the country. What do you think? Are people voting with their dollar?
Wil Wilkinson takes David Brooks’ – and John McCain’s – “country first” calls for a new collectivism apart. Individualism, Wilkinson reminds us, is in sync with the great march of human progress. Individualistic societies grow faster and their people are happier than collectivist ones.
Wealth, which produces all sorts of hugely desirable human goods, also weakens orientation toward pre-assigned roles and their obligations and strengthens the orientation toward individual fulfillment, resulting in more fulfillment. Collectivist moral cultures do serve an important function in the typical human condition. But we are lucky when that function has become unnecessary
He cites a study by Aaron Ahuvia in the Journal of Happiness Studies which finds that:
Rather [than increasing happiness directly through increased consumption], economic development increases SWB [subjective well-being] by creating a cultural environment where individuals make choices to maximize their happiness rather than meet social obligations (Coleman, 1990; Galbraith, 1992; Triandis, 1989; Triandis et al., 1990; Veenhoven, 1999; Watkins and Liu, 1996). This cultural transformation away from obligation and toward the pursuit of happiness is part of a broader transition away from collectivism and toward individualist cultural values and forms of social organization.
Collectivism is a hallamark of backwardness, closure, and fear. To my mind, the value of individualism and individual self-expression is something I thought both liberals and conservatives could agree on. And while I respect John McCain as a individual, his country-first calls for a new collectivism frankly scare me.
Talk about post-convention bounce. A new Gallup poll has McCain now up by 10 points over Obama, 54-44. Lots of fluctuation and other polls have it much closer. Alan Brinkley opines in the Wall Street Journal that in a post-partisan world, voters are driven by wedge issues and the “attractiveness” of candidates. An ABC poll says white women are flocking to McCain-Palin who lead in this demo 53-41. Quite a turnaround from Obama, up 50-42 before the conventions (data via pollster.com).
But such macro perspectives miss the underlying reality of American politics. It’s all about geography.
Obama has the creative class states wrapped up, no doubt; but these are highly concentrated.
The political geography of the election turns on a handful or so of swing states: Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, and Nevada.
From where I sit, this poses a real challenge for Obama. Seems to me, the whole kit and caboodle turns on whether Obama can mobilize enough young people and black voters to turn those states.
Looking at this emerging political geography, which way do you think the election will swing?
