Michael Tomasky is one of the good guys, an excellent journalist. He thinks clearly, he writes beautifully. He has a deep moral sense and is sanity-based. But, as the editor of The New Republic, he has acquired a particular set of blinkers. In his latest column, he celebrates the presidency of Joe Biden—an assessment I share:
Biden has been a terrific president. The big legislation. The way he played Kevin McCarthy on the debt deal. The global leadership against Putin. The plain human decency restored to the White House after four years of self-obsessed thuggery. Oh—the 13 million jobs created since he took office, which is more jobs in 28 months than created under any other president, in all of our history, in a full four-year term.
Yes, all of that. And also, Tomasky points out, the quiet settlement of the railroad workers almost-strike, with the workers winning paid sick leave, which should, theoretically, make the President more popular with the labor left. So, he’s wondering—and I am, too—why Biden isn’t more popular:
This is a key point that has to do with a core difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals have a list of 50 things they want government to do, and they want those things done fast and to completion. Conservatives have a list of about two things they want government to do: Cut taxes, and punish people they disapprove of morally. For a presidential administration, satisfying that first group is a lot harder than satisfying the second. [italics mine]
I have a couple of problems with this. In my experience, it’s true that liberals may have 50 things they want government to do, but rarely care about seeing them done “to completion.” That would require liberals to care about how government actually works. They don’t, much. If they did, programs like Head Start might be more effective. The truth is, liberals mostly care about appropriation and litigation, not implementation. They believe in gestural politics, not in completion. That is a chronic failure of welfare-state progressivism.
The other thing Tomasky is missing goes to the heart of Sanity Clause’s unwritten mission statement: There is not a word here, except the phrase I’ve italicized above, that relates to the issues that matter most to voters—the culture war issues. Once again, It’s not the economy stupid…unless there is a cataclysm like 2008. And Tomasky’s formulation is overly simplistic: these issues are not just about “punishing” people. They’re real and they are complicated and they call for solutions that involve compromise. They’re about equality and sexuality and violence and the ethnic composition of our country. Several of these issues—abortion and gun control—break in the Democrats’ favor right now. The others—race, sexuality and immigration—break Republican.
The Biden triumphs that Tomasky cites are economic— with the exception of Putin—and they are largely abstract. They do not concern the daily lives of working class or middle class voters. The debt ceiling was a mirage (though Biden did skunk McCarthy). The jobs created after the pandemic were nice, and they certainly were sign of a rising tide, but tides rise imperceptibly. Employment isn’t nearly as immediate an issue as inflation. The general, and rather ridiculous, perception that the economy is awful stems from (1) the dyspeptic national mood and (2) the “economy” is often a blind for other issues—i.e. why are you spending so much of my money on poor people?
The issues that matter right now to the politically obsessed civilians on both sides are personal and immediate. They concern human life in all its convoluted intricacies. They involve crime and safety; and what our children are taught in school; and the beginning of life; and racial favoritism; and the ethnic proportions of our country. These are issues that many Democrats refuse to acknowledge (except for abortion and gun control); they are simply ignored, as Tomasky—uncharacteristically, I must say—does here. But unless there’s a drastic change in the weather, the 2024 election will be about our culture at a moment of significant demographic change, a tectonic moment. This is the Gringos’ Last Stand. White people are losing their majority—a development that true cosmopolitans (like me) should welcome, but it isn’t going to come easy…and there’s a significant chance the transition will change the essential nature of our country, fray the tidiness that white Anglo-Saxon Protestants brought to the table. That’s what people are worried about.
A few months ago, I made a stab at calibrating these issues, at least in relation to each other. Here’s my latest estimate of the heat they’re throwing—and caveat lector, this is a political not a moral calculus:
1. Race
This is prospective. My assumption is that the Supreme Court will try to abolish race-based affirmative action in the coming days. It probably won’t succeed in the real world; elite institutions will continue to find a way to boost black applicants. But any decision will have immense impact: If affirmative action is abolished, there will be protests. I hope they’ll be peaceful, but you never know in the heat of summer. If the Court tries to finesse the issue, and affirmative action stands in law, the structural favoritism will continue to benefit the Republican Party. Most working class whites—and Asians and, still, Jews—believe the playing field is tilted away from them. According to a YouGov poll—hat tip, The Liberal Patriot—significant majorities of Americans, even blacks, do not think race should be considered in college admissions. That won’t change. It will probably fester, to the advantage of Republicans. And the bubbling talk of reparations in California and elsewhere will only reinforce that advantage
2. Transylvania
You are a Trans activist, invited to the White House for a celebration. And you pull off your blouse and show your tits? Brilliant. The issue of obnoxious homosexual activism has been front and center in June, which has been designated Gay Pride month (the attempted appropriation of the word Pride by activists is another unnecessary intrusion on the public vocabulary). Andrew Sullivan, courageous as ever, has taken on the “queer” excesses of the gay rights movement: It is one thing to believe homosexuality is a state of nature that should be respected, it is another to flaunt exorbitant behavior in an attempt to offend—it’s a gift to Republicans like Trump and DeSantis.
3. Abortion
This has been awful for Republicans, and rightly so. The issue was “won” a year ago when Roe was overturned, a Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one. Any further debate on the issue would seem politically foolish…and yet the Republicans keep on trying to foist new limitations on a public that believes, overwhelmingly, that first trimester abortion should be legal. I wonder if Ron DeSantis’s slide began when he signed the 6-week abortion bill in Florida.
4. Immigration
Watch out for this one. It is going to become more important as the election approaches, especially if it is twinned with drug trafficking, as Ron Desantis has just done. It is mind-boggling that the Democrats still do not have a coherent immigration and border control policy. Nor, for that matter, have they mounted a credible anti-opioid trafficking campaign.
5. Guns
Fewer spectacular mass shootings…or are we just becoming inured to it:
Mass shootings and violence killed and wounded people across the United States this weekend, including at least 60 shot in the Chicago area alone. Four people were found shot to death in a small Idaho town, a Pennsylvania state trooper was killed in an ambush, and bullets struck 11 teenagers, killing one, at a party in Missouri.
This is another terrible issue for Republicans. According to a Fox poll, 90% of Americans want to ban assault weapons. Jennifer Rubin visited Amsterdam and saw how a society without guns might feel. It remains a mystery, especially given the moral and legal collapse of the National Rifle Association, why the Democrats can’t seem to exploit this issue.
Another Possible Culture Clash: Civility
Joe Biden has restored “plain human decency” to the White House, as Mike Tomasky noted above—and I wish he’d gotten more credit for it. But the national flood tide of boorishness continues unabated. There are excesses on both sides—see Transylvania, above—but civility is an enormous issue for Republicans because of Trump and his potty-mouthed acolytes. It remains to be seen if some GOP candidate—Tim Scott, Mike Pence?—takes this on directly.
In my experience, the one way to neutralize Trump supporters is to say: “Look, you and I can disagree on issues, but I’ve got four granddaughters and I don’t want them to grow up thinking that this is what a President of the United States sounds like.” It always works. Never a dispute.
Thanks for your lucid essay, but it raises an important question. I couldn't say this stuff as well as you do, but from my perspective as an elderly moderate Democrat from the South, your points seem pretty much no-brainers. It raises the question, why don't Democratic leaders and opinion makers in general recognize this?
I can imagine (for example) that they are anxious to maintain an appearance of unity, that they are overly-concerned with virtue signaling, or that they live in some weird bubble distant from US Normies. What's your feeling?
Nice culture war list. Where does education fit in on this list? I suppose it could impact race and gender, #1 + #2.
I’m thinking more of the school choice movement, which got a lot of momentum during COVID and for Youngkin’s victory. Seems like Republicans could influence independents and moderate Dems on the issue. If choice and self-determination are core values of American democracy, then school choice is the way to go. Not having school choice is anti-democratic,….and all we’ve heard since Trump has been elected in the press is how great democracy is and how much under threat it is.