tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/tea-party-4214/articlesTea Party – The Conversation2023-09-21T12:44:02Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2139512023-09-21T12:44:02Z2023-09-21T12:44:02ZKevin McCarthy’s leadership is an open question as budget shutdown looms and GOP infighting takes center stage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549445/original/file-20230920-23-qfcfls.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C11%2C7633%2C5085&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-kevin-mccarthy-addresses-reporters-news-photo/1676976025?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>What do you get when you combine a tiny legislative majority, a former president itching for influence and a rogue group of lawmakers who like making headlines? House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s hellish life these days. The pressure has been fierce on McCarthy to fashion <a href="https://apnews.com/article/mccarthy-government-shutdown-house-republicans-congress-543f93b6ad6a3f23ee3f5275e19293f9">an agreement with his caucus to stave off a government shutdown</a>. But every day seems to bring another set of demands from hardline House Freedom Caucus members, who seem unwilling to accept a deal – and willing to risk a shutdown to make their points. The Conversation spoke with congressional expert <a href="https://www.charlesrhunt.com/">Charles R. Hunt</a>, a political scientist at Boise State University, about the current political standoff, its roots and what it means for people across the country.</em></p>
<h2>Why does a small faction of GOP lawmakers have control over McCarthy?</h2>
<p>The 2022 elections were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/upshot/2022-republicans-midterms-analysis.html">much closer than Republicans thought</a> they were going to be. And there is a big difference between having a 20-vote margin and the nine-vote margin that McCarthy has now. A big part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-speaker-of-the-house-do-heres-what-kevin-mccarthy-will-have-for-a-job-94884">the speaker’s job</a> is to whip votes and to keep people in line, mainly in the speaker’s own party. And that becomes much more difficult when you have such a small margin.</p>
<p>McCarthy’s job is made even more difficult by the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/08/1147762006/the-house-speaker-battle-has-roots-in-the-tea-party-movement">extremist wing of the Republican Party</a>. Though the extremists have been around for years, starting with the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tea-Party-movement">Tea Party during the Obama Administration</a>, they have changed over the years. Back then, they were hyper-focused on true ideological battles such as small government and spending cuts. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">After much wrangling, Kevin McCarthy was finally announced as speaker of the House on Jan. 6, 2023.</span></figcaption>
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<p>It’s not that the current crop of lawmakers in <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/23/freedom-caucus-likely-to-play-a-bigger-role-in-new-gop-led-house-so-who-are-they/">the Freedom Caucus</a> don’t want those things. But more and more, it’s not so much issue positions, but rather personality and culture that are driving this faction of Republicans – as well as the voters that they need to win. </p>
<p>They are much more interested in impeaching President Joe Biden or investigating his son, Hunter, than getting a vote on, say, immigration reform. </p>
<h2>What is the Trump factor on the House GOP?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/15/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-trump-republican-influence">The fact that Donald Trump continues to have inordinate influence</a> tells us a lot about what being conservative means right now; more than ever, it is not so much a statement of policy positions as it is a statement on <a href="https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/82/S1/866/4951269">cultural identity</a>. </p>
<p>Trump is a good example. He is <a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-federal-ban-trump-gop-2024-20586bbb64a511030ef58290e98f99f0">not as traditionally conservative on the issues</a> as some of his GOP opponents in the presidential race. But he embodies the conservative wing of the party <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/6-things-to-know-about-rising-anti-establishment-politics-in-the-us-and-europe/">among both the voters</a> and members of Congress because of his cultural identity and his insistence on taking the anti-establishment road every time it is available to him, even if it has nothing to do with policy positions.</p>
<h2>Why is getting a budget deal more difficult to achieve with the Trump factor?</h2>
<p>It seems like no one in this far-right faction can define exactly what they want because striking a deal with McCarthy on the budget is not their endgame. Their endgame seems to be giving the congressional equivalent of the middle finger to the establishment. That was the <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/626012/donald-trump-middle-finger-entire-political-system">entire basis for the first Trump candidacy</a> in 2016. And some congressional Republicans are mimicking that because that is what their voters want.</p>
<h2>So what you’re saying is that the public interest is not what these extremists represent in Congress. They represent something entirely different.</h2>
<p>This is what’s really interesting about Congress. There’s a reasonable argument to be made that a member of Congress’ job is not necessarily to represent the broader public interest but to <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-reasons-why-abortion-laws-often-clash-with-the-majoritys-preferences-in-the-us-from-constitutional-design-to-low-voter-turnout-188180">represent the interests of their constituents</a> in their districts. And whether you like it or not, that is what these lawmakers see themselves as doing at this moment. </p>
<p>Compare the far-right wing to the more moderate Republicans in districts <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/vulnerable-republicans-arent-sold-impeaching-biden-rcna98638">who are reluctant</a> to go down the impeachment route and want to strike a deal with McCarthy and the Democrats to pass a budget. But the GOP far right doesn’t appear to care about passing any significant legislation. </p>
<h2>What is the process for removing McCarthy?</h2>
<p>Most of the time, speakership battles are not contentious. And there’s always a rumbling of some kind or another from an outsider wing of the majority party. But the problem now is that, in a new rule since McCarthy became speaker, one member can bring a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-of-the-house-ousted-motion-to-vacate-rcna64902">motion to vacate</a>, which forces a vote on whether the speaker keeps their job. That does not mean that McCarthy automatically loses the speakership – it would still require votes by the whole House.</p>
<p>And it seems like the Democrats’ strategy here is to <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/3797102-democrats-on-mccarthy-gop-chaos-pass-the-popcorn/">just watch the GOP self-destruct</a>. So a lot of this is what we call <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/02/14/long-shot-legislation-focus-republicans-118th-congress/11156048002/">messaging votes</a>. We got a lot of this in the 2010s with the Republican House voting over and over again to repeal Obamacare – even though President Barack Obama would obviously never sign that bill.</p>
<p>But the problem with McCarthy is that his majority is so slim and this faction is so extreme that it’s driving many of the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/01/moderate-centrist-republicans-pragmatic-conservatives/672856/">moderate Republicans</a> crazy. The moderates want to just get through the day, and the Freedom Caucus isn’t letting them.</p>
<h2>Why should GOP infighting matter to the average American?</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/20/federal-government-shutdown-2023/">government shutdown</a> is not just this kind of amorphous thing that only Washington cares about. It has <a href="https://abc7.com/government-shutdown-need-to-know/13798112/">huge implications</a> for people’s everyday lives, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-happened-during-the-last-government-shutdown-4-essential-reads-169003">especially if it drags on</a> for weeks.</p>
<p>A shutdown means slower mailing of Social Security checks, and closed national parks. A shutdown has automatic economic consequences on the stock market and in regular <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-workers-begin-to-feel-pain-of-shutdown-as-800-000-lose-their-paychecks-109710">people’s paychecks</a>.</p>
<p>We can talk about the 2024 presidential election and Trump’s indictments all we want. But budget negotiations matter now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213951/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An expert on Congress helps untangle the mess that is Kevin McCarthy’s life as speaker of the House right now.Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2107402023-09-19T12:19:35Z2023-09-19T12:19:35ZMoms for Liberty: ‘Joyful warriors’ or anti-government conspiracists? The 2-year-old group could have a serious impact on the presidential race<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544384/original/file-20230823-25-wxsuco.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C2964%2C1985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Signs in the hallway during the inaugural Moms For Liberty Summit on July 15, 2022, in Tampa, Fla. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-reading-we-do-not-co-parent-with-the-government-is-news-photo/1241918008?adppopup=true">Octavio Jones/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Motherhood language and <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/families/2020/08/suffrage-movement/#:%7E:text=The%20theme%20of%20motherhood%20in,have%20the%20right%20to%20vote.">symbolism</a> have been <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Political-Uses-of-Motherhood-in-America/Stavrianos/p/book/9781138777354">part of every U.S. social movement</a>, from <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/republican-motherhood#:%7E:text=This%20ideology%20became%20known%20as,citizens%20of%20the%20new%20republic.">the American Revolution</a> to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/05/09/mothers-have-long-used-their-identities-push-social-change/">Prohibition</a> and the <a href="https://madd.org/about-madd/">fight against drunk drivers</a>. Half of Americans are women, most become <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/18/theyre-waiting-longer-but-u-s-women-today-more-likely-to-have-children-than-a-decade-ago/">mothers</a>, and <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/388988/political-ideology-steady-conservatives-moderates-tie.aspx">many are conservative</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S. is also a nation of organizing, so conservative moms – like all moms – often band together.</p>
<p>Lately, the mothers group dominating media attention is <a href="https://www.momsforliberty.org/about/">Moms for Liberty</a>, self-described “<a href="https://www.momsforliberty.org/about/">joyful warriors</a> … stok[ing] the fires of liberty” with the slogan “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/moms-for-liberty-parents-rights/2021/10/14/bf3d9ccc-286a-11ec-8831-a31e7b3de188_story.html">We Don’t Co-Parent with the Government</a>.” </p>
<p>Others see them as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/books/book-bans-libraries.html">well-organized</a>, publicity-savvy <a href="https://www.advocate.com/news/moms-for-liberty-agenda-pac">anti-government conspiracists</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.momsforliberty.org/">The rambunctious two-year-old group</a> was founded in Brevard County, Florida, to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mama-bears-2024-races-soccer-moms-gop-seeks-101586806">resist COVID-19 mask mandates</a>. It quickly expanded into the Southeast, now <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/moms-for-liberty-rises-as-power-player-in-gop-politics-after-attacking-schools-over-gender-race">claiming 120,000 members in 285 chapters</a> nationwide. Their <a href="https://www.momsforliberty.org/about/">mission</a> is to “figh[t] for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.” </p>
<p>By “parental rights” they mean limiting certain content in schools and having local councils and boards run only by “<a href="https://www.momsforliberty.org/about/">liberty-minded individuals</a>” – which sounds like rhetoric from the American Revolution. </p>
<p>There’s historical precedent in this. Change the clothes and hairdos and these ladies could look like the conservative white women who <a href="https://bostonresearchcenter.org/projects_files/eob/single-entry-busing.html">opposed busing in 1970s Boston</a>, <a href="https://upcolorado.com/university-press-of-colorado/item/1830-wives-mothers-and-the-red-menace">supported McCarthy anti-communism</a> or <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/10/02/140953088/elizabeth-and-hazel-the-legacy-of-little-rock">blocked integration in Southern schools</a>. Those women also formed mom-based groups to protest what they saw as government overreach into their families’ way of life.</p>
<p>But as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jnBSYuwAAAAJ&hl=en">a scholar of American politics</a> with a focus on gender and race, I also see differences. </p>
<h2>21st century conservatism</h2>
<p>Moms for Liberty skillfully leverages social media, drawing on a population activated by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tea-Party-movement">2009-2010 rise of the Tea Party</a> followed by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/MAGA-movement">Trumpian MAGA movement</a>. Mask mandates were the trigger for the group’s formation, but <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/moms-for-liberty-philadelphia-transgender-rhetoric-protests-lgbt-20230701.html">opposition to gender fluidity and queerness</a> has become its bread and butter – more 21st century than 20th. </p>
<p>How racial equality is talked about animates its work also, in a distinctly new way. The conservative position on race and government’s role in the past century has pivoted from enforcement of segregation and hierarchy to a kind of social “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/laissezfaire.asp#toc-history-of-laissez-faire">laissez-faire</a>” – hands off – position to match the <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/reaganomics.asp">Reaganite</a> view that government is bad. </p>
<p>The extreme, hyper-male form of this anti-government, pro-traditional gender-roles ideology took shape as the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54352635">Proud Boys</a>, a number of whose leaders are now <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/jury-convicts-four-leaders-proud-boys-seditious-conspiracy-related-us-capitol-breach">under indictment and sentence</a> for their part in the Jan. 6 Capitol attacks. Moms for Liberty, while not going this far, shares similar beliefs and apparently has ties to the <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d93qd/moms-for-liberty-proud-boys">Proud Boys organization and leaders</a>. They don’t march with guns, but their actions undermine and impede local government.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘One minute you’re making peanut butter and jelly, and the next minute the FBI is calling you,’ said Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice, testifying in the U.S. House of Representatives about government investigation of her group.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>New kids in town making themselves heard</h2>
<p>The group’s roots stretch back to a heated 2020 school board election in Brevard County. Incumbent school board member Tina Descovich, <a href="https://www.floridatoday.com/story/life/family/2015/05/27/indialantic-mom-puts-family-community-first/28006345/">a local conservative activist mom</a>, was challenged by progressive newcomer Jenifer Jenkins. When Jenkins <a href="https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2020/08/18/election-2020-jenkins-set-defeat-descovich-school-board/3288519001/">won</a>, the conservative board majority ended.</p>
<p>Having lost electorally, Descovich – and the corps of like-minded moms she now represents – began to shift the conversation from the outside. They joined with moms in many red states angered by what seemed <a href="https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/67/the-new-new-social-conservatives/">fast-moving changes</a> involving <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html">race,</a> <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/06/28/americans-complex-views-on-gender-identity-and-transgender-issues/">gender and sexuality</a>, like the increasing numbers of people identifying as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/science/transgender-teenagers-national-survey.html">trans, queer or nonbinary, even at young ages</a>, the vast <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/11/15/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-legalization-of-same-sex-marriage-is-good-for-society/">changes in marital laws</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/">family structure</a>, and changing ideas about <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/25/americans-are-divided-on-whether-society-overlooks-racial-discrimination-or-sees-it-where-it-doesnt-exist/">whiteness, inclusion and equity</a>. </p>
<p>Moms for Liberty soon found success with disruptive tactics a VICE News investigation called a “<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy3gnq/what-is-moms-for-liberty">pattern of harassment” of opponents</a> that include online and in-person targeting of school board members, parents or even students who disagree with the group. </p>
<p>Members in many chapters generate ill will by turning up to school board and other <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy3gnq/what-is-moms-for-liberty">meetings</a> – sometimes to the homes of public officials or teachers – yelling insults like “<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy3gnq/what-is-moms-for-liberty">pedophile</a>” and “<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/moms-liberty/moms-liberty-members-have-been-linked-incidents-harassment-and-threats-around-country">groomer</a>” at opponents.</p>
<p>For a newcomer, Moms for Liberty has had real victories. It has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/29/school-board-meetings-used-be-boring-why-have-they-become-war-zones/">disrupted countless meetings</a>, forcing local governance bodies to focus on topics important to the group such as lifting mask mandates and, more recently, removing curricular content that they deem controversial, such as texts on gender identity and racial oppression. </p>
<p>The group’s success in getting talked about is perhaps its greatest strength so far, moving it from outside disruptor to political player, at least locally. It has successfully supported many local candidates and <a href="https://theweek.com/education/1023631/how-moms-for-liberty-is-changing-the-education-debate">book bans</a>. </p>
<p>Specific examples of banned books include “<a href="https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/education/2023-07-12/florida-school-district-removed-5-books-after-moms-for-liberty-raised-concern-more-could-follow">Push</a>,” which inspired the award-winning movie “Precious,” and “<a href="https://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/me-and-earl-and-the-dying-girl/">Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl</a>,” also made into a movie. </p>
<h2>Disciplining members</h2>
<p>Despite its many chapters, Moms for Liberty is untried nationally, its total membership is still relatively small, and Federal Election Commission filings show it raising and spending <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/detail/2022?cmte=C00791848">little money</a>. The group lacks control over members, who have publicly embarrassed it. In one case, the Hamilton County, Indiana, chapter <a href="https://apnews.com/article/moms-for-liberty-adolf-hitler-newsletter-quote-bcce698e901b9e782970030ccd710512">quoted Hitler in a newsletter</a> – later apologizing. </p>
<p>At another point, an Arkansas member avoided criminal charges for saying, <a href="https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2022/06/22/moms-for-liberty-member-avoids-criminal-charges-over-comment-about-gunning-down-a-school-librarian">in a discussion about a librarian</a>, “I’m telling you, if I had any mental issues, they would all be plowed down by a freaking gun right now.” </p>
<p>These incidents mark the group not only as green, but also as part of the new right wing. Republican-leaning groups used to take a top-down approach to setting agendas and managing people, while Democratic organizations historically <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo5977742.html">cited democracy and equality</a> as both tools and goals, even if it meant <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo5977742.html">disorganization and failure</a>. </p>
<p>In the traditional top-down Republican party of yesteryear, Moms for Liberty would likely be marginal. In today’s disorganized, divided, <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1159027787">hyperpolarized GOP</a>, it may do quite well – which is not good news for democracy. </p>
<h2>Out of step, but useful</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544386/original/file-20230823-15-8pys36.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A poster encouraging people to run for school board." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544386/original/file-20230823-15-8pys36.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544386/original/file-20230823-15-8pys36.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544386/original/file-20230823-15-8pys36.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544386/original/file-20230823-15-8pys36.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544386/original/file-20230823-15-8pys36.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544386/original/file-20230823-15-8pys36.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544386/original/file-20230823-15-8pys36.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A poster helping those who want to run for a school board position is seen in the hallway during the inaugural Moms For Liberty Summit on July 15, 2022, in Tampa, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/poster-helping-those-who-want-to-run-for-a-school-board-news-photo/1241918219?adppopup=true">Octavio Jones/Getty Images)</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Pro-mom language is sometimes, in the old idiom, the velvet glove hiding the iron fist.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>, which tracks organized hate activity, labeled Moms for Liberty “<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/moms-liberty">extremist</a>.” Its empirical evaluation concluded <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/moms-liberty">that the group’s</a> chapters “reflect views and actions that are antigovernment and conspiracy propagandist.”</p>
<p>Moms for Liberty is ideologically out of step with the country and more anti-government than most Republicans. The majority of Americans are not in support of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-health-education-coronavirus-pandemic-only-on-ap-0440d83602da918c571d506a3de9f44b">lifting mask mandates</a> in the middle of a pandemic or <a href="https://www.everylibraryinstitute.org/review_recent_book_ban_polls">banning books</a>. </p>
<p>Among Republicans, there is disagreement over the teaching of controversial topics like racial justice, but book bans find <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-dont-want-books-banned-but-theyre-divided-over-what-schools-teach">low support</a>. Despite the current bitter political climate, most in the U.S. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/404750/public-opinion-role-government.aspx">appreciate government and want it to work</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, some <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/-moms-for-liberty-becomes-major-political-player-in-republican-party-186196037701">media</a> refer to Moms for Liberty as a “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/politics/moms-for-liberty-2024/index.html">power player</a>” – and no wonder, when Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/30/trump-desantis-white-house-hopefuls-court-maga-moms-at-moms-for-liberty-bash-00104474">show up to court the group</a>. Moms for Liberty may be fringe, but its members could be of use to presidential hopefuls. </p>
<p>Why? The answer lies in some distinctly post-2010 electoral math. These days, only <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/03/14/political-independents-who-they-are-what-they-think/">a quarter to a third of voters align with each major party</a>, and less than <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/chart3-11.png?w=1424">a third of registered partisans turn out for primaries</a>. </p>
<p>So a sixth of each party – a small fraction of the overall population – now selects the nominees. And that sixth is <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/political-polarization-and-voters-in-the-2018-congressional-primaries/">not representative</a> – it is far more opinionated and angry. Moms for Liberty, having organized small, ideological voting armies in swing states, is in the envious position of representing a concentrated and potentially decisive voting bloc. </p>
<p>The mom rhetoric may be real, but as a political scientist, I can say confidently that the framers of the Constitution would not endorse this brand of liberty. Book bans are weapons of autocrats, and democracy ends where political figures call each other “pedophiles” in public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210740/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shauna Shames does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Moms for Liberty, founded in 2021 and now boasting 120,000 members, could ride its conservative, limited-government message to a position of strong influence in the GOP.Shauna Shames, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1925102023-06-25T20:03:47Z2023-06-25T20:03:47ZAtlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand’s hero burns the world down when he doesn’t get his way. Her fans run the world – should we worry?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529956/original/file-20230605-17-mn9ejz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4328%2C2870&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Minchillo/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Our cultural touchstones series looks at books that have made an impact.</em></p>
<p>Ayn Rand is “one of the most important intellectual voices in our culture,” wrote <a href="https://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-directory/gregory-salmieri/">Gregory Salmieri</a>, co-editor of the <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-au/A+Companion+to+Ayn+Rand-p-9781405186841">Blackwell Companion to Ayn Rand</a>, in 2016. He identifies a “pronounced disconnect” in responses to Rand’s books and ideas. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531552/original/file-20230613-20-a3snia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531552/original/file-20230613-20-a3snia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531552/original/file-20230613-20-a3snia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531552/original/file-20230613-20-a3snia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531552/original/file-20230613-20-a3snia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531552/original/file-20230613-20-a3snia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531552/original/file-20230613-20-a3snia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531552/original/file-20230613-20-a3snia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ayn Rand.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/atlas-shrugged-9780141188935">Atlas Shrugged</a>, her 1957 bestseller, is a case in point. Rand’s novel, which she believed her best, has generated significant critical and academic scorn since publication. </p>
<p>But her <a href="https://aynrand.org/novels/capitalism-the-unknown-ideal/">laissez faire</a>, anti-government ode to individualism also resonated with millions of readers. It remains a favourite of politicians (including Tea Party types) and tech billionaires – including one with possible apartheid <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-denies-emerald-mine">emerald mining</a> connections.</p>
<p>Salmieri adds that Rand was fascinated by criminality. She was particularly captivated by William Hickman, responsible for this 1927 abduction in Los Angeles (described in James L. Neibaur’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26521173-butterfly-in-the-rain">Butterfly in the Rain</a>):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The kidnapper leaned back and disappeared into the darkness of his car. […] Perry Parker watched carefully as the car containing Marion came to a stop. The passenger door opened, and an object fell to the curb. […] Kneeling beside the bundle, he reached down and lifted it toward him, throwing his arms around his 100-pound daughter, and pulled her closely toward him. He noticed the package was suspiciously light.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/books/review-mean-girl-ayn-rand-culture-of-greed-lisa-duggan.html">Lisa Duggan</a> explains why the bundle was underweight. Caution: this is disturbing. </p>
<p>Parker’s 12-year-old daughter, Marion, had not simply been dumped on the street. The kidnapper, Duggan writes, “had dismembered her body, drained it of blood, cut her internal organs out, and stuffed her torso with bath towels.” </p>
<p>In response, the police launched a manhunt. The reward was $100,000. Hickman, the prime suspect, was apprehended in Oregon. He was executed by the Californian state in 1928.</p>
<p>Rand wanted to write a novel – The Little Street – about Marion’s murder and Hickman’s trial. While that novel never eventuated, we know what Rand intended. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529957/original/file-20230605-35707-b5rlps.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529957/original/file-20230605-35707-b5rlps.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529957/original/file-20230605-35707-b5rlps.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529957/original/file-20230605-35707-b5rlps.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529957/original/file-20230605-35707-b5rlps.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529957/original/file-20230605-35707-b5rlps.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529957/original/file-20230605-35707-b5rlps.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529957/original/file-20230605-35707-b5rlps.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ayn Rand was ‘captivated’ by murderer William Hickman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>David Harriman, who edited Rand’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journals_of_Ayn_Rand">journals</a>, notes that the book’s theme, which the novelist would return to obsessively, “was that humanity – warped by a corrupt philosophy – is destroying the best in man for the sake of enshrining mediocrity”. </p>
<p>Rand wanted to denounce, as Harriman puts it, “a world that seems to have no place for heroism”.</p>
<p>Significantly, the novel’s hero – Danny Renahan – was modelled on Hickman. This is how Rand described Renahan:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He is born with the spirit of Argon and the nature of a medieval feudal lord. Imperious. Impatient. Uncompromising. Untameable. Intolerant. Unadaptable. Passionate. Intensely proud. Superior to the mob and intensely, almost painfully conscious of it. Restless, High-strung. An extreme “extremist.” A clear, strong, brilliant mind. An egoist, in the best sense of the word.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Welcome to the world of Ayn Rand. Standard rules do not apply. </p>
<h2>A real delight in opposing people</h2>
<p>The Russian-born, naturalised American’s world is one where conventional understandings of morality and conduct are not flouted, but inverted. </p>
<p>This is a place where only the enlightened can appreciate, as Rand posits in a misanthropic journal entry, “that all humanity and each little citizen is an octopus that consciously or unconsciously sucks the best on earth and strangles life with its cold, sticky tentacles”. </p>
<p>What the world needs, in Rand’s estimation, is a hero like this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He gets immense enjoyment from shocking people, amusing them with his cynicism, ridiculing before their eyes the most sacred, venerated, established ideas. He takes a real delight in opposing people, in fighting and terrifying them. He has no ambition to be a benefactor or a popular hero for mankind.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If this sounds like Rand had been reading <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-nietzsche-nihilism-and-reasons-to-be-cheerful-130378">Nietzsche</a>, that is because she had. </p>
<p>Indeed, the first book Rand (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum) – who fled Russia after <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-putin-memory-wars-and-the-100th-anniversary-of-the-russian-revolution-72477">the Bolsheviks</a> seized power – purchased in the United States in 1926 was an English translation of <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/thus-spoke-zarathustra-9780140047486">Thus Spoke Zarathustra</a>.</p>
<p>Later in life, Rand underplayed her ardour for Nietzsche. The “only philosophical debt” Rand, who considered herself a thinker of profound originality, would now acknowledge was “to Aristotle”. </p>
<p>Rand termed her philosophical approach <a href="https://aynrand.org/ideas/overview/">Objectivism</a>. Note the continued emphasis on heroism:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rand’s fellow Objectivist travellers accept these statements. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/99951.Objectivism">Leonard Peikoff</a>, for one, agrees that “Objectivism is an integrated system of thought that defines the abstract principles by which a man must think and act if he is to live the life proper to man.” </p>
<p>Yet as the political scientist <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/garbage-and-gravitas/">Cory Robin</a> reminds us, although “Rand’s defenders claim she later abandoned her infatuation with Nietzsche, there is too much evidence of its persistence”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-nietzsche-nihilism-and-reasons-to-be-cheerful-130378">Explainer: Nietzsche, nihilism and reasons to be cheerful</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Executioner or saint?</h2>
<p>Rand’s two bestselling fictions, which double as philosophical statements of intent, are proof of this persistence. </p>
<p>Take her 1943 novel <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-fountainhead-9780141188621">The Fountainhead</a>. This 700-page-plus blockbuster – which has sold 6.5 million copies – focuses on an architect named Howard Roark. </p>
<p>Here’s a description of this archetypal Randian hero, an unreconstructed egoist whose understanding of sexual consent <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/i-was-ayn-rands-lover">is highly troubling</a>, and who <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/04/trumps-role-model-is-an-ayn-rand-character.html">Donald Trump</a> admires:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He did not laugh as his eyes stopped in awareness of the earth around him. His face was like a law of nature – a thing one could not question, alter, or implore. It had high cheekbones over gaunt, hollow cheeks; gray eyes, cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the mouth of an executioner or a saint.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531534/original/file-20230613-30-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531534/original/file-20230613-30-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531534/original/file-20230613-30-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531534/original/file-20230613-30-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531534/original/file-20230613-30-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531534/original/file-20230613-30-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531534/original/file-20230613-30-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531534/original/file-20230613-30-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Fountainhead’s ‘unreconstructed egoist’ hero, whose understanding of sexual consent is ‘highly troubling’, is admired by Donald Trump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Evan Vucci/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This “law of nature” would rather dynamite the social housing project he designed than compromise with those he dismisses as “second-handers”.</p>
<p>This is Rand’s take on the Nietzschean Übermensch – a man who is willing to bring things down, should he not get his way. Roark nails his flag to the mast while on trial:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them a right to my work. That their need constituted a claim on my life.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/woody-guthrie-old-man-trump-and-a-real-estate-empires-racist-foundations-53026">Woody Guthrie, 'Old Man Trump' and a real estate empire's racist foundations</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Watching the world burn</h2>
<p>John Galt, the hero of Atlas Shrugged, takes things even further. </p>
<p>A physicist and inventor, Galt, who is Rand in fictional disguise, is trying to burn the whole world down. He wants this because he is unhappy with how he has been treated by those he considers inferior. And that pretty much means everyone else.</p>
<p>Galt acknowledges this in an unbroken 60-page speech late in the novel:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Take a look around you, you savages who stutter that ideas are created by men’s means of production, that a machine is not the product of human thought, but a mystical power that produces human thinking. You have never discovered the industrial age – and you cling to the morality of the barbarian eras when a miserable form of human subsistence was produced by the muscular labor of slaves. […] When you clamour for public ownership of the means of production, you are clamouring for public ownership of the mind. I have taught my strikers that the answer you deserve is only: “Try and get it.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531554/original/file-20230613-8848-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531554/original/file-20230613-8848-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531554/original/file-20230613-8848-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531554/original/file-20230613-8848-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531554/original/file-20230613-8848-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531554/original/file-20230613-8848-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1240&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531554/original/file-20230613-8848-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1240&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531554/original/file-20230613-8848-728r90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1240&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stentorian discoursing like this abounds in Rand’s near 1200-page brick of book. The “savages” are Galt’s fellow Americans. These “little atavists” have been deceived by collectivistic “mystics”. </p>
<p>Described as “looters” or “moochers”, these mystics are rapacious Christian and <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-cultural-marxism-really-taking-over-universities-i-crunched-some-numbers-to-find-out-139654">cultural Marxist</a> “second-handers”, establishing a dictatorial “People’s State of America”. </p>
<p>The “material providers” are instead the heroes of Atlas Shrugged, which is basically a dystopian fable about government meddling in free market arrangements. </p>
<p>Marshalled by Galt, these chiselled individualists – “scientists, inventors, industrialists” – are opposed to “public ownership” and governmental overreach. (Like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/tea-party-goes-cold-as-us-voters-reject-the-far-right-10621">Tea Party</a>, they also abhor taxation.) </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531535/original/file-20230613-25-g8fgw2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531535/original/file-20230613-25-g8fgw2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531535/original/file-20230613-25-g8fgw2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531535/original/file-20230613-25-g8fgw2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531535/original/file-20230613-25-g8fgw2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531535/original/file-20230613-25-g8fgw2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531535/original/file-20230613-25-g8fgw2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531535/original/file-20230613-25-g8fgw2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-government types, like the Tea Party, are among Rand’s fans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These wealthy and oversexed titans of industry feel hard done by. They understand themselves to be, as Galt emphasises, the real “victims” of society:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is the age of the common man, they tell us – a title which any man may claim to the extent of such distinction as he has managed not to achieve. He will rise to a rank of nobility by means of the effort he has failed to make, he will be honored for such virtue as he has not displayed, and he will be paid for the goods which he did not produce. But we – we, who must atone for the guilt of ability – we will work to support him as he orders, with his pleasure as our only reward.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hence Galt’s decision to order the strike. This is what he tells his lover, Dagny Taggart:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is only one kind of men who have never been on strike in human history. Every other kind and class have stopped, when they so wished, and have presented demands to the world, claiming to be indispensable – except the men who have carried the world on their shoulders […] Well, their turn has come. Let the world discover who they are, what they do and what happens when they refuse to function. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Galt, who scans as a deranged <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/11/20882005/accelerationism-white-supremacy-christchurch">accelerationist</a> demagogue, leaves us in no doubt as to why he instructed his fellow individualists to withdraw their labour:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have foreshortened the usual course of history and have let you discover the nature of the payment you had hoped to switch to the shoulders of others. […] Do not pretend that a malevolent reality defeated you – you were defeated by your own evasions. Do not pretend that you will perish for a noble ideal – you will perish as fodder for the haters of man.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Galt’s actions ensure the country he purportedly cherishes withers away “in a void of darkness and rock”. He will not rest until the road is clear. Then, and only then, Galt states, will the righteous deign to go “back to the world.” </p>
<p>John Galt: free market defender or bloodthirsty sociopath? That’s up to you to decide.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-ambition-our-least-liked-virtue-184548">Friday essay: ambition, our least liked virtue?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A gateway to the right</h2>
<p>Critics came down hard on Atlas Shrugged. Leftists were affronted by Rand’s pro-capitalist line. Those on the opposite side of the spectrum were troubled by the novel’s explicit atheism. </p>
<p>And virtually everyone was critical of the novel’s vituperate tone and repetitive style.</p>
<p>This consensus continues to hold. Moreover, as the intellectual biographer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rY8Zt3VIdY">Jennifer Burns</a> foregrounds, Rand and Atlas Shrugged have “passed into the lexicon of American popular culture”, as signifiers “of ruthless selfishness, intellectual precocity, or both”. </p>
<p>Pop-cultural riffs and parodies about Rand and her work have appeared in many places – including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJkrCBZNL6c">Dirty Dancing</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKzaUxmklU8">Mad Men</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKf4MtZ4RQA">Bioshock</a>, and most memorably, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wob10lOLWY">The Simpsons</a>. </p>
<p>But we need to take this with a pinch of salt. </p>
<p>Burns, who was writing in 2009, suggests the fact that Rand has garnered the attention of cultural producers speaks “to her continued appeal. Twenty years after death she was selling more books than ever in her life, with Atlas Shrugged alone averaging sales of more than one hundred thousand copies per year.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HKzaUxmklU8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Mad Men.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It seems unwise to dismiss a book that has sold over 10 million copies, and which has been praised by industry leaders like Steve Jobs and <a href="https://alexandbooks.com/archive/the-25-books-elon-musk-recommends-reading">Elon Musk</a>. (Rand is also popular in Hollywood: Angelina Jolie, Eva Mendes, and Brad Pitt are all fans.) </p>
<p>But how, given the critical opprobrium meted out to Atlas Shrugged, are we to account for the novel’s popularity? </p>
<p>Galt’s famous credo offers a clue.</p>
<p>“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man,” Galt attests, “nor ask another man to live for mine.” </p>
<p>An eschewal of collectivist activity, this tenet chimes with readers of a libertarian persuasion, as well as with right-wing politicans and public figures.</p>
<p>We can look to the United States for confirmation. <a href="https://theconversation.com/greenspans-uncertainty-principle-and-the-evolution-of-fedspeak-29784">Alan Greenspan</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/paul-ryans-path-to-recovery-or-renewed-financial-crisis-8887">Paul Ryan</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-john-galt-ayn-rand-libertarians-and-the-gop-40033">Rand Paul</a>: these are just some who self-define as Randians. As do Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo, and the aforementioned 45th president of the United States.</p>
<p>Love her or loathe her, it appears that Rand has, until now, stood the test of time. So has Atlas Shrugged. What this says about the political landscape, or the reading habits and ideological inclinations of the public, is up for debate. </p>
<p>Given Rand’s longevity and popularity, the answer may not – and this <a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x54501g">could shock</a> complacent coastal liberals – necessarily be reassuring.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192510/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ayn Rand’s dystopian fable about government meddling in free-market arrangements remains hugely influential, including with Elon Musk. Donald Trump, too, is an Ayn Rand fan. Why is she so popular?Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1370272020-04-24T12:21:06Z2020-04-24T12:21:06Z‘Reopen’ protest movement created, boosted by fake grassroots tactics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329885/original/file-20200422-47810-7fh0sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C38%2C5100%2C3351&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters seeking relief from lockdown restrictions, like these in Missouri, are being marshaled and egged on by conservative political operatives.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Protest-Missouri/6c61b589b7fd47879bc6f080b21fede0/44/0">AP Photo/Jeff Roberson</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many Americans have been under <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-stay-at-home-order.html">strict stay-at-home orders</a>, or at least advisories, for more than a month. <a href="https://www.glamour.com/story/stay-at-home-mom-depression-is-realand-women-are-finally-talking-about-it">People are frustrated and depressed</a>, but have <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article241657821.html">complied</a> with what they’ve been asked to endure because they <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/15/secret-success-coronavirus-trust-public-policy/">trust that state and local public health officials</a> are telling the truth about the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
<p>There has been passionate – and honest – argument about how many people are likely to get sick and die under different circumstances and sets of official rules. It’s not clear how <a href="https://theconversation.com/lack-of-data-makes-predicting-covid-19s-spread-difficult-but-models-are-still-vital-135797">uncertain and evolving scientific findings</a> should affect extraordinary government measures that restrict citizens’ basic freedoms.</p>
<p>In recent days, there have there been public protests against continuing the lockdown. The people who are doing the demonstrating may really be frustrated and upset, but new research, and journalistic investigation, is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/us/politics/coronavirus-protests-trump.html">revealing that there are powerful forces behind them</a>, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/22/opinion/dont-believe-hype/">egging them on</a>, who want their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/opinion/coronavirus-protests-astroturf.html">influence to remain secret</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bEZB4taSEoA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CNBC’s Rick Santelli questions a part of the 2009 federal bailout plan.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seeking authentic feelings</h2>
<p>Dissent – and the freedom to do it – is a crucial element of democracy. Political leaders are rightly influenced by public opinion. But it’s important to know when protests are sparked by special-interest groups seeking to manipulate <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122417690325">officials’ perception of public sentiment</a>.</p>
<p>As a journalist who has covered politics for 20 years and now studies how people process uncertainty, I note that the questions about the current protests raise echoes of the Tea Party movement a decade ago.</p>
<p>In February 2009, the Obama administration was grappling with a severe economic crisis caused by a collapse in the mortgage market. A reporter on CNBC, Rick Santelli, <a href="http://www.takepart.com/feature/2015/10/30/tea-party-history">began to complain</a> that one part of the federal bailout plan, the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan, might let people out of their mortgage obligations even if they should have anticipated they wouldn’t be able to afford them and would face foreclosure. </p>
<p>Santelli made this point on TV while standing on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA">surrounded by very wealthy traders who egged him on</a>. It was compelling entertainment, and the speech spread rapidly through conservative media. Radio host Rush Limbaugh replayed it on his show; conservative strategists admired it, and millions of conservatives heard it. </p>
<p>Santelli called for a modern-day “tea party” to object to unfair government rules. </p>
<p>Within months, a coalition of anti-immigration reform activists, fiscal hawks, regulation opponents and social conservatives pulled together behind a common set of grievances: Barack Obama’s alleged profligate spending, his willingness to let certain groups get ahead in the economy over other groups – policies that many of them viewed as <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0731121415593275">putting racial minorities at a perceived advantage</a> to white people.</p>
<p>Calling themselves the Tea Party movement, most members were Republicans – but the Republican Party wasn’t speaking for them, so the nation’s two-party structure itself became a common enemy, too. When the Tea Party held its first protests, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tea-party-protesters-rally-against-gangster-government/">thousands of people</a> showed up. As the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-apr-16-me-tea-party16-story.html">protests spread</a>, motivated partisans who <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=1940196">look for opportunities</a> to change attitudes and behaviors, <a href="https://time.com/secret-origins-of-the-tea-party/">backed by a conservative political funding machine</a>, developed a way to capture the protest energy and channel it effectively. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329886/original/file-20200422-47794-19klwfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329886/original/file-20200422-47794-19klwfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329886/original/file-20200422-47794-19klwfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329886/original/file-20200422-47794-19klwfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329886/original/file-20200422-47794-19klwfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329886/original/file-20200422-47794-19klwfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329886/original/file-20200422-47794-19klwfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329886/original/file-20200422-47794-19klwfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Authentic protest – like how the Tea Party movement began – is a longstanding American tradition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Obama/52b9365b811044239c20d453e5021a0e/15/0">AP Photo/Matt Rourke</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Enduring sentiments, new moments</h2>
<p>Social scientists who <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2782114">study new movements in politics</a> find that the underlying sentiments are as old as civilization itself: Who gets the stuff that the government gives out? What’s fair? Who’s jumped the line?</p>
<p>What, then, makes a movement into something real? </p>
<p>It starts with a galvanizing event, like the Tea Party’s public protest gatherings, when hundreds of thousands of people <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-tea-party-and-the-remaking-of-republican-conservatism-9780190633660?cc=us&lang=en&">saw that other people were willing to work together for a cause</a>.</p>
<p>The movement needs a common enemy – in that case, Obama, his policies and a political structure that permitted them – and the potential for real change, not just politically but <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/ir/files/ir/imce/honors/Bid%C3%A9_Final2015.pdf">socially as well</a>. For those joining the Tea Party, the goal became clear: They could take over the Republican Party.</p>
<p>Fairly quickly, the Tea Party was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/us/politics/tea-party-trump.html">co-opted by wealthier interests</a> hoping to channel its energy toward slightly different ends – although much of the movement resisted the corporate takeover of its message. Public opinion surveys <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-apr-16-me-tea-party16-story.html">backed up the intuition</a> that the movement had force.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329888/original/file-20200422-47784-6wwosl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329888/original/file-20200422-47784-6wwosl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329888/original/file-20200422-47784-6wwosl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329888/original/file-20200422-47784-6wwosl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329888/original/file-20200422-47784-6wwosl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329888/original/file-20200422-47784-6wwosl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329888/original/file-20200422-47784-6wwosl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329888/original/file-20200422-47784-6wwosl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A North Carolina protest was ostensibly coordinated by ReopenNC, whose website was registered by a Florida resident and focuses on selling T-shirts and stickers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-North-Carolina/6f1a91fd730246c9a8a77db03ef8e161/66/0">AP Photo/Gerry Broome</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A viral ideology</h2>
<p>In mid-April 2020, it appeared, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/16/coronavirus-arrests-rise-police-enforce-stay-home-orders-states/5142415002/">a new movement was rising</a> to express frustration with the restrictions and uncertain endpoint to the pandemic, and the economic toll the lockdown has caused. </p>
<p>In the space of several days, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52359100">there were protests in a dozen states</a>, ranging from a crowd of more than 2,000 who gathered in Olympia, Washington, to several dozen in Annapolis, Maryland.</p>
<p>The available evidence suggests that the demonstrations were organized by paid <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/whos-behind-the-reopen-domain-surge/">political operatives using Facebook and new websites</a> to encourage conservatives to protest in specific places against specific governors who had imposed strong public health restrictions on economic activity. This context <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/19/pro-gun-activists-using-facebook-groups-push-anti-quarantine-protests/">indicates that one real intention</a> of the protests was to create the illusion of an organic movement that had arisen to object to the restrictions. Evidence is to the contrary: Polling shows that <a href="https://www.thepublicopinion.com/ap/politics/ap-norc-poll-few-americans-support-easing-virus-protections/article_48fbd75b-8602-5bf1-8993-d7ea1bde6403.html">just 12% of Americans</a> think their local restrictions have gone too far – and 26% think they don’t go far enough.</p>
<p>Sparked by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/maryland/comments/g3niq3/i_simply_cannot_believe_that_people_are/fnstpyl/">citizen inquiries first posted on Reddit</a>, independent investigative reporter Brian Krebs has confirmed that most of the web domains that had been registered around the idea of “reopening” the economy <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/whos-behind-the-reopen-domain-surge/">belonged to a very small number of people</a>. He used <a href="https://research.domaintools.com/research/domain-search/">a cybersecurity search tool</a> to search for “any and all domains registered in the past month that begin with "reopen” and end in “.com.” He <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HQnx-RvMM7BrpX1ysgjqzu8XkaDeu0w4gJgTtzB3dfk/edit">found that many of them were created on the same day</a>.</p>
<p>He found that many of these websites, whose registration records you can see yourself at Whois.com, were owned by anti-gun-control groups that are run by the same family of brothers that <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/conservative-activist-family-behind-grassroots-anti-quarantine-facebook-events-n1188021">organized the demonstrations through Facebook groups they run</a>.</p>
<p>Several others of the “reopen” websites were registered with addresses or phone numbers used by <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/freedomworks-rich-donors-armey-kibbe-super-pac/">longstanding conservative enterprises</a> like Freedom Works. A <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/reopen-liberate-urls/">surprising number</a> belonged to an activist who told Mother Jones that he registered the domains to keep conservatives from using them to counter the recommendation of public health officials.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329894/original/file-20200422-47832-3ie914.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329894/original/file-20200422-47832-3ie914.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329894/original/file-20200422-47832-3ie914.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329894/original/file-20200422-47832-3ie914.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329894/original/file-20200422-47832-3ie914.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329894/original/file-20200422-47832-3ie914.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329894/original/file-20200422-47832-3ie914.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329894/original/file-20200422-47832-3ie914.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ‘Reopen North Carolina’ website focuses on selling merchandise.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://reopennc.com/">Screenshot of ReopenNC.com by The Conversation</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The threat of fake grassroots</h2>
<p>For the people who took part, the protests were no doubt real. </p>
<p>But media coverage can <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/4/22/21227928/coronavirus-social-distancing-lockdown-trump-tea-party">inflate or distort their size and meaning</a>. On its main protest story, ABC News put a headline suggesting protests had “<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/protests-coronavirus-stay-home-orders-spread-country/story?id=70242988">spread</a>” to new places. </p>
<p>But that creates a sense that these protests grew quickly, spontaneously, and organically. The fact that protests happened in different places at different times doesn’t actually mean they’re spreading. When organized by the same small group of political operatives, sequential protests reflect the creators’ skill at mobilizing people – not a naturally rising level of frustration that ultimately pushes people to act. </p>
<p>Many political movements use these tactics. The problem comes from how the media presents the resulting events. On April 21, a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/21/us-nurses-who-died-coronavirus-honored-white-house-protest/2996839001">labor union organized a protest by nurses</a> at the White House – and media reports noted the event was created by a particular group with a specific purpose. That’s different from how the media treated the “reopen” gatherings.</p>
<p>By covering a contrived protest as though it is an organic movement, the media could, even unintentionally, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2015.07.003">create the illusion</a> of a <a href="https://qz.com/901411/political-protests-are-effective-but-not-for-the-reason-you-think/">popular force</a> that <a href="https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1130&context=joursp">doesn’t really exist</a>. </p>
<p>That could result in politicians feeling nonexistent or exaggerated pressure to make decisions that threaten Americans’ public health.</p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Ambinder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research and investigative journalism call into question the authenticity of – and actual public support for – recent protests demanding governments lift lockdowns and ‘reopen’ the US economy.Marc Ambinder, Executive Fellow in Digital Security, USC Annenberg School for Communication and JournalismLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1151882019-04-10T13:46:11Z2019-04-10T13:46:11ZTrump supporters on Twitter during 2016 US election show little evidence of Russian infiltration – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268416/original/file-20190409-2921-gcp0kq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The biggest little bird in the nest. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/donald-trump-social-media-communication-vector-656904574?src=idm7TVmH8D1Idr_BCQ0V9g-1-16">doamama</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/president">meteoric rise</a> from political outsider to president of the United States surprised nearly everyone – not least political analysts and scientists. Many are hoping for an easy explanation from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-mueller-probe-kenneth-starr-sees-eerie-echoes-of-his-1990s-clinton-investigation-113509">Mueller report</a>, including evidence of heavy Russian interference in the campaign. Mueller <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/robert-mueller-investigation-what-we-know.html">has indicted</a> numerous Russians in this regard, though more details will emerge when the report is published in the coming days. </p>
<p>In our <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0214854">new paper</a>, which has been published in the PLoS One journal, we have covered similar ground via Trump’s stronghold: Twitter. By sampling some 250,000 accounts, we found a powerful new group of Trump supporters emerged during the election and effectively usurped the Republican Party on the social network. But very much to our surprise, very few bots or Russian accounts were involved. This suggests that if the Russians were acting to influence the election, the effect at least on Twitter may have been much more limited than <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump">has been claimed</a>. </p>
<p>We identified three kinds of Twitter accounts that were particularly relevant to the election: a Republican Party group; a Trump group; and a group of more extreme <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/alt-right/549242/">alt-right</a> adherents. We classified accounts into these groups based on who they followed and the hashtags and other words that they used in posts. The Trump group often used #maga, for instance, as in “make America great again”, and also “Trump supporter”. Mainstream Republicans often used #tcot or #tgdn, respectively “top conservatives on Twitter” and “Twitter gulag defence network”; while the far right used the #altright hashtag and words like “white” and “nationalist”. </p>
<h2>What happened on Twitter</h2>
<p>When we looked at how these three groups had developed over time, we found the Republican accounts mainly dated from the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tea-party-protesters-march-washington/story?id=8557120">Tea Party marches</a> following Barack Obama’s first election victory in 2008, and also the 2012 Obama vs Romney <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20216038">campaign</a>. Conversely, the Trump and alt-right groups had largely emerged during the 2016 election campaign. </p>
<p>By late 2016, very few new accounts were being opened that fit the characteristics of our Republican Twitter group. We found a big shift in following behaviour as well, with existing Republican accounts becoming more likely to follow accounts in our Trump group rather than other mainstream Republicans. This reflects the way in which Trump suddenly jumped ahead of a crowded field in the Republican primaries. When you combine the followers of the three Twitter groups, they amount to some 57m unique users: this almost certainly made the difference in an election where the margin of victory was so tight – remember Trump <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/us2016/results">beat</a> Hillary Clinton in the electoral college, but without winning the popular vote, winning key marginal states by only a few tens of thousands of votes. </p>
<p>But what drove support for this shift? Staying with following behaviour, we found that members of all three groups tended to follow people who came under the same group, while those that we identified within the Trump and Republican groups frequently followed one another. But while members of the alt-right group followed those in the Trump group, this was not reciprocated to the same degree. This suggests that the widely held idea that the far right were very influential in the growth of support for Trump may be an exaggeration. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268418/original/file-20190409-2912-smj0ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268418/original/file-20190409-2912-smj0ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268418/original/file-20190409-2912-smj0ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268418/original/file-20190409-2912-smj0ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268418/original/file-20190409-2912-smj0ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268418/original/file-20190409-2912-smj0ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268418/original/file-20190409-2912-smj0ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268418/original/file-20190409-2912-smj0ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rarer than you’d think.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/donald-trump-social-media-communication-vector-656904574?src=idm7TVmH8D1Idr_BCQ0V9g-1-16">PP77LSK</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To estimate Twitter bots, we used a US tool called <a href="https://botometer.iuni.iu.edu">Botometer</a>, which scores each account on the likelihood that it is automated. We concluded that Twitter bots and <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/11/2/16598312/russia-twitter-trump-twitter-deactivated-handle-list">foreign accounts</a> were certainly part of Trump’s Twitter community, and <a href="http://blogs.oii.ox.ac.uk/politicalbots/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2016/11/Data-Memo-US-Election.pdf">played a role</a> in spreading his message, but were vastly outnumbered by the massive groups of real-life supporters who suddenly started joining Twitter and following one another after Trump announced his election campaign. In fact, we found more automated accounts in the Republican Party’s group than in Trump’s group. Our findings match <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/01/majority-americans-were-not-exposed-fake-news-2016-us-election-twitter-study-suggests">other recent research</a>, which found that fake news was not nearly as pervasive on Twitter and Facebook as previously feared; in the case of Twitter, for instance, 80% of fake news appeared on only 1.1% of users’ newsfeeds.</p>
<p>Our point is not that foreign-owned bots generating fake news didn’t interfere with the election, but rather that they probably had less influence than various other factors – particularly Trump himself, his group of highly motivated supporters and the US media. Trump’s supporters did not coalesce around an army of bots – they do appear to have been a grassroots movement of previously disengaged voters.
Trump’s victory seems more driven by his own particular style of campaigning, galvanising his followers into a political backlash against “Washington elites”. </p>
<p>These kinds of movements certainly aren’t unknown. Political analysts are very familiar with the concept of the <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/what-overton-window">Overton Window</a>, in which the political centre ground shifts in response to pressure from disenfranchised and frustrated groups on the fringes. In Trump’s case, the shift was surprisingly rapid. In only a few months, a relatively small group had grown to the point it was able to subsume the traditional Republican Party. </p>
<h2>Predicting the future</h2>
<p>Our era will long be remembered for the populist swings that took place in politics – not only Trump but elections in the likes of Hungary and Japan, and also the UK’s Brexit referendum. These results frequently surprised politicians and the media, prompting <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/03/opinion-polls-missed-trump-and-brexit-this-french-newspaper-says-it-has-the-solution/">much</a> discussion <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/macron-won-but-the-french-polls-were-way-off/">about</a> problems with the tools with which we have tracked people’s voting intentions. </p>
<p>We think that our method, or one derived from it, can be a valuable addition to the toolbox in future. By following the development of political groups on Twitter, you can observe what is happening in real time. In future, this could help identify disenfranchised voter groups amenable to populist candidates and better understand their behaviour and the issues that motivate them. Our method might also make it easier to determine when extremist political minorities, massively amplified by the global reach of Twitter, might be exerting a disproportionate level of influence. </p>
<p>Studying Twitter allows you to observe these things at a speed that traditional polling and analysis can’t match. Hopefully by studying the world of online political discourse in a more rigorous and systematic way like this, we can finally start to catch up with the breakneck speed of modern political change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115188/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Bryden receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Silverman receives funding from the Medical Research Council and the Chief Scientist Office as a member of the University of Glasgow's MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit. </span></em></p>On the back of the Mueller investigation’s apparent exoneration of the POTUS, here’s another surprise.John Bryden, Research Fellow, Royal Holloway University of LondonEric Silverman, Research Fellow, Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1079252018-12-06T11:43:17Z2018-12-06T11:43:17ZThe John Birch Society is still influencing American politics, 60 years after its founding<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248932/original/file-20181205-186073-uqmsin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some of the far-right group's staff in 1976</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-MA-USA-APHS445023-John-Birch-Society/29523c1a34c34854a3200de3c9b92f6a/5/0">AP Photo/J. Walter Green</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The retired candy entrepreneur <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-birch-society-founded">Robert Welch</a> founded the John Birch Society 60 years ago to push back against what he perceived as a growing American welfare state modeled on communism and the federal government’s push to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10570317109373675">desegregate America</a>.</p>
<p>Although Welch’s group has never amassed more than <a href="https://archive.org/stream/JohnBirchSociety/JBS-Boston-5_djvu.txt">100,000 dues-paying members</a>, it had garnered an estimated <a href="https://archive.org/stream/radicalrightthen010584mbp/radicalrightthen010584mbp_djvu.txt">4 to 6 million sympathizers</a> within four years of its 1958 formation.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248930/original/file-20181205-100847-1pvkh2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248930/original/file-20181205-100847-1pvkh2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248930/original/file-20181205-100847-1pvkh2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248930/original/file-20181205-100847-1pvkh2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248930/original/file-20181205-100847-1pvkh2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248930/original/file-20181205-100847-1pvkh2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248930/original/file-20181205-100847-1pvkh2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248930/original/file-20181205-100847-1pvkh2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Welch in 1961.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-United-States-ROBERT-WELCH/cedfb37c97e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/3/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vY5u6FMAAAAJ&hl=en&authuser=1&oi=ao">scholar of political history and social movements</a>, I find many parallels between today’s far right and its predecessors. Just as the John Birch Society emerged in the midst of the civil rights movement, today’s far-right movements formed as a reaction to the election of Barack Obama – a milestone for racial equality. </p>
<h2>The Birchers</h2>
<p>The original “<a href="https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Bircher">Birchers</a>,” as John Birch Society supporters are known, were Republicans who believed their party had grown too moderate. <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-goldwater-can-win-the-gop-nomination-why-not-trump-46981">Like the tea party movement</a> that arose half a century later while the nation debated expanding health care coverage, same-sex marriage and immigration reform, they objected to the federal government’s growth, and ardently opposed federal intervention into what they considered to be state and local affairs.</p>
<p>Birchers expressed a belief in domestic communist conspiracies. They went so far as to accuse <a href="https://www.ncdcr.gov/blog/2015/12/09/roots-of-the-john-birch-society">President Dwight Eisenhower and Chief Justice Earl Warren</a> of being communist dupes and agents – building on the legacy of <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/senator-who-stood-joseph-mccarthy-when-no-one-else-would-180970279/">Sen. Joseph McCarthy</a> whose movement of <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/intellectuals-and-mccarthy">predominantly Midwestern Republicans</a> found the society’s agenda appealing.</p>
<p>Although these allegations relegated Welch to <a href="https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/04/rise-fall-john-birch-society-50-years-ago/">fringe status</a> as a <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP75-00149R000800170140-4.pdf">political leader</a>, the John Birch Society amassed a national base <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10488.html">among staunch conservatives</a>. </p>
<p>In their heyday, <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/american-right-wing-readings-in-political-behavior/oclc/551652136">far-right groups</a> that subscribed to “Welchian” conspiracy theories propagated their views on over 500 radio broadcasts each week – with the John Birch Society alone producing a program on <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/the-john-birch-society-4158089">100 stations</a> – and a widely circulated newsletter.</p>
<p>A string of <a href="https://archive.org/details/JBSCATALOG1968">Birch bookstores</a> doubled as <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/radical-right-report-on-the-john-birch-society-and-its-allies/oclc/1011698075&referer=brief_results">local headquarters</a> for meetings and distribution centers for fliers, films, rally tickets and bumper stickers, spread its influence.</p>
<p>Even though Welch understood racism and bigotry would <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/radical-right/oclc/1005226239&referer=brief_results">hurt his cause</a>, the John Birch Society’s opposition to the civil rights movement attracted Americans sympathetic to racist paranoia. For example, it consistently published reports accusing civil rights leaders of communist subversion and alleging that people of color were plotting to divide the country and control the world.</p>
<p>In 1964, backing from the John Birch Society in Republican primaries, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10488.html">such as California</a>, secured the right-wing-backed candidate Barry Goldwater’s Republican presidential nomination.</p>
<p>“All those little old ladies in tennis shoes that you called right-wing nuts and kooks,” <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/goldwater-coalition-republican-strategies-in-1964/oclc/227624">Goldwater’s organizational head</a> reportedly told him about the campaign volunteers who appeared to be Birch sympathizers, “they’re the best volunteer political organization that’s ever been put together.” </p>
<p>Despite Goldwater’s loss to incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson in a landslide, many <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/barry-goldwater-lasting-legacy-112210">political scientists</a> and <a href="https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/barry-m-goldwater-the-most-consequential-loser-american-politics">conservatives</a> believe that Goldwater’s failed bid made way for the modern conservative movement by <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8044.html">passing the torch</a> to Richard M. Nixon’s “silent majority,” ending decades of liberal dominance.</p>
<h2>Contemporary counterparts</h2>
<p>The John Birch Society is also directly linked to conservative politics today.</p>
<p>Most notably, Fred Koch, the father of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/4/14/11348780/gop-megadonors-koch-brothers">David and Charles Koch</a>, was among the Birch Society’s first 11 members and its main <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/4/14/11348780/gop-megadonors-koch-brothers">financial backers</a>. The billionaire Koch brothers have pumped massive amounts of money into <a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2012/05/30/the-battle-for-cato/">libertarian causes</a> and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000186">conservative political campaigns</a> for decades.</p>
<p>As investigative journalist Jane Mayer explains in her book “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/215462/dark-money-by-jane-mayer/9780307947901/">Dark Money</a>,” Fred Koch strongly encouraged his sons to follow in his political footsteps, something <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/koch-brothers-family-history-sons-of-wichita/">Charles and David did</a> in general. For a time, both brothers belonged to the Birch Society, but they had <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/charles-koch-political-ascent-jane-mayer-213541">moved on by the 1970s</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, in their exhaustive examination of the tea party movement, political scientists <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9954.html">Christopher Parker and Matt Barreto</a> argue that Obama’s election instigated the rise of today’s far right. Much like how the John Birch Society arose as a rejection of progress on civil rights, tea party supporters felt anxious about what they saw as the “real” America slipping away when the country chose a black man to be its president.</p>
<p>Just as Birchers called Justice Warren a communist for overruling state and local segregation laws, the tea party <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124359632">labeled President Obama a socialist</a> because of his plan to expand health insurance coverage. And, similar to Birch Society claims that the civil rights movement was a treasonous ploy to divide the country, Trump and his surrogates paint the <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-backlash-against-black-lives-matter-is-just-more-evidence-of-injustice-85587">Black Lives Matter movement</a> as a force working toward the collapse of social order.</p>
<p>Moreover, in 2017, as the Trump administration got underway, violent incidents involving <a href="https://theconversation.com/charlottesville-a-step-in-our-long-arc-toward-justice-82880">white supremacists</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/pittsburghs-lesson-hatred-does-not-emerge-in-a-vacuum-105952">mass shootings</a> were becoming more common. Yet, Jeff Sessions, Trump’s attorney general at that time, tasked the FBI with compiling a report on so-called “<a href="http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/356016-aclu-files-request-for-fbi-to-release-surveillance-documents-of">black identity extremists</a>” with the “<a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/testimony-congressional-black-caucus-fbis-report-black-identity-extremism">potential to incite irrational police fear of black activists</a>.”</p>
<h2>Donald Trump</h2>
<p>From the start, Trump’s incessant and loud questions about whether <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/29/politics/trump-president-birth-certificate/index.html">Obama was born in the U.S.</a> and his <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-37230916/drug-dealers-criminals-rapists-what-trump-thinks-of-mexicans">attacks on immigrants</a> <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/university-press/book/9780826519818">echoed the Birch Society’s</a> obsessions. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248934/original/file-20181205-186079-dhbe5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248934/original/file-20181205-186079-dhbe5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248934/original/file-20181205-186079-dhbe5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248934/original/file-20181205-186079-dhbe5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248934/original/file-20181205-186079-dhbe5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248934/original/file-20181205-186079-dhbe5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248934/original/file-20181205-186079-dhbe5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248934/original/file-20181205-186079-dhbe5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tea party protest in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Obama-Pa-Protest/ff9d5d8511b84179aae6a1d5a2586a5a/20/0">AP Photo/Mark Stehle</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By openly courting voters who had been <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/401820-what-happened-to-the-tea-party">tea party supporters</a>, Trump mobilized enough of the Americans who were anxious about their country’s future to make it to the White House.</p>
<p>Since taking office, Trump’s far-right supporters have tolerated his efforts to delegitimize many political institutions, including <a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/407440-read-president-trumps-exclusive-interview-with-hilltv">the intelligence community</a> and <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/his-own-words-presidents-attacks-courts">the judiciary</a> – taking after the reactionary right 60 years earlier. By abandoning a traditionally conservative need for institutional stability, I believe that Trump echoes the John Birch Society’s willingness to oppose uncomfortable change in society at any cost.</p>
<p>Today, while much of the John Birch Society exists online and through its bimonthly magazine, <a href="https://www.thenewamerican.com/">The New American</a>, some conservatives are trying to reboot <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/16/the-john-birch-society-is-alive-and-well-in-the-lone-star-state-215377">local chapters</a> of the <a href="https://smallbusiness.chron.com/difference-between-nonprofit-corporation-501c3-59719.html">nonprofit corporation</a>. </p>
<p>The society, which <a href="https://www.jbs.org/about-jbs/press-room">does not divulge</a> how many current dues-paying members it has, maintains it is not a political, but rather an educational organization. However, it <a href="https://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2011/02/04/John-Birch-Society-welcomes-newcomer-tea-party/stories/201102040392">welcomed the tea party with open arms in 2011</a>.</p>
<p>And, <a href="https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/24899-exclusive-interview-with-john-birch-society-ceo">in a 2016 interview</a>, the group’s CEO argued that Trump “captured” a movement built on the political causes the Birch Society had championed for decades.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Towler previously received funding as a Ford Foundation Fellow. </span></em></p>It planted the seeds of the tea party and the Trump administration.Christopher Towler, Assistant Professor of Political Science, California State University, SacramentoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/970542018-06-12T10:36:05Z2018-06-12T10:36:05ZJohn McCain, dead at 81, helped build a country that no longer reflects his values<p>Arizona Sen. John McCain – <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2018/04/02/john-mccain-family-navy-officers-destined-u-s-naval-academy/538429001/">scion of Navy brass</a>, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/sorry-trump-story-john-mccain-war-hero-355617">flyboy turned Vietnam war hero</a> and tireless defender of American global leadership – has died after a year of treatment for terminal brain cancer.</p>
<p>“With the Senator when he passed were his wife Cindy and their family. At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for sixty years,” McCain’s office said in a statement.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://www.american.edu/spa/faculty/esherman.cfm">scholar of American politics</a>. And I believe that, regardless of his storied biography and personal charm, three powerful trends in American politics thwarted McCain’s lifelong ambition to be president. They were the rise of the Christian right, partisan polarization and declining public support for foreign wars.</p>
<p>Republican McCain was a <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/227647-sen-mccain-huddles-with-democrats-on-campaign-finance-reform">champion of bipartisan legislating</a>, an approach that served him and the Senate well. But as political divides have grown, bipartisanship has fallen out of favor. </p>
<p>Most recently, <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/387037-mccain-urges-senate-to-reject-haspels-nomination">McCain opposed Gina Haspel</a> as CIA director for “her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality” and her role in it. Having survived brutal torture for five years as a prisoner of war, McCain maintained a resolute voice against U.S. policies permitting so-called “enhanced interrogations.” Nevertheless, his appeals failed to rally sufficient support to slow, much less derail, her appointment. </p>
<p>Days later, a White House aide said McCain’s opposition to Haspel didn’t matter because <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/13/17349424/john-mccain-cancer-kelly-sadler-sarah-sanders">“he’s dying anyway.”</a> That disparaging remark and the refusal of the White House to condemn it revealed how deeply the president’s hostile attitude toward McCain and everything he stands for had permeated the executive office.</p>
<p>McCain ended his career honorably and bravely, but with hostility from the White House, marginal influence in the Republican-controlled Senate, and a public less receptive to the positions he has long embodied. </p>
<h2>The outlier</h2>
<p>McCain’s first run for the presidency in 2000 captured the imagination of the public and the press, whom he wryly <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2018/04/02/john-mccain-2000-republican-presidential-campaign-george-w-bush-arizona-senator/537969001/">referred to as “my base.”</a> His self-confident <a href="https://youtu.be/T5iexUtP4Vc">“maverick” persona</a> appealed to a more secular, moderate constituency who like him, might be constitutionally opposed to the growing political alignment between the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252504967_Of_Movements_and_Metaphors_The_Co-Evolution_of_the_Christian_Right_and_the_GOP">religious right and the Republican Party</a>. </p>
<p>McCain enthusiastically bucked his party and steered his “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/11/us/2000-campaign-quest-birth-death-straight-talk-express-gamble-gamble.html">Straight Talk Express</a>” through the GOP primaries with a no-holds-barred <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000228/aponline165646_000.htm?noredirect=on">attack on Pat Robertson</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/29/us/2000-campaign-arizona-senator-mccain-denounces-political-tactics-christian-right.html">Rev. Jerry Falwell</a>. The two were conservative icons and leaders of the Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority. </p>
<p>McCain branded Robertson and Falwell “<a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0002/28/se.01.html">agents of intolerance</a>” and “empire builders.” He charged that they used religion to subordinate the interests of working people. He said their religion served a business goal and accused them of shaming <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/29/us/the-2000-campaign-excerpt-from-mccain-s-speech-on-religious-conservatives.html">“our faith, our party, and our country.”</a> That message earned McCain a primary victory in New Hampshire but his campaign capsized in South Carolina, where Republican voters launched George W. Bush, the stalwart evangelical, on his path to a presidential victory in 2000 against Democratic nominee, Vice President Al Gore. </p>
<p>By 2008, McCain saw <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/campaign-2008/articles/2008/09/24/the-evangelical-vote-how-big-is-it-really">the political clout</a> of white, born-again, evangelical Christians. By then, they <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/">comprised 26 percent of the electorate</a>. Bowing to political winds, he adopted a more conciliatory approach. </p>
<p>McCain’s willingness to defend America as a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/us/politics/29cnd-mccain.html">Christian nation</a>” and his controversial choice of Alaska <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/us/politics/30veep.html">Gov. Sarah Palin</a>, an enthusiastic standard bearer for the Christian right, as his running mate, signaled the electoral power of a less tolerant, more absolutist “values-based” politics. </p>
<p>McCain’s about-face revealed a political pragmatist willing to make peace with the Christian right and accept their ability to make or break his last attempt at the presidency. </p>
<p>His strategy reflected his tendency to abandon principles if they threatened his quest for the presidency. Having railed eight years prior against the hypocrisy of the right-wing religious leadership, McCain may have felt some <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0002/28/se.01.html">personal discomfort kowtowing</a> to the dictates of self-appointed moral authorities. But the electorate had changed since then, and McCain showed he was willing to shift his position to accommodate their beliefs. </p>
<p>The primary that year also required an outright <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/07/us/2000-campaign-republicans-mccain-renews-attack-ads-bush-talks-race-tolerance.html">appeal to independents</a> and even crossover Democrats. That would potentially provide enough votes to boost him past George W. Bush, whose campaign had already <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/21/us/the-2000-campaign-the-christian-right-evangelicals-found-a-believer-in-bush.html">expressed allegiance</a> to the conservative religious agenda. </p>
<p>In 2008, Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon considered <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-campaign-evangelicals-idUKBRE83T1CU20120430">religiously suspect by many evangelicals</a>, emerged as McCain’s main rival for the nomination.</p>
<p>Sensing an opportunity to establish a winning coalition, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/us/politics/09mccain.html">McCain jettisoned his former objections</a> to the political influence of the religious right, shifting from antagonism to accommodation. In doing so, McCain revealed his flexibility again on principles that might fatally undermine his overriding ambition – winning the presidency. </p>
<p>In fact, the <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=1903153">incorporation of the religious right</a> into the Republican Party represented but one facet of a more consequential development. That was the fiercely ideological <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/packages/political-polarization/">partisan polarization</a> that has come to dominate the political system. </p>
<h2>The lonely Republican</h2>
<p>Rough parity between the parties since 2000 has intensified the electoral battles for Congress and the presidency. It has <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/article182599481.html">supercharged the fundraising</a> machines on both sides. And it has nullified the “regular order” of <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/books/its-even-worse-than-it-looks-how-the-american-constitutional-system-collided-with-the-new-politics-of-extremism/">congressional hearings, debates and compromise</a>, as party leaders scheme for policy wins. </p>
<p>Fueled by highly engaged activists, interest groups and donors <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/4882255/campaign_finance_and_political_polarization">known as “policy demanders</a>,” partisan polarization has overwhelmed moderates in our political system. McCain was a bipartisan problem-solver and was willing to compromise with Democrats to pass <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Bipartisan_Campaign_Reform_Act">campaign finance reform</a> in 2002. He worked with the other side to <a href="https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=a7591ed4-a6be-42c1-b052-9608391f21ef">normalize relations with Vietnam</a> in 1995. And he joined with Democrats to pass <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/02/04/new-bipartisan-immigration-plan-to-be-introduced-in-the-senate/?utm_term=.e55418696b34">immigration reform</a> in 2017. </p>
<p>But he was also one of those moderates who ultimately found himself <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18664285">on the outside of his party</a>. </p>
<p>McCain’s dramatic Senate floor <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/07/28/watch-senate-members-gasps-applaud-mccain-votes-no-skinny-repeal/519289001/">thumbs-down repudiation</a> of the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare turned less on his antipathy to Trump and more <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/us/politics/mccain-graham-cassidy-health-care.html">on his disgust with a broken party-line legislative process</a>. </p>
<p>On an issue as monumental as health care, he insisted on a return to <a href="https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/9/statement-by-senator-john-mccain-on-health-care-reform">“extensive hearings, debate, and amendment.”</a> He endorsed the efforts of Sens. Lamar Alexander, a Republican, and Patty Murray, a Democrat, to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/why-john-mccain-killed-obamacare-repealagain">craft a bipartisan solution</a>. </p>
<p>Foreign and defense policy was McCain’s signature issue. He wanted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/magazine/18mccain-t.html">a more robust posture</a> for American global leadership, backed by a well-funded, war-ready military. But that stance <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/2008/03/19/public-attitudes-toward-the-war-in-iraq-20032008/">lost support a decade ago</a> following the Iraq War disaster.</p>
<p>McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign slogan of “<a href="https://www.ithaca.edu/rhp/programs/cmd/blogs/posters_and_election_propaganda/obama_and_mccain_slogans/">Country First</a>” signified not only the model of his personal commitment and sacrifice. It also telegraphed his belief in the need to <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/international/John_McCain_War_+_Peace.htm">persevere in the war on terror</a> in general and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in particular. </p>
<p>But by then, 55 percent of registered independents, McCain’s electoral base, <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2007/02/15/war-support-slips-fewer-expect-a-successful-outcome/">had lost confidence</a> in the prospects for a military victory. They favored bringing the troops home. </p>
<p>Over the course of six months that year, independent <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2007/02/15/war-support-slips-fewer-expect-a-successful-outcome/">support for the Iraq war fell</a> from 54 percent to 40 percent. Overall opposition to the troop “surge” was at 63 percent. Barack Obama’s promise to wind down America’s military commitment and do “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOTPJSUTSt0">nation-building at home</a>” resonated with an electorate wearied by the conflict and buffeted by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Financial-Crisis-of-2008-The-1484264">their own economic woes</a>. </p>
<h2>Advocate for global leadership</h2>
<p>McCain continued to assert the primacy of American power. He decried the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/10/17/john_mccain_us_must_not_refuse_obligations_of_international_leadership_in_favor_of_half_baked_spurious_nationalism.html">country’s retreat</a> from a rules-based global order premised on American leadership and based on freedom, capitalism, human rights and democracy. </p>
<p>Donald Trump <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2017/1214/Jerusalem-etc.-How-US-global-leadership-has-changed-under-Trump">stands in contrast</a>. Trump, like Obama, promises to terminate <a href="https://www.weeklystandard.com/thomas-donnelly-and-william-kristol/the-obama-trump-foreign-policy">costly commitments abroad</a>, revoke defense and trade agreements that fail to put
“America First,” and rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. </p>
<p>In his run for the presidency, Trump asserted that American might and treasure had been <a href="https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/03/15/the-president-has-had-enough-of-being-challenged-over-foreign-policy">squandered defending the world</a>. Other countries, he said, took advantage of U.S. magnanimity. </p>
<p>In Congress, Republicans have become <a href="https://www.fpri.org/article/2018/04/gop-foreign-policy-opinion-in-the-trump-era/">cautious about U.S. military interventions</a>, counterinsurgency operations and nation-building. They find <a href="http://news.gallup.com/poll/162854/americans-oppose-military-involvement-syria.aspx">scant public support</a> for intervention in Syria’s civil war. </p>
<p>Seeing Russia as America’s implacable foe, McCain <a href="https://www.cardin.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/cardin-mccain-prod-trump-administration-to-use-global-magnitsky-tools-to-punish-human-rights-violators-and-corrupt-officials-from-around-the-world">sponsored sanctions legislation</a> and prodded the administration to implement them more vigorously. </p>
<p>Accepting the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/10/17/john-mccain-full-speech-liberty-medal.cnn">McCain repudiated Trump’s approach</a> to global leadership. </p>
<p>He declared, “To abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.”</p>
<p>McCain spent his life committed to principles that, tragically – at least for him – have fallen from favor, and the country’s repudiation of the principles he championed may put the nation at risk.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article originally published on on June 12, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97054/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Sherman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sen. John McCain, who died Saturday, ended his career with growing repudiation by his party and the public for positions, from national defense to bipartisanship, that he had long embodied.Elizabeth Sherman, Assistant Professor Department of Government, American University School of Public AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/950262018-04-16T02:31:17Z2018-04-16T02:31:17ZThe real IRS scandal has more to do with budget cuts than bias<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214834/original/file-20180413-47416-1exla29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the tea party movement seen rallying outside the Capitol in 2013. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Boehners-Political-Dance/315760942c984161b90d2af32286787d/187/0">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Conservatives have been seething since 2013 over what they say was an unfair effort by the IRS to scrutinize right-leaning organizations more closely than other groups seeking nonprofit status.</p>
<p>As a report from the Treasury Department’s <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2017reports/201710054fr.pdf">inspector general for tax administration</a> released in 2017 shows, the IRS did flag some conservative groups. But it also paid the same kind of extra attention to liberal organizations with words like “occupy” and “progressive” in their names between 2004 and 2013.</p>
<p>Those findings should have settled the question. While there was extra scrutiny, there was no liberal bias among the federal employees who determine whether new organizations that want to <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits">operate as nonprofits</a> are legitimate – and therefore eligible for the tax-exempt status that goes with that designation. Rather than moving on, the Trump administration moved to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-conservative/justice-department-settles-with-conservative-groups-over-irs-scrutiny-idUSKBN1CV1TY">make amends</a> with the conservatives who believed they were wronged by partisan bureaucrats.</p>
<p>As a former IRS lawyer who now <a href="https://works.bepress.com/philip_hackney/">researches</a> nonprofit regulation, I was relieved to see the claim that the government exclusively targeted conservative organizations officially debunked. I believe this report ought to have ushered in a serious discussion about a real problem: The IRS is too cash-strapped to conduct oversight of nonprofits of all kinds. And the tax agency remains severely underfunded, even after some modest budget boosts to implement the new 2017 tax law.</p>
<h2>A false narrative</h2>
<p>This so-called <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/04/17/lois-lerner-got-off-easy-in-irs-scandal-its-time-to-reexamine-targeting-conservatives.html">“scandal”</a> over what conservatives saw as the persecution of right-leaning nonprofits erupted at a meeting of Washington tax lawyers in May of 2013.</p>
<p>Someone asked Lois Lerner, then the director of the IRS Exempt Organization Division, to address concerns over how it had treated conservative <a href="https://theconversation.com/hillary-clinton-is-starting-a-social-welfare-group-what-does-that-mean-78221">social welfare organizations</a> – nonprofits that may do unlimited lobbying. </p>
<p>She then apologized to tea party supporters for inappropriately using names to screen their applications and said her colleagues “didn’t use good judgment.” Since I was there, I was stunned to see how <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323744604578474983310370360">The Wall Street Journal</a> covered this exchange because it struck me as very misleading. </p>
<p>The paper indicated that Lerner had admitted to “targeting” the tea party movement, which she didn’t do. It quoted her saying there was no partisan rationale, but most of the article was about conservative complaints regarding political bias. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9NiSXBffVJY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CNN’s Jake Tapper, like many journalists, covered the now-debunked IRS scandal regarding politically motivated scrutiny as ‘outrageous’ news in 2013.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Taking the Fifth</h2>
<p>As is clear by now, the government never exclusively gave conservative groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names more trouble than many others in a similar situation. Yet politicians and even <a href="http://www.cc.com/video-clips/osw015/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-irs---straight-outta-incompetence">late-night comedians</a> like Jon Stewart bought and spread this false narrative.</p>
<p>Lerner made things worse by seeming to hide something when she <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/lois-lerner-invokes-fifth-amendment-in-house-hearing-on-irs-targeting/2013/05/22/03539900-c2e6-11e2-8c3b-0b5e9247e8ca_story.html?utm_term=.e2683b1ed132">took the Fifth</a> when lawmakers tried to grill her. I think she did this because her attorneys believed testifying might put her at some risk of prosecution for perjury, not for “targeting” the tea party.</p>
<p>More investigations by congressional committees, the inspector general for tax administration and the <a href="http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/01/the-irss-candal.html">FBI</a> ensued, along with lawsuits against the IRS and its employees. </p>
<p>In fact, however, rather than proving that the IRS had picked on conservative groups, these inquiries detected managerial shortcomings. Nevertheless, Republicans proposed new laws to curb nonprofit regulation.</p>
<p>Congressional conservatives also tried and <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/06/politics/house-freedom-caucus-irs-commissioner-john-koskinen-impeach/index.html">failed to impeach</a> former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who had nothing to do with vetting nonprofit applications. Koskinen, who I believe did not need the job, did <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2016/08/03/being-irs-commissioner-shouldnt-be-mission-impossible/#49126d557e61">yeoman’s work</a> trying to make the agency function better without adequate funding. In my view, he didn’t deserve to be treated with such scorn.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Justice Department entered into an ill-advised <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/us/politics/irs-tea-party-lawsuit-settlement.html">multimillion-dollar settlement</a> and <a href="http://media.aclj.org/pdf/17.10.25-Proposed-Consent-Order-FILED.pdf">consent order</a> with these conservative organizations in late 2017 to ostensibly right a wrong that was unclear at best. And in early April, a US$3.5 million settlement <a href="http://www.wral.com/judge-gives-preliminary-ok-to-3-5m-settlement-of-irs-case/17464550/">cleared a legal hurdle</a>.</p>
<p>Yet as the 2017 report documents and plenty of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2013/06/09/elijah-cummings-case-is-solved-on-irs/?utm_term=.1c99bbebac08">earlier information</a> indicated, the IRS paid extra attention to aspiring nonprofits that <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2017reports/201710054fr.pdf">spanned the national political spectrum</a> by zeroing in on “green energy” and “border patrol” groups alike – not just rightward-leaning ones.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190224/original/file-20171013-3537-qtyk0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190224/original/file-20171013-3537-qtyk0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190224/original/file-20171013-3537-qtyk0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190224/original/file-20171013-3537-qtyk0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190224/original/file-20171013-3537-qtyk0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190224/original/file-20171013-3537-qtyk0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190224/original/file-20171013-3537-qtyk0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190224/original/file-20171013-3537-qtyk0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">IRS official Lois Lerner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/IRS-Investigations/6814b52f5316409a90da6afbce058390/55/0">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Equal-opportunity mismanagement</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, I believe the inspector general was <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2013reports/201310053fr.pdf">onto something in 2013</a>, when it issued a report that criticized how Lerner’s team handled this paperwork. The IRS was taking an average of <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2013reports/201310053fr.pdf">574 days to process applications</a> from tea party groups and sometimes asking intrusive questions unrelated to the question of tax exemption. </p>
<p>The agency’s staffing shortage doesn’t excuse regularly leaving aspiring nonprofits in limbo for more than a year. Since new charities, social welfare organizations and other nonprofits depend on a nod from the IRS to gain traction, the tax agency needed to find a way to respond faster despite budget constraints.</p>
<p>Even so, as the report shows, groups with terms like “occupy” or “progressive” in their names, in some cases, waited three years or longer for the IRS to process their applications for nonprofit status. This slow-walking wasn’t partisan. </p>
<p><iframe id="7St83" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7St83/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Regardless of the wait, most groups eventually gained nonprofit status.</p>
<p>This latest document still doesn’t clarify whether the IRS applied the appropriate scrutiny – and there’s no legal definition of what that might be. Nor does it say how many conservative and liberal organizations have sought tax-exempt status or whether the percentage of groups the IRS denied was consistent across ideological lines. </p>
<h2>Underfunding the IRS</h2>
<p>I believe these long waits have more to do with budget cuts than bias. The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional agency, <a href="http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/667595.pdf">recognized in 2014</a> that the tax agency’s budget and staff were too small to handle its nonprofit oversight responsibilities. </p>
<p>The situation has only deteriorated since then.</p>
<p>The overall <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/trump-budget-continues-multi-year-assault-on-irs-funding-despite-mnuchins">IRS budget fell</a> by about 18 percent in inflation-adjusted terms from 2010 to 2017, from $14 billion to roughly $11.5 billion. </p>
<p>Congress recently did <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/27/the-irs-gets-help-from-congress-as-it-tries-to-implement-the-new-gop-tax-law/?utm_term=.97d11c004c80">bump up IRS funding</a> from $11.2 billion to $11.4 billion and provided $320 million for the agency to implement the highly complex new tax law. But the total still falls short of what the IRS needs.</p>
<p>Even with that new money, the agency will still <a href="https://www.irs.gov/statistics/irs-budget-and-workforce">employ fewer people</a> than it did in 2010. The number of its employees dedicated to auditing and vetting the nonprofit sector fell about 5 percent from 2010 to 2013, the <a href="http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/667595.pdf">GAO found</a>. </p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facpub/2401/">long-term trend</a>, which began two decades ago, has eroded oversight. </p>
<p>The number of aspiring nonprofits gaining tax-exempt status rose over the past decade as rejections fell. The number of <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/07databkrevised.pdf">denials plummeted from 1,607</a> in 2007 <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/16databk.pdf">to merely 37</a> in 2016. </p>
<p><iframe id="GBeQM" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GBeQM/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Automating exemption</h2>
<p>The IRS had in recent years reduced its nonprofit approval backlog with its <a href="https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-1023">new 1023-EZ form</a>, which lets new charities spending less than $50,000 a year automatically get tax-exempt status. However, anecdotally and sadly, I’m hearing that the processing time for even this simple form is increasing.</p>
<p>Furthermore, this fix has opened a new avenue for fraud and abuse. The taxpayer advocate found that <a href="https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/Media/Default/Documents/2016-ARC/ARC16_Volume1_MSP_19_Form1023ez.pdf">34 percent</a> of the groups granted tax-exempt status this way in 2015 and 26 percent of those green-lighted in 2016 weren’t eligible.</p>
<p>As the IRS tries to recover the credibility it lost in a fabricated scandal, automatically approving all these applications may create more serious problems.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FJ_DgfhGJW4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Singer Michael Bolton crooned a satirical tribute to the IRS on ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,’ objecting to the agency’s budget cuts.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article is an updated version of an article The Conversation published on <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-irs-targeting-scandal-was-fake-but-irs-budget-woes-are-a-real-problem-85310">Oct. 22, 2017</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95026/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Hackney worked at the Office of the Chief Counsel of the IRS in its Exempt Organizations branch of its Tax Exempt Government Entities division from 2006-2011. He left in April of 2011.</span></em></p>The tax agency, as it happens, singled out both conservative and liberal groups seeking tax-exempt status for extra scrutiny. But the myth that it picked on the tea party movement hasn’t gone away.Philip Hackney, James E. & Betty M. Phillips Professor of Law, Louisiana State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/794992017-09-08T03:35:39Z2017-09-08T03:35:39ZProgressive politics is losing to a fantasy state of mind<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174369/original/file-20170619-5822-1djv8ix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why are communities that need government's help seemingly rejecting it on principle?
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/susanad813/3447466061/">Susan E Adams/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> project, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> between The Conversation and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
<p><em>This piece is part of a series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/after-populism-39385">After Populism</a>, about the challenges populism poses for democracy. It comes from a talk at the “<a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Populism-Symposium-6-April-2017.pdf">Populism: what’s next for democracy?</a>” symposium hosted by the <a href="http://www.governanceinstitute.edu.au/">Institute for Governance & Policy Analysis</a> at the University of Canberra in collaboration with <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Why are we increasingly seeing voters support policies that, superficially at least, are against their own interests? In California, Central Valley farmers face a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/us/california-farmers-backed-trump-but-now-fear-losing-field-workers.html?_r=0">crisis</a>. Despite their livelihoods depending on large numbers of unauthorised workers, the group overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump, who campaigned on deporting “<a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-policies-will-affect-four-groups-of-undocumented-immigrants-70467">illegals</a>”.</p>
<p>Something similar occurred with many “Leave” voters in the UK <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-and-eu-both-need-major-democratic-reform-to-survive-brexit-fallout-55870">Brexit</a> referendum, who seemingly voted against their own economic interests. </p>
<p>Another example: voters in Sunderland voted to “leave” by a margin of <a href="https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/elections-and-referendums/past-elections-and-referendums/eu-referendum/electorate-and-count-information">61% to 39%</a>. Yet this working-class city is <a href="http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/sunderland-mp-s-open-letter-on-brexit-and-nissan-1-8351176">highly dependent</a> for employment on <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-latest-news-nissan-uk-business-jobs-7000-employees-car-plant-sunderland-a7603721.html">Nissan</a>, which was located there largely due to the UK’s access to the European Union market.</p>
<p>Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild has explored another example. She spent five years with Tea Party voters in Louisiana. Most of her subjects or their family members had “personally benefited from a major government service”. Yet they voted for Trump’s Republican Party, which had the explicit aim of cutting social welfare support.</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<h2>Waiting in line, outraged by queue jumpers</h2>
<p>One striking aspect of Hochschild’s <a href="http://thenewpress.com/books/strangers-their-own-land">account</a> is the affection and respect she has developed, despite her own liberal leanings, for her right-wing subjects:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Many of the Tea Party people I met seemed to me warm, intelligent, generous … They have community, and church, and goodwill toward those they know. Many care deeply about the environment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They were, however, deeply resentful of taunts of “crazy redneck” and “ignorant southern Bible-thumper”. As Hochschild explained, they felt like “strangers in their own land”, patiently waiting for their lot to improve, while outsiders were pushed ahead by the federal government.</p>
<p>Much of Hochschild’s research took place in Louisiana’s southwest, home to Cajun, Catholic conservatives deeply attached to a culture of church and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayou">bayou</a>.</p>
<p>Hochschild stresses the devastating effects of the oil industry (and more recently the chemical industry) on their community through environmental degradation. Still, the jobs in these industries had given people incomes, pride and meaning in a past “golden age”. </p>
<p>Many of those jobs are long gone. The industries’ legacy, in addition to a degraded environment, includes work-related illness, disability and unemployment.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184106/original/file-20170831-22218-1nikns6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184106/original/file-20170831-22218-1nikns6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184106/original/file-20170831-22218-1nikns6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184106/original/file-20170831-22218-1nikns6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184106/original/file-20170831-22218-1nikns6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184106/original/file-20170831-22218-1nikns6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184106/original/file-20170831-22218-1nikns6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184106/original/file-20170831-22218-1nikns6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The
oil industry left many in Louisiana sick and unemployed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_Rouge_Refinery#/media/File:Exxon_Mobil_oil_refinery_-_Baton_Rouge,_Louisiana.jpg">W. Clarke/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We meet Lee Sherman, who exemplifies the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/books/review/strangers-in-their-own-land-arlie-russell-hochschild.html">Great Paradox</a> – the need for help and a principled refusal of it”. Sherman worked for a chemical company and become chronically ill through toxic exposure. Later, he became an avowed environmentalist. And yet he still supported the anti-environmental Tea Party. </p>
<p>Hochschild notes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>His source of news was limited to Fox News and videos and blogs exchanged by right-wing friends, which placed him in an echo chamber of doubt about the EPA, the federal government, the president, and taxes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Tea Party supporters blame the federal government for challenging their religious faith, imposing wasteful “progressive” taxes and diminishing their pride and honour. For them, the church provides community, culture, meaning and succour. They see government as an ungodly roadblock to infusing religion into every aspect of their community, especially in public education.</p>
<p>The Louisianan group’s experience of losing honour cuts profoundly into the foundational cultural logic of the US, the “American dream”. It tells its adherents that, through unfailing effort, they can, and should, progress in the queue towards material success and the relief and happiness this brings. Indeed, it is an individual’s right and duty to progress along this path.</p>
<p>Sherman and his community’s hatred of taxes, then, masks a strong underlying belief about “others” interfering in their passage along the path. Hochschild writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Lee’s biggest beef was taxes. They went to the wrong people — especially welfare beneficiaries who ‘lazed around days and partied at night’ and government workers in cushy jobs.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some 150 years of perceived discrimination, from defeat in the Civil War through to the “northern” promotion of equal rights for African-Americans and women in the 1960s, and more recently LGBTI activism and support for Syrian refugees, have fuelled the group’s growing hatred for the political elites purportedly driving these changes. </p>
<p>Hochschild’s deep story of these very normal, often generous and intelligent people is that, as they try to pursue the American dream, they resent the government humiliating them by pushing “others” ahead in the line.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184111/original/file-20170831-31892-1ak0eed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184111/original/file-20170831-31892-1ak0eed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184111/original/file-20170831-31892-1ak0eed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184111/original/file-20170831-31892-1ak0eed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184111/original/file-20170831-31892-1ak0eed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184111/original/file-20170831-31892-1ak0eed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184111/original/file-20170831-31892-1ak0eed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184111/original/file-20170831-31892-1ak0eed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tea Party supporters believe that ‘big government’ stands in the way of achieving their American dream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jacreative/3445836139/">John Ashley/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How is it that their political party, whose aggressive neoliberal policies are arguably most responsible for destroying their home environment, along with their chronic unemployment, illness and lack of health care, is somehow spared this resentment?</p>
<h2>Self-transgressive behaviour</h2>
<p>To answer this question, Jason Glynos introduces the idea of “<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/pcs.2014.2">self-transgression</a>”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The ‘problem of self-transgression’ … aims to capture an intuition about those kinds of situations where an individual or group appear both to affirm an interest or ideal … and simultaneously subvert it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Retaining good health, a living income and an unpolluted environment are in the affirmed interests of Hochschild’s research subjects. In that sense, their open and enthusiastic support for policies that directly work against those interests is self-transgressive.</p>
<p>Central to the argument is the Lacanian concept of <a href="http://www.lacanonline.com/index/2015/07/what-does-lacan-say-about-jouissance/"><em>jouissance</em></a>; in English partly explained by the word “enjoyment”, but also incorporating the idea of an emotional “pay-off”. </p>
<p>Glynos writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What binds a community together is often not simply identification with a common ideal like ‘justice’ or ‘freedom’, but also an identification with a common form of enjoyment-in-transgression … Various coded political communication tactics – populist ‘dog-whistle’ politics, for example – could be readily understood in this light.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Glynos offers two explanations. The first, his “Orthogonality Thesis”, suggests that the <em>jouissance</em> in hating the government seems quite independent of any real justification. It is as if the outrage occurs at the intersection of two mutually exclusive orthoganal planes, one a “psychic reality” and the other more associated with evidence and logic.</p>
<p>This thesis offers some explanation for the success of Trump’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-both-the-old-crazy-and-the-new-normal-58728">rhetorical style</a>, his lack of concern with evidence for his claims and, the advent of a plane of thinking and feeling that can happily support a world of “alternative facts”. </p>
<p>Trump’s “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html?utm_term=.4fddcfe0a250">locker room</a>” sexual references, his stream-of-consciousness attacks on anyone who stands in his way, and his willingness to say anything to anyone all play court to the collective transgressive impulse of his supporters.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2JLZKz1oDZM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘The Tea Party are incredible people that work hard and love the country – and then you just get beat up all the time.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to Glynos, the “fantasmatic logics” operating in the psychic plane allow the subject to be so invested in the hatred of government, or the evil of Hillary Clinton, or the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/by-framing-secular-society-as-a-christian-creation-hansons-revival-goes-beyond-simple-racism-67707">un-Australianness</a>” of the burqa, that any possibility of alternative social, political and economic identifications and ideals is effectively blocked from their view. </p>
<p>Truth has no bearing on the fantasmatic logics operating in the psychic plane.</p>
<p>Glynos’s second explanation, which he calls the “Overdetermination Thesis”, departs from the simple idea that thinking occurs in either one or other of the orthogonal planes. Political discourse is necessarily made up of both types of thinking. Any number of “fantasmatics” can attach to a set of events. </p>
<p>This might help explain why Pauline Hanson, in her first sojourn in politics could “other” and demonise Asians, only to reappear 20 years later having <a href="https://theconversation.com/pauline-hanson-20-years-on-same-refrain-new-target-65433">seamlessly refocused</a> on Muslims.</p>
<h2>Where to now for progressive politics?</h2>
<p>Fantasmatic logics are by no means the exclusive tool of the right. Glynos suggests the “free market” can easily replace “big government” as a fantasmatic signifier in left-wing rhetoric. </p>
<p>And therein lies the big question for social progressives. Politics without affective fantasmatic elements is sterile, inhuman and possibly totalitarian. </p>
<p>Politics moving more toward the fantasmatic plane, on the other hand, is “wacky”, ineffective and sometimes dangerous (though often entertaining). The pervasive use of the fantasy tools of brand marketing in politics has moved us perilously towards the latter.</p>
<p>It is well to remember that, despite the <a href="https://theconversation.com/face-the-facts-populism-is-here-to-stay-63771">dominance of fantasmatics</a> in US, Australian and European politics, there is also a rising tide of rejection of <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-the-wannabe-king-ruling-by-twiat-72269">shallow political rhetoric</a>, especially among the young. </p>
<p>The existential global issues challenging humanity call for innovative responses that are both passionate and reasoned. Progressive politics and its spokespeople will not jump-start the stalled vehicle of complex problem-solving by staying on a marketing message, or trading fantasmatic slogans. It is a long way back, but more respect, honesty and participation will help clear the path.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79499/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr MIck Chisnall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why are we increasingly seeing voters support candidates whose policies are, superficially at least, against their own interests?Dr MIck Chisnall, PhD Candidate at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/716742017-01-22T19:57:18Z2017-01-22T19:57:18ZTrump: where we might end up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153718/original/image-20170121-30970-u04q3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">German stock market after US election, November 9, 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.epa.eu/politics-photos/markets-exchanges-elections-photos/stock-market-in-frankfurt-am-main-after-us-election-photos-53110735">Frank Rumpenhorst/EPA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Populist movements purporting to represent the interests of the ‘honest’, hard-working (normally ethnically and culturally homogeneous) ‘people’ against a distant and corrupt elite or ‘establishment’ have been a <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100525110">recurrent feature of US political history</a>. While earlier movements all ultimately failed, Trump has won, his success favoured by a uniquely favourable constellation of <a href="http://theconversation.com/trump-how-we-got-here-71675">socio-economic, cultural and political conditions</a>.</p>
<p>Now someone who can reasonably be labelled a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html">misogynist, racist, a religious bigot and a narcissist</a> occupies the most powerful political office in the world. Where will he try to take the United States – and the world? Judging by his <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/trump-inaugural-address/index.html">inauguration speech</a> we should assume that that he will try to put in place the policies he pledged in his election campaign and since then. What might they mean?</p>
<h2>Protectionism’s sombre record</h2>
<p>To impose unilateral tariffs on imports into the US will provoke trade wars, at least with those countries, such as China, large enough to stand up to the United States. Trade wars will hurt trade and are likely to damage all protagonists. </p>
<p>Such measures would likely be illegal under international law and thus destroy the authority of the (already ailing) WTO, undermining the principal international institution underpinning relatively free international trade. Generalized economic protectionism would provoke a world economic crisis, radicalize domestic and international politics and heighten the risk of wars – see the 1930s. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153716/original/image-20170121-30985-11ogk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153716/original/image-20170121-30985-11ogk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153716/original/image-20170121-30985-11ogk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153716/original/image-20170121-30985-11ogk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153716/original/image-20170121-30985-11ogk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153716/original/image-20170121-30985-11ogk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153716/original/image-20170121-30985-11ogk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153716/original/image-20170121-30985-11ogk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">USS Farragut after destroying a Somali pirate craft in the Gulf of Aden as part of NATO operations, March 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#/media/File:Gulf_of_Aden_-_disabled_pirate_boat.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To act as though NATO is ‘obsolete’ would be to encourage Putin’s military adventurism – already evident in Ukraine and the Crimea – elsewhere in Eastern Europe and increase the risk of military confrontation between NATO and Russia. To align the US with Russia or equate it with NATO members, such as Germany, as some of his remarks have suggested, would be to undermine the alliance itself. Absent closer European defence cooperation than currently exists, this might provoke security competition and tensions even among existing NATO members.</p>
<h2>Ideology over science</h2>
<p>To disengage from international efforts and agreements to combat climate change would increase the risk of global warming, with all its prospective deleterious consequences, becoming irreversible. If the US, historically the biggest generator of CO<sub>2</sub> emissions, is not trying to combat climate change, what incentive will other countries have to make the adjustments and sacrifices required to do so?</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153717/original/image-20170121-30949-3nuqx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153717/original/image-20170121-30949-3nuqx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153717/original/image-20170121-30949-3nuqx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153717/original/image-20170121-30949-3nuqx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153717/original/image-20170121-30949-3nuqx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153717/original/image-20170121-30949-3nuqx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153717/original/image-20170121-30949-3nuqx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153717/original/image-20170121-30949-3nuqx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Diplomats for France, Germany, the EU, Iran, the UK, the US, China and Russia announcing the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program on April 2, 2015, in Switzerland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal_framework#/media/File:Negotiations_about_Iranian_Nuclear_Program_-_the_Ministers_of_Foreign_Affairs_and_Other_Officials_of_the_P5%2B1_and_Ministers_of_Foreign_Affairs_of_Iran_and_EU_in_Lausanne.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If he withdraws the US from the Iranian nuclear accord, Iran would resume its nuclear weapons programme, deepening the cleavage and exacerbating already existing conflicts between Shiite and Sunni blocs in the Middle East and Gulf region as well as heightening the risk of a military confrontation between Iran and Israel.</p>
<p>If, supported by the several ex–Wall Street executives whom he has recruited to his administration, he dismantles the Dodd-Frank Act that strengthened financial regulation in response to the GFC, new financial crises will become more likely.</p>
<p>It is conceivable that on these issues wiser and more cautious minds will prevail over Trump’s. In Senate hearings, some members of his new administration diverged from a number of his stances. But the occupants of the main posts do not have their own power bases in the Republican Party and can therefore be easily replaced by Trump if they fall out with him.</p>
<h2>Governing by Twitter</h2>
<p>In any case, those more cautious than Trump will not prevent him from tweeting. In politics, rhetoric, language and words – and not only deeds – are facts that can have <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-undiplomatic-twitter-diplomacy-isnt-a-joke-its-a-catastrophic-risk-70861">very concrete effects</a>. It will not always be easy to divine what are the administration’s actual policies. This uncertainty will have its own destabilizing impact – especially on US foreign relations, as, compared with domestic actors, foreign governments will find it harder to identify which path the administration will actually follow.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"811977223326625792"}"></div></p>
<p>Until 2018 at the earliest, Trump will also benefit from Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. He does not belong to the party establishment and is not ‘one of them’. Indeed many Congressional Republicans despise him. Mindful of their re-election prospects, however, they will not fall out of line if and as long as he appears to be a vote-winner on whose coattails they can ride back into the Congress in 2018. Moreover, on some issues, especially domestic ones such as health care and financial regulation, they are in any case more likely to be a radicalizing than a restraining force on Trump.</p>
<p>Public opinion – American public opinion, less on the liberal coasts than in the more conservative interior that put him into office – will be the principal determinant of Trump’s latitude of action. We cannot be certain, though, that this factor will pre-empt the potentially major economic, political, military and environmental disasters which, unrestrained, he may precipitate. </p>
<h2>A perilous journey</h2>
<p>With Trump in the White House, the US and world are thus embarking on a very perilous journey very probably involving heightened levels of instability, conflict and violence. To draw parallels with the 1930s is not unfounded. Already we have high or mass unemployment in many countries, especially among the young. Reminiscent of the ill-fated balanced-budget policy of the German Chancellor Brüning in the early 1930s, fiscal austerity is being externally and relentlessly imposed in parts of the Eurozone. Populist and nationalist movements are growing rapidly also in other parts of the West. The international influence of authoritarian states (Russia and China) is rising. Liberal democracy is giving way increasingly to illiberal democracy (Hungary and Poland) or outright authoritarianism (Turkey). International organizations are weakening (Brexit) and international crises plentiful (Syria, Ukraine, maritime Southeast Asia, etc.).</p>
<p>Trump’s arrival in the White House is bound to exacerbate this precarious international economic and political conjuncture. True, he has no overt Fascist ideology or project to overturn American democracy nor a paramilitary movement to intimidate and suppress political opposition. Moreover, the separation of powers enshrined in the US constitution guards against the worst potential abuses of executive power. To this extent, other than in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can't_Happen_Here">Sinclair Lewis’s novel</a> from America in the 1930s, it probably ‘can’t happen here’. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153714/original/image-20170121-30966-1m5z88n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C1791%2C1145&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153714/original/image-20170121-30966-1m5z88n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153714/original/image-20170121-30966-1m5z88n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153714/original/image-20170121-30966-1m5z88n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153714/original/image-20170121-30966-1m5z88n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153714/original/image-20170121-30966-1m5z88n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153714/original/image-20170121-30966-1m5z88n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Michael Pence with House Speaker Paul Ryan, whom Trump described as ‘weak and ineffective’ after Ryan declined to support him prior to the election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Speaker_Ryan_with_Trump_and_Pence.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the new president arguably does possess numerous traits – intolerance of opponents, the cultivation of ‘enemies’ (the liberal media), fear of diversity (Islam/Muslims), the rejection of (for example, climate) science, contempt for ‘losers’ or the weak, the exultation of a glorious past to be restored (‘Make America great again!’) – that have <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/">typified Fascist leaders in history</a>. These will be on abundant display during the next years and their cumulative impact will be to polarize and poison American and international political life. </p>
<p>A lot will change in the next four – or eight – years of Trump. But, for those in the United States and elsewhere who cherish the values of liberty, equality and fraternity, nothing, one must fear, will change for the better.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Read the previous article, <a href="http://theconversation.com/trump-how-we-got-here-71675">‘Trump: How We Got Here’</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71674/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas Webber ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>As candidate, Trump promised protectionist trade policies and denigrated international agreements. Now, as president of the United States, how far can he go?Douglas Webber, Robert Schuman fellow, European University Institute, and Professor of Political Science, INSEADLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/678992016-11-17T21:37:02Z2016-11-17T21:37:02ZThe real reason Trump won: White fright<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146283/original/image-20161116-13547-57j23l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What drew white voters to Donald Trump?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/ Evan Vucci</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many presidents have assumed the reins of a divided nation, but we’ve never seen anything like the reaction to Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential election. </p>
<p>It didn’t happen to Richard Nixon while the country was bitterly split over race and war. </p>
<p>Half of the country believed Al Gore was cheated out of his shot at the White House in 2000, but the run-up to George W. Bush’s presence in the Oval Office offered nothing like what we are seeing now. </p>
<p>President Barack Obama, by turns believed a socialist and African national, among other things, was feared by some on the right, but didn’t face what the current president-elect now faces: a country whose division is exceeded only by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-legacy-poll_us_569fde11e4b0fca5ba765452">Civil War-era America</a>.</p>
<p>If Trump is so divisive, why did he win? </p>
<h2>The conventional account</h2>
<p>If we are to believe the emerging consensus, Trump won with the support of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/upshot/why-trump-won-working-class-whites.html?_r=0">working-class white voters</a>, people anxious about their economic prospects in a globalizing economy. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/12/a-massive-new-study-debunks-a-widespread-theory-for-donald-trumps-success/">theory goes</a> that the automation that has replaced workers, and the pull of capitalism that pushed manufacturing jobs overseas, squeezed the white working class. As a result, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/28/donald-trump-globalization-trade-pennsylvania-ohio/86431376/">the white working class supported Trump</a> and his promises to blunt globalization and curb free trade, moves that will preserve working-class jobs. </p>
<p>Hogwash. </p>
<p>Reasonable people may disagree on the definition of “working class,” but let’s agree that it resides in the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/21/news/economy/upper-middle-class/">US$30,000 to $50,000 range</a>. Even if we add in those classified as poor – that is, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/national/president">households earning less than $30,000</a> – this group constitutes only about 36 percent of the electorate. Substantial, but not enough to hand Trump the election. </p>
<p>Especially not since <a href="http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/national/president">Hillary Clinton actually beat</a> Trump among poor and working-class voters: 52 percent to 41 percent.</p>
<p>So, where did Trump beat Clinton if income is the criterion by which we’re judging the election? Even if not by much, exit polling indicates he bested her among those earning at least $50,000 – that is, the middle and upper class. </p>
<p>But for the fact that much has been made of the white working class riding to Trump’s rescue, it’s not entirely shocking that the GOP standard bearer won the middle- and upper-class white vote: It’s been this way for some time, for <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-may-become-the-first-republican-in-60-years-to-lose-white-college-graduates/">several decades</a>, in fact. </p>
<p>Instead, what’s most arresting is that middle- and upper-class whites voted for this particular candidate. College-educated whites <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674745698?ie=UTF8&tag=thewaspos09-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=0674745698">tend to be more tolerant</a> than those without a college diploma. In a nutshell, a college education is generally tied to a commitment to <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo3683564.html">democratic values</a>. But Trump’s brazen misogyny, racism and navitism run afoul of these values. </p>
<p>By the way, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/138754/blame-trumps-victory-college-educated-whites-not-working-class">I’m not the only one</a> to conclude that Trump’s victory had at least as much to do with support from voters who remain unencumbered by economic anxiety as those riven by it.</p>
<h2>The real reason he won</h2>
<p>If social economic status – especially education – is a gateway to a more tolerant, democratic society, why did middle- and upper-class voters back someone who represents the antithesis of such values? </p>
<p>It’s actually pretty simple, in my opinion. My reading of history suggests that the boundaries of American identity intersect with whiteness, patriarchy, xenophobia and homophobia. This means that anyone, any group that falls outside of such a definition of American identity, is considered beyond the political community; they’re aliens. </p>
<p>Rapid social change, which poses a threat to this truncated version of American identity, activates anxiety and anger on the part of those who lay claim to this identity. The America with which they’ve become familiar is changing too fast. Hence, the slogan for the Trump campaign: “Make America great again.” This suggests that America, in its present state, is defective in some way and needs to return some previous version of itself. </p>
<p>Let’s consider what could be “wrong” with America circa 2016. </p>
<p>Rapidly changing demographics means that America will transition to a “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2014/12/12/new-projections-point-to-a-majority-minority-nation-in-2044/">majority-minority</a>” country no later than 2044. Women are now more visible in public life than ever. Three serve on the Supreme Court. One even ran for president – twice. Same-sex marriage is now <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf">the law of the land</a>. Last, but not least, we’ve had a black president for almost eight years. </p>
<p>With this in mind, many Trump supporters believe themselves to be losing “their” country, something that leads them to prefer a social milieu more consistent with days gone by – one in which primarily white, middle- and upper-class, heterosexual, native-born men reigned supreme. </p>
<p>It isn’t the first time America has witnessed something like this. Rapid social change spurred the growth of the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9954.html">Ku Klux Klan</a> in the 1920s and the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9954.html">John Birch Society</a> in the 1960s. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146284/original/image-20161116-13512-afphsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146284/original/image-20161116-13512-afphsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146284/original/image-20161116-13512-afphsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146284/original/image-20161116-13512-afphsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146284/original/image-20161116-13512-afphsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146284/original/image-20161116-13512-afphsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146284/original/image-20161116-13512-afphsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ku Klux Klan members supporting Barry Goldwater’s campaign for the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention, San Francisco, California in 1964.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Goldwater1964SanFranciscoKKK.jpg">United States Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like Trump’s supporters, economic anxiety had next to nothing to do with why people supported the KKK or the John Birch Society. These people were relatively well off. Instead, it was the perception of existential threat that pushed people to join each. The <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9954.html">KKK felt threatened</a> by the “New Negro” and religious minorities; for the JBS, it was about the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9954.html">civil rights movement joining forces with the Soviet Union</a>.</p>
<p>But we needn’t look back as far as the 20th century to identify the most recent example the reactionary sentiment that fueled Trump’s stunning victory. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9954.html">I have written elsewhere</a>, the Tea Party movement formed in reaction to the election of the first black president. He represented social change in which 20 percent of white voters couldn’t believe. </p>
<p>When one considers the extent to which these groups overlap, these similarities come as no great surprise. My analysis of <a href="http://kcts9.org/programs/vote-2016/washington-state-views-political-figures-race-immigration-and-voting-rights">existing polling data</a> suggests 83 percent of those who identify with the Tea Party also supported Trump’s candidacy during the campaign. In other words, Tea Party supporters are now Trump supporters.</p>
<p>More importantly, if the policy preferences of Trump supporters are even remotely similar to those who supported the Tea Party, progressives have reason to be concerned. Tea Party types are far less inclined to support progressive policies than establishment conservatives. </p>
<p>Still, a silver lining may exist. Trump’s victory, in light of all of his antics during the campaign, makes it all but impossible to deny the continuing currency of racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia in the United States. It’s on display for all to see. </p>
<p>This could be a good thing: It forces us to reckon with who we really are. Is America really about the democratic, progressive values professed in the founding documents? Or, are we really the small-minded, bigoted place Trump’s election represents? </p>
<p>If we hope to maintain a claim to exceptionalism, we must find our way back to the values on which this country was founded, ones that include equality and freedom. </p>
<p>If Trump and his supporters really wish to “Make America great again,” perhaps they should go all the way back to these founding principles. Only this time, they should leave behind the racism, sexism and nativism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67899/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Sebastian Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Exit polling shows that Hillary Clinton actually won the poor and working class vote. If “Make America Great Again” wasn’t fueled by an angry underclass, what powered it?Christopher Sebastian Parker, Professor of Political Science, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/633652016-08-03T03:08:14Z2016-08-03T03:08:14ZRadicals in the Democratic Party, from Upton Sinclair to Bernie Sanders<p>As we watch Bernie Sanders’ supporters struggling to come to terms with the nomination of Hillary Clinton, it makes sense to ask why leftists are involved in the Democratic Party in the first place.</p>
<p>It started in 1934 when Upton Sinclair, author of <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/140/140-h/140-h.htm">“The Jungle”</a> and a socialist for most of his life, announced that he would run for governor of California as a Democrat. This began a unique relationship that has been important to American politics ever since. </p>
<p>Why unique? </p>
<p>In most countries throughout Europe and the Americas, the left has its own party or parties. And until the 1930s, American radicals were committed to standing apart from the two mainstream parties, especially the Democratic Party that had long represented white supremacy in the South and corrupt urban regimes in the North. </p>
<p>For 30 years, the Socialist Party carried the electoral hopes of most radicals. Then, in 1932, Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas endured a crushingly defeat, receiving just <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/moves/radical_votes.shtml">2.2 percent</a> of the vote.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132829/original/image-20160802-17169-4gxoog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132829/original/image-20160802-17169-4gxoog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132829/original/image-20160802-17169-4gxoog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132829/original/image-20160802-17169-4gxoog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132829/original/image-20160802-17169-4gxoog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132829/original/image-20160802-17169-4gxoog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132829/original/image-20160802-17169-4gxoog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Upton Sinclair.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Upton Sinclair, who had previously run for governor as a Socialist, now set out to do so again as a Democrat. His 1934 campaign electrified California and the nation. Announcing a bold socialistic plan to “End Poverty in California” during the Great Depression, he built a political movement much larger than anything the Socialist Party had ever accomplished. </p>
<p>I have written extensively about the EPIC movement and direct an <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/epic34/">online project</a> that includes detailed accounts of the campaign and copies of campaign materials. And the <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/moves/index.shtml">Mapping American Social Movements</a> project tracks the broader history of 20th-century radicalism.</p>
<p>Although finally defeated by red-baiting in the general election, Sinclair’s vote tally of 879,537 in California was close to what Norman Thomas had achieved nationwide.</p>
<p>The lesson was obvious. Radicals could do much better working inside the Democratic Party than trying to win elections on their own. </p>
<h2>The New Deal Left</h2>
<p>In the years that followed, radicals of many kinds became energetic New Dealers working from within to push the Democratic Party to the left. The Socialist Party withered. The radical labor activists who created the United Auto Workers and other new Congress of Industrial Organizations unions tied them closely to the party of <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/presidents/franklindroosevelt">Franklin D. Roosevelt</a>. Even the Communist Party embraced the new strategy after 1936, still fielding some of its own candidates while working quietly to support progressive Democrats in what it called the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Heyday_of_American_Communism.html?id=IqPlAAAACAAJ">“Democratic Front.”</a> </p>
<p>In some states, radicals found ways to be both separate and included. The <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14388.html">Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and Wisconsin Progressive Party</a> cooperated with Democrats at the national level while competing with the older party in state and local elections. The American Labor Party in New York was also formally separate but in practice endorsed progressive New Dealers.</p>
<p>In many other states, radicals created caucuses inside the Democratic party similar to what Tea Party activists have done recently in the <a href="https://www.gop.com/">Republican Party</a>. Radicals in California briefly controlled the party apparatus and managed to nominate progressives like California Governor <a href="http://governors.library.ca.gov/29-olson.html">Culbert Olson</a> and U.S. Representative <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/when-jfk-backed-nixon-his-notorious-race-vs-helen-gahagan-douglas/">Helen Gahagan Douglas</a> and help them win elections until the late 1940s. The <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/depress/Washington_Commonwealth_Federation.shtml">Washington Commonwealth Federation</a> was still more effective. Operating as a formal organization within the Democratic Party, the WCF nominated slates of candidates, developed platforms and pressured lawmakers at all levels for progressive legislation.</p>
<h2>Rocky from the start</h2>
<p>So began the marriage between radicals and the Democratic Party that continues today. It has been rocky from the start and there have been several near-divorces as leftists at some moments retested the strategy of independence. </p>
<p>In 1948, as the Truman administration geared up Cold War policies at home and abroad, former Vice President <a href="http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-7852.html">Henry Wallace</a> agreed to mount a third-party challenge. Supported by the Communists, Wallace failed to pull most leftists away from the Democratic Party. Truman won reelection and the left lost credibility. For the next two decades, the Democratic Party was decidedly centrist at all levels and almost every state.</p>
<p>The radicals who built <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/90626/american-dreamers-by-michael-kazin/9780307596703/">new social movements</a> in the 1960s around civil rights, black power, feminism, environmentalism and opposition to the Vietnam War had no tolerance for the centrist Democratic Party, especially after Lyndon Johnson guided the nation from cold to hot war. The alienation yielded a new third party, the <a href="http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/">Peace and Freedom Party</a>, that secured a position on the ballot in several states in the contentious 1968 election. Mostly, however, the New Left shunned electoral politics in the late 1960s. Their revolution was taking place in the streets.</p>
<p>Then in the early 1970s, the marriage resumed. It started at local levels and had much to do with African-American activists mobilizing for municipal elections and with feminist campaigns to see more women in office. When George McGovern won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, he was carried along by millions of young people determined to end the war abroad and transform society at home. McGovern lost, but the activists reformed the party, rewriting nomination and convention rules in ways that would encourage grassroots activism and insure significant roles for women and communities of color.</p>
<h2>Involvement and frustration</h2>
<p>The framework of 1972 has given radicals ever since a stake in the Democratic Party. It’s also been the source of a lot of frustration. The role of the left is mostly invisible and thus different than 1930s and 1940s when clearly identified radical caucuses were common. For one thing, it is hard to know what “the left” is and who belongs to it. The <a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/89cmd2yt9780252038846.html">contemporary left</a> has no structure nor even a definite label. “Progressive” has become a vague identifier, but the term is used so loosely as to be almost meaningless.</p>
<p>Secondly, the left has been largely shut out of national level Democratic Party campaigns since 1972. Only once has there been anything like the Sanders campaign. In 1984, Jessie Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition primary challenge turned into a grand crusade that energized and expanded the left in a manner not unlike 2016. Otherwise centrists have commanded the party’s main stage.</p>
<p>More often radicals have been engaged in local-level campaigns where now and then an exciting progressive has been elected to office. Examples include Former Mayor <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-haroldwashington-story-story.html">Harold Washington</a> in Chicago, Mayor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antonio-Villaraigosa">Antonio Villaraigosa</a> in Los Angeles and <a href="http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/">Mayor Bill de Blasio</a> in New York. Black, Latino, Asian and gay candidates, ballot measures defending the rights of women, immigrants, and LGBTQ people, or helping working people — these are the campaigns that refresh the passions of progressives and keep them active in electoral politics.</p>
<p>Most of all it is the power and threat from the right that has kept radicals involved in the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>The Green Party was launched in 1990 to try an independent electoral strategy once again. After winning some city council seats in California and Wisconsin, the party mounted presidential campaigns behind Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000. </p>
<p>When Nader’s Florida vote cost Al Gore the <a href="http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2000&fips=12">2000 presidential election</a>, the lesson of 1934 was reemphasized: whatever the attractions of third parties, the best hope of the left is inside the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>There is another lesson from 1934 that the Sanders team is probably thinking about. The relationships of the New Deal Era worked better than more recent versions because the left was organized and visible within the Democratic Party. Radical New Dealers dragged the party to the left, pushing policies that transformed the political economy of the nation and the rights of Americans. Will the revitalized left coming out of this election play a similar role in the years to come?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63365/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James N. Gregory does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Until the 1930s, American radicals stood apart from the two mainstream parties. That changed when a muckraking journalist ran for governor of California.James N. Gregory, Professor of History, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/606762016-06-17T02:22:52Z2016-06-17T02:22:52ZDid Donald Trump kill the Tea Party?<p>Americans have been riveted by the 2016 presidential primaries and the media spectacle that has surrounded the Donald Trump campaign. </p>
<p>This excitement has not carried through to the down-ballot races. In fact, it has been a quiet primary season for candidates running for things other than president. </p>
<p>So far, 2016 has featured little national discussion of the Tea Party agenda that closed the federal government in 2013 and <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-we-can-learn-from-eric-cantors-defeat/">pushed House Majority Leader Eric Cantor</a> from office the following year. There’s been little talk this election year of threatened Republican moderates, a conservative legislative agenda, or of the sorts of ideological battles that have raged over the past years among Republican members of Congress and their would-be colleagues. </p>
<p>House and Senate candidates who object to “business as usual” have struggled to raise money, get their message across and win votes. </p>
<p>In my book <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/5181079/getting_primaried">“Getting Primaried,”</a> I argue that House and Senate primaries serve as an important indicator of the health of our political system. Political waves that will shape general election results can often be detected by looking at patterns of competition in primaries. </p>
<p>So what are this year’s primaries telling us? </p>
<p>Has presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump killed the Tea Party?</p>
<h2>Why primary challenges happen</h2>
<p>Over the past decade, Senate and House primaries have become a playground for ideological interest groups. This is an arena where groups can have an impact on Congress for a fraction of what it costs to influence a general election campaign. </p>
<p>If one group, or a small number of groups working together, focuses resources on two or three primary elections, a message is sent to moderate members of Congress that bipartisan compromise carries with it the risk of “getting primaried” – or being replaced by a more ideologically extreme candidate of your own party.</p>
<p>Even if such efforts are ultimately unsuccessful, they can generate enough media coverage to frighten other incumbents. This tactic has been used on both sides, but conservative groups, such as the <a href="https://morningconsult.com/alert/club-growth-north-carolina-primary/">Club for Growth</a> and the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/us/politics/15teaparty.html?_r=2&hp">various Tea Party</a> organizations, have been most successful at it. </p>
<p>Centrist Republicans such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/richard-lugar-loses-primary-nomination-to-conservative-challenger-richard-mourdock/2012/05/08/gIQANcJjBU_story.html">Richard Lugar</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/us/politics/19elect.html">Arlen Specter</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/us/politics/thad-cochran-chris-mcdaniel-mississippi-senate-primary.html">Thad Cochran</a> and <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/weak-tea-party-candidates-lisa-murkowski-beats-joe-miller-alaska-213066">Lisa Murkowski</a>, as well as several lesser-known Republican House members, have been targets over the past decade.</p>
<p>While the conventional wisdom that contested primaries are becoming more frequent doesn’t bear out, I argue in my book that expensive, high-profile primaries have become more nationally visible.</p>
<h2>Only halfway through</h2>
<p>Although the presidential primaries have ended, we have just reached the halfway point for down-ballot primary races. </p>
<p>In the House, primaries have been held so far in 265 seats out of 435. Almost all of these have been held in tandem with these states’ presidential primaries. Two Republican incumbents have lost their seats due to unusual, court-ordered mid-decade redistricting in North Carolina and Virginia. Excluding these races and California’s nonpartisan <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/california-top-two-open-primary/421557/">top two primaries</a>, only seven Republican incumbents have been held to less than 60 percent of the primary vote.</p>
<p>Three of these incumbents were running in Texas, a state that supported Ted Cruz in the primary. More so than in any other state, Texas Republican primary candidates had something to gain by tying their campaigns to Cruz’s since he was such a heavy favorite in the state.</p>
<p>If this trend continues, the House Republicans will have had fewer competitive primaries than in any year since 2008. This was not for want of good candidates. Anti-establishment Republicans emerged in House and Senate races in several states, including North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Indiana, but they failed to attract money or interest group attention. </p>
<p>According the <a href="http://www.cfinst.org/Federal/election_2016/primaries.aspx">data collected by the Campaign Finance Institute</a>, no outside money at all was spent in the six close races. The candidates running against these incumbents each spent less than US$250,000. There have been a few races that wound up being less competitive than this, such as those of Representative John Shimkus (R-IL) and Representative David Joyce (R-OH), where money was spent on behalf of conservative challengers. In such cases, the money did not yield competitive races. </p>
<p>In the Senate, where five centrist Republicans (Pat Roberts, Lamar Alexander, Mitch McConnell, Thad Cochran and John Cornyn) fended off conservative primary opponents in 2014, there have not yet been any competitive races.</p>
<p>Primaries are not just about money, however, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s defeat in 2014 <a href="http://cfinst.org/Federal/election_2014/Primaries/primaryRaces_h.aspx?State=VA-7">showed</a>. They also have to do with who shows up to vote. </p>
<p>Some House and Senate incumbents this year in early primary states such as <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/10/33-year-old-veteran-mounts-bid-against-alabamas-81-year-old-gop-senator/">Alabama</a> and <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2016/01/05/most-interesting-house-races/">Texas</a> worried that the competitive Republican presidential race would bring to the polls a number of nontraditional voters. One scenario held that such voters, possessed of little information about Congress, would merely opt for the name they knew – the incumbent. It was also plausible, however, that the anti-establishment tone of the leading Republican candidates might prompt their supporters to vote en masse against incumbents further down the ballot. </p>
<p>The former scenario seems to have held. Evidence is <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/evidence-uneven-for-claim-that-donald-trump-is-bringing-in-new-voters-1457898526">mixed</a> on the question of whether Trump did, in fact, expand the GOP primary electorate. Primary results to date suggest, however, that the people Trump inspired to show up do not seem to have taken an interest in races other than Trump’s.</p>
<h2>On the Democratic side</h2>
<p>Democrats have also seen their down-ballot primaries reshaped by the presidential race.</p>
<p>Democratic primaries have been less competitive than those of Republicans for the past three election cycles. Although some left-leaning groups such as MoveOn.org and the Service Employees’ International Union have sought to emulate the “primarying” strategy of conservative groups, they have failed to create an enduring narrative about any sort of ongoing movement in the party. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/23/can-bernie-sanders-help-knock-off-debbie-wasserman-schultz/">unhappiness</a> of Sanders supporters with DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has prompted some national support for her primary opponent Tim Canova in Florida. </p>
<p>Early in the election cycle, it appeared that the Democrats would have several exciting primary races. To date, however, what is most intriguing is the success “establishment” Democrats have had in resolving competitive open seat primaries. The <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/indexp.php?cmte=DSCC&cycle=2016">Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee</a> took the rare step of spending $600,000 on behalf of Pennsylvania’s Katie McGinty’s primary campaign, under the presumption that she would be the stronger general election opponent to vulnerable incumbent Republican Patrick Toomey. The party campaign committee did not get directly involved in other states, but outsider candidates in <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/public/2016/primary-election/US-Senate-primary-results-ohio.html">Ohio</a> and <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-illinois-senate-democrats-duckworth-zopp-harris-met-0309-20160308-story.html">Illinois</a> also failed to get traction.</p>
<p>While Toomey might have been threatened regardless of the outcome of the Republican presidential primaries, widespread beliefs that Trump might prove to be a drag on Republican Senate candidates have prompted increased attention by both parties to vulnerable general election candidates, and presumably to ensuring that the strongest nominees emerge from the primaries.</p>
<h2>What’s still to come</h2>
<p>There are still 170 House primaries and 15 Senate primaries to go, including those in Florida, New York, New England, and many midwestern and western states. These primaries will be held without a simultaneous presidential race on the ballot. For House and Senate candidates, this mean that the voters will be showing up because of them, not because of Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. </p>
<p>It is possible that things will get more interesting. On the other hand, the public’s attention may be monopolized by the general election. Merely getting a campaign message across will be difficult in a media environment dominated by the presidential race and, in some states, by spending aimed at general election Senate races. It is always a mistake to assume that the story of one election season is bound up in a small number of races, many of which betray idiosyncratic local features. Nonetheless, the 2016 primaries so far, below the presidential level, are remarkable for their irrelevance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Boatright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This primary cycle, few incumbents in the House and Senate are fighting off extremist challengers. Is that because the top of the ticket is taking up all the air?Robert Boatright, Associate Professor of Political Science, Clark UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/588412016-06-01T01:01:05Z2016-06-01T01:01:05ZIn America, domestic extremists are a bigger risk than foreign terrorism<blockquote>
<p>Take America back from those who have stolen it.
Protect America from those who want to destroy it.
Restore the principles that these usurpers betrayed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These are the messages that have defined the GOP presidential race. They have been used for the past eight years to justify obstruction of the Obama administration, and are now being used to paint the democratic candidates as <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rafael-cruz-if-hillary-clinton-next-president-she-will-destroy-country">dangerous</a>. In the late stages of the GOP primary as the rhetoric became increasingly xenophobic, they were applied to increasingly broad swaths of the American population as well. </p>
<p>Years of constant repetition by members of the GOP have given them an appearance of legitimacy, now strengthened by Donald Trump’s victory in the GOP primary contest and the party’s growing embrace of him as their standard-bearer.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Republican Party isn’t alone in using these messages. </p>
<p>Right-wing extremist groups use them as well, and to very specific ends: to define the conditions under which antigovernment violence becomes <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYGUfWC84wg">legitimate</a> in <a href="https://www.oathkeepers.org/critical-warning-to-u-s-military-and-federal-leo-do-not-follow-orders-to-waco-ammon-bundy-occupation-in-oregon-or-you-risk-starting-a-civil-war/">their worldview</a>.</p>
<p>I have spent nearly 15 years studying how the risk of violence grows within societies around the world, and running programs designed to stem the tide. I have seen rhetoric like this used to mobilize violence in countries like Iraq and Kenya. </p>
<p>This same dynamic, I argue, is taking shape within American society now. If it continues, it represents a greater threat than anything we face from terrorist groups outside our own borders. </p>
<h2>Turning a blind eye</h2>
<p>Fear and anger make for strong motivation. </p>
<p>The GOP has spent many years <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/130039/southern-strategy-made-donald-trump-possible">mobilizing both</a> (sometimes <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/11/what-social-science-tells-us-about-racism-in-the-republican-party/">tacitly</a> and sometimes <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/01/03/3735627/gop-candidates-who-supported-cliven-bundy/">actively</a>), in the form of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, racist and antigovernment sentiment. This strategy has secured them votes from the white, Christian, male and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/02/this-astonishing-chart-shows-how-republicans-are-an-endangered-species/">ideologically extreme</a> demographic needed to offset the party’s growing distance from an increasingly diverse and progressive American society. </p>
<p>This has typically been done in code, a practice that’s come to be known as “<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/1/14/dog_whistle_politics_how_politicians_use">dog whistle politics</a>” – but this election has brought it into the open.</p>
<p>Few have emerged unscathed. For months, Republican candidates traded shots claiming that each other, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/06/24/fox-news-guest-liberals-created-this-kid-that-shot-up-this-church/">liberals</a>, immigrants and Black Lives Matter protesters – to name a few – are to blame for the picture they’ve painted of a degraded America that’s fallen into hostile hands. </p>
<p>Even the GOP itself has fallen into the cross-hairs. The <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-mean-for-the-Republican-party-that-its-leaders-are-trying-to-stop-Donald-Trump-a-candidate-whom-their-electorate-is-supporting">divide</a> between party leadership and the population it claims to represent is growing, and becoming septic. Trump has built his candidacy on the idea that America is sick, broken and misled, and “making it great again” depends on taking it back and cutting out the cancer. </p>
<p>His campaign rhetoric has a common thread with that of extremists. It emphasizes betrayal and theft. It tells Americans that things are bad because of it, and then points a finger and places blame. </p>
<h2>The patriot paradox</h2>
<p>Every violent group in history describes its own violence as the legitimate response to a threat that was forced on them. Groups survive in the long term when that description makes sense to enough of the population to buy them tolerance and safe space to operate, plan and grow. That’s true of terrorism and violent extremism – but because protesters and supporters alike view each other as enemies of the state and therefore legitimate targets, it also helps to explain the growing physical <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/02/a_list_of_violent_incidents_at_donald_trump_rallies_and_events.html">violence at Trump rallies</a>. It should also provide a warning for what that as-yet-limited violence could grow into. </p>
<p>For examples, look at the websites of American extremist groups. Their reasoning usually orbits around the belief that they are <a href="http://www.govtslaves.info/leaked-military-bulletin-labels-patriot-groups-militia-domestic-terrorists/">defending</a> the Constitution, stopping the theft of the political process from the people of the United States and resisting takeover by <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/larry-klayman">hostile powers</a>. As such, they don’t consider themselves extremist at all, but defenders against it. It’s the same language we saw in 2014 at the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/03/03/grand-jury-charges-14-more-people-for-2014-standoff-at-bundy-ranch/">Bundy Ranch standoff</a>, and again in 2015 at the <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/">Malheur occupation</a>. </p>
<p>The names these groups take – “<a href="http://www.originalintent.org/edu/patriotmovement.php">Patriot Movement</a>,” “<a href="http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=us_domestic_terrorism_tmln&haitian_elite_2021_organizations=haitian_elite_2021_freemen">Freemen</a>,” “<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/sovereign-citizens-movement">Sovereign Citizens</a>” – serve to legitimize them in American eyes, drawing on the narrative that true Americans are not only able – but expected – to throw off oppression themselves. Typically, each group insists it’s not violent – unless pushed, and then of course it <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/12-scariest-parts-new-report-bundy-ranch-standoff/">stands ready</a> to respond in kind. </p>
<p>Here, of course, is the rub. The constantly repeated themes of theft and betrayal from the GOP suggest to the patriot militias and to supporters who feel angry and alienated that the push has already happened. Trump has on many occasions claimed that America is “<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/12/29/donald-trump-and-fear-are-losing-america.html">lost</a>” to the American people. Given his hostility against immigrants and Black Lives Matter protesters and short-lived nomination of a white nationalist as a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-me-ln-donald-trump-white-nationalist-delegate-20160510-story.html">delegate</a> in California, it seems clear he means white Americans. The “birther” argument, which Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/05/the-outlandish-conspiracy-theories-many-of-donald-trumps-supporters-believe/?tid=sm_fb">supported</a> and other GOP officials failed to reject, at its heart is an argument that President Obama is the foreign agent that the patriot movement feared. Ted Cruz often repeated this idea that the nation is under threat of destruction and that the Obama government is <a href="http://www.infowars.com/75-times-obama-broke-law-during-presidency/">law-breaking </a>and <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/06/cruz-3/">unconstitutional</a>. </p>
<p>We’ve seen the message from across the GOP that Hillary Clinton is in thrall of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/us/politics/ted-cruz-ad.html?_r=0">elite interests</a> that stand opposed to those of everyday Americans. As for Sanders’ self-embraced “socialist” label, it has stood in for alien since before the Cold War. </p>
<p>Recent years and the 2016 race aren’t the first time we’ve heard this kind of language from Americans within the patriot movement. </p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh">The following words</a> were spoken by Timothy McVeigh, in an interview explaining why he destroyed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Those who betray or subvert the Constitution are guilty of sedition and/or treason, are domestic enemies and should and will be punished accordingly. It also stands to reason that anyone who sympathizes with the enemy or gives aid or comfort to said enemy is likewise guilty. I have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and I will. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>David Lane, white supremacist, founder of The Order and convicted murderer, <a href="http://archive.adl.org/learn/ext_us/lane.html">phrased the rationale</a> for his violence thus:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>cover-ups in the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam affair made it apparent that powers alien to America’s claimed role were running things.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We could rewrite Lane’s and McVeigh’s words alike using Trump’s birther argument or Ted Cruz’s accusation of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/us/politics/ted-cruz-ad.html?_r=0">elites</a> without significantly changing the meaning. Indeed, although the United States remains fixed on foreign groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida when it defines terrorism, domestic violence already poses an equal or even <a href="http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks.html">greater threat</a>. The foreign groups can certainly kill, but they have no power to divide our society; that additional and deeper threat is only our own. </p>
<h2>The threat from inside</h2>
<p>Consider this: individual <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/tally-of-attacks-in-us-challenges-perceptions-of-top-terror-threat.html?_r=0">acts of violence</a> linked to racism and extremist politics are on the increase. The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/anti-muslim-hate-crimes-are-still-five-times-more-common-today-than-before-911/">reported</a> in February 2015 that the number of Muslims targeted in hate crimes is, on average, five times higher post-9/11 than before the attacks. Politics is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/02/this-astonishing-chart-shows-how-republicans-are-an-endangered-species/">increasingly divisive</a>, and anger is the <a href="http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a40693/american-rage-nbc-survey/">defining characteristic</a> of American society.</p>
<p>The blame for these rifts and the likely consequences neither begin nor end with Donald Trump. He simply used an existing trend for his own gain. His <a href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/03/12/donald-trump-rallies-violence-protests-mashup-lv.cnn">praise</a> of violence and embrace of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/this-white-nationalist-who-shoved-a-trump-protester-may-be-the-next-david-duke/2016/04/12/7e71f750-f2cf-11e5-89c3-a647fcce95e0_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_heimbach-1215p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory">racism</a> and political extremism, however, goes past even what the GOP has already made <a href="http://theweek.com/articles/472796/4-racial-controversies-gop-convention">commonplace</a>. </p>
<p>Mainstream GOP rebuttals were too little too late. Paul Ryan <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/03/01/paul-ryan-rebukes-trumps-remarks-on-kkk-david-duke/">rebuked Trump’s</a> belated disavowal of David Duke, but the act rang hollow because the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/04/14/meet-the-radical-anti-islam-conspiracy-theorists-advising-ted-cruz/?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_no-name%3Ahomepage%2Fcard">reported</a> that some of Cruz’s advisers were radically anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists. Meanwhile, <a href="http://pamelageller.com/">Pamela Geller</a>, <a href="http://www.anncoulter.com/">Ann Coulter</a>, <a href="http://www.michaelsavage.wnd.com/">Michael Savage</a>, <a href="http://www.glennbeck.com/">Glenn Beck</a> and a host of other conservative commentators continue pandering to fear, prejudice, theft and betrayal unchallenged.</p>
<p>In an age defined by the fear of terrorism, “taking America back from people who betrayed her security” has real power at the polls, as Trump can attest. But this strategy for winning elections isn’t just divisive. It’s creating a risk of violence that has already outgrown the threat it’s supposed to be a shield against.</p>
<p>Trump’s emergence as the GOP candidate has added fuel to the fire, especially while the GOP dithers over whether or not to embrace him and his message. Trump himself is unlikely to stop or be convinced of the effect he’s really having on American security. It’s left to the GOP to decide whether American security or winning an election is more important to them.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story was corrected on July 6, 2016 to say hate crimes against Muslims have increased five times post-9/11. The original version incorrectly said the number of Muslims killed in hate crimes had increased by that amount.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58841/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Alpher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An expert on extremism sees parallels between the rhetoric of Trump’s GOP and that used to mobilize violence in Iraq and Kenya.David Alpher, Adjunct Professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/587342016-05-13T20:40:16Z2016-05-13T20:40:16ZWhy Obama will have the last laugh<p>President Barack Obama spared almost no one in his last performance at this year’s White House correspondents’ dinner. He laughed along with the crowd as he skewered a host of celebrities and politicians. </p>
<p>But long after that lighthearted evening is forgotten, I believe the president and other progressives will continue to share bemused laughter at the expense of the Republican Party. </p>
<p>Let me explain. With the rise of the Tea Party, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9954.html">the GOP harnessed</a> the anxiety and anger associated with the election of the country’s first black president to great effect. By 2014, Republicans had successfully <a href="http://www.irehr.org/2014/11/06/tea-party-election-2014/">ridden this wave</a> of white rage to reclaim both chambers of Congress.</p>
<p>Now, with the object of their derision leaving office, the disaffected have turned their attention to the establishment, creating the space in which Donald Trump has successfully parlayed rank bigotry into front-runner status. </p>
<h2>Losing the White House</h2>
<p>After the Indiana primary, Trump is the apparent Republican standard bearer. </p>
<p>The likelihood that he’ll actually win the White House is <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/133322/dont-overthink-it-donald-trump-will-probably-lose">slim at best</a>. Several <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html">national polls</a> have him losing to Hillary Clinton by at least 7 points and losing the popular vote. Trump’s chances are no better in the Electoral College, where he’s also likely to lose by a <a href="http://www.270towin.com/maps/bMcf">sizable margin</a>. </p>
<p>Last year at this time, the Republicans seemed to have a chance to win the general election. With the rise of Trump, a handful of states that were either too close to call or leaning toward the GOP are now likely to <a href="http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/the-only-thing-that-matters/">go blue</a>. Of course, part of that can be attributed to Trump insulting Latinos, some of whom reside in key states, <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2016/04/26/arizona-turn-blue-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-lead-donald-trump.html">including Arizona</a>.</p>
<p>Like many other students of the GOP, I believe Trump will be drubbed <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trump-clinton-women-problems">among women</a> and <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/01/19/donald_trump_is_killing_the_gop_s_brand_among_minorities.html">people of color</a>. His candidacy also <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/22/why-donald-trump-cant-win-the-white-house/">promises to drive</a> a key bloc of GOP voters away from the polls. </p>
<p>The real damage will take place in down-ballot contests, particularly in the Senate. Currently, the GOP enjoys a 54-46 seat advantage, with 24 seats they must defend this election cycle. The challenge for the GOP is that <a href="http://cookpolitical.com/story/9410">seven of them</a> are in states Obama carried in 2012. All the Democrats need to do is gain five seats and they’re back in the majority.</p>
<p>This shift of power would have far-reaching consequences. </p>
<h2>The Supreme Court</h2>
<p>Let’s begin with the Supreme Court. With the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the next president has the ability to appoint as many as <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2016/02/17/next-president-could-stack-the-deck-as-supreme-court-justices-near-retirement/">four new</a> jurists. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2016/02/17/next-president-could-stack-the-deck-as-supreme-court-justices-near-retirement/">average age</a> at which justices retire is 78. It’s worth noting that three of the surviving eight are at least <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0202-garrow-aging-judiciary-20160202-story.html">77 years old</a> – Stephen Breyer is 77, Anthony M. Kennedy is 79, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 83. </p>
<p>In the immediate future, just filling Scalia’s empty seat may have a bearing on important cases. Similar to the recent case concerning public unions, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/14/us/politics/how-scalias-death-could-affect-major-supreme-court-cases-in-the-2016-term.html?_r=0">the current term</a> includes cases involving abortion, contraception and immigration. All may result in 4-4 ties, a situation in which a precedent isn’t set.</p>
<p>In the absence of precedents, lower courts aren’t bound to observe the decision. This paves the way for the possibility that a full court - one with five or more progressive justices – will render precedent-setting decisions. </p>
<h2>Beyond the court</h2>
<p>Beyond the Supreme Court lie other dangers for the Republican Party. </p>
<p>By 2043, the United States will be a majority-minority country. But the political balance of power has already shifted. Barack Obama <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/05/10-election-2012-minority-voter-turnout-frey">wouldn’t have won</a> the White House in 2012 without the increasing number of minorities in the electorate. </p>
<p>It seems fitting that the GOP, which has done everything in its power to thwart Obama’s agenda at every turn, will now suffer as its chickens finally come home to roost. By courting the Tea Party’s support in Obama’s first term, the GOP recaptured the House, repeating the feat with the Senate in his second term. </p>
<p>Along the way, members of the GOP have questioned his legitimacy as president, sometimes blatantly disrespecting him. Now, the GOP is on the brink of imploding, based in no small part on the animus the party stoked toward him. Without Obama, there’s no Trump. </p>
<p>I’m sure the president has got to think this is amusing and fitting. After all, it was Jan Brewer, the Republican governor of Arizona, who <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd_peDlJPJ8">wagged her finger</a> in his face on the tarmac. It was Republican Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/09/joe-wilson/joe-wilson-south-carolina-said-obama-lied-he-didnt/">who shouted</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/qgce06Yw2ro">“you lie”</a> at the president during an address to a joint session of Congress. And it was none other than Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP standard-bearer, who was a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-birther-obama-119945">leading birther</a> during the president’s first term. </p>
<p>Most members of the GOP probably don’t think this a laughing matter. The future of their party is at stake. However, to borrow a line from the old Laurel and Hardy bit, they’ve only themselves to blame for the “fine mess” in which they find themselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58734/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The GOP is imploding, based on the animus the party stoked toward Obama.Christopher Sebastian Parker, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/536162016-01-27T22:18:55Z2016-01-27T22:18:55ZTrump and the GOP: the Silent Majority versus the establishment<p>While Donald Trump continues to hold a commanding lead among Republicans in the race for the 2016 presidential nomination, National Review, the country’s leading conservative magazine, thinks otherwise. </p>
<p>In a special issue titled “Against Trump” last week, a <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430137/donald-trump-movement-menace">strongly worded editorial</a> denounced Trump as a “political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.” This was followed by 22 pieces by prominent conservative writers who elaborated this message. </p>
<p>With the popular real estate magnate polling at 46 percent among Republican voters, however, this signals a crisis for the GOP and the conservative movement more broadly. </p>
<p>Here’s why.</p>
<h2>National Review makes the case for conservatism</h2>
<p>Founded in 1955 by William F. Buckley, the aim of National Review (NR) was to “stand athwart history” by opposing New Deal liberalism in all of its forms and making a vigorous intellectual and political case for a rejuvenated right.</p>
<p>NR brought together free market ideologues with conservatives committed to traditional social hierarchies. Both groups shared a hostility to intrusions into the family, community or market by the federal government. </p>
<p>By the early 1960s, <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300151237/new-deal-new-right">it was clear</a> to editors at NR and its conservative milieu that the best way to seize the Republican Party from moderates was to oppose civil rights both in the South and nationally.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109396/original/image-20160127-26796-1yoz68h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109396/original/image-20160127-26796-1yoz68h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109396/original/image-20160127-26796-1yoz68h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109396/original/image-20160127-26796-1yoz68h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109396/original/image-20160127-26796-1yoz68h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109396/original/image-20160127-26796-1yoz68h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109396/original/image-20160127-26796-1yoz68h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NR’s candidate in 1964: Barry Goldwater.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barry_Goldwater_2.jpg">US News and World Report, Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>NR publisher William Rusher spearheaded the movement to draft the arch-conservative Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater for 1964, and NR editor Brent Bozell ghostwrote Goldwater’s campaign book, “<a href="http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8388.html">Conscience of a Conservative</a>.” </p>
<p>Goldwater openly <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121598863003949317">denounced</a> the Brown v. Board of Education decision and opposed the civil rights bill of 1964. Winning the GOP nomination for conservatives in 1964, the Goldwater campaign began to make the case that the party system should realign along racial instead of class lines.</p>
<h2>1968 and the emergence of the ‘Silent Majority’</h2>
<p>In 1968, Nixon strategist <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10352.html">Kevin Phillips observed</a> the surprising success of Alabama governor George Wallace’s third-party presidential campaign, which directed populist rage at liberal elites, bureaucrats, African Americans, and anti-Vietnam war protesters. </p>
<p>Based on the patterns of Wallace’s electoral support nationally, Phillips outlined a strategy for moving working and middle-class whites out of the New Deal Democratic Party, based on a knowledge, he said, of “who hates whom.” </p>
<p>Nixon began <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300151237/new-deal-new-right">using the terms</a> “Silent Majority,” “Forgotten Americans,” and “Middle America” to describe an aggrieved white majority harried by busing, crime and moral permissiveness. </p>
<p>These were, Nixon said in his GOP nomination speech in 1968, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the good people. They work hard and they save and they pay their taxes.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5aD5rgDpQqc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Nixon, like Wallace, drew strongly on the long American tradition of <a href="http://www.worldlibrary.org/articles/producerism">producerism</a>, a notion at the heart of populism that values productive labor as an expression of civic virtue in contrast to the dependent poor or the idle rich. He courted the votes of union “hardhats,” urban ethnics, white southerners, and new dwellers of the Sunbelt and built a winning electoral coalition in 1968 and 1972. </p>
<p>The populism NR now fears was central to making economic conservatism credible to middle and working-class voters from the late 1960s onward. </p>
<p>But the fact is that GOP populism has always been in tension with its financial wing and conservative intellectuals.</p>
<p>Buckley, for instance, was in no way opposed to using race to build the conservative movement, he was suspicious of what he saw as demagogic appeals that depended on government largesse. </p>
<p>In 1968, he attacked George Wallace on his television show Firing Line, warning fellow conservatives,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He is using the rhetoric of conservatism for anti-conservative purposes. (Turning to Wallace) You are in the populist tradition, a complete opportunist as regards the use of funds as long as they come in your direction and can be distributed by you.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0p689LgBZo8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>After initial hesitation, NR ultimately endorsed Nixon, stating that although he was not an ideal conservative candidate, the magazine had </p>
<blockquote>
<p>faith that when he gets the votes he needs, and no longer has to submit to that frightful wooing ritual mass democracy imposes on its leaders. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Populists in the GOP coalition had their own criticisms of conservatives and the direction of the party across the 1970s. As Kevin Phillips said of Buckley, “Hell, Wallace isn’t going to hook up with Squire Willy and his companions of the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary. Nor can we expect Alabama truck drivers or Ohio steelworkers to sign on with a politics captained by five-syllable-word-pushers.” </p>
<h2>Reagan, Bush and Bush</h2>
<p>Reagan, long a favorite at NR, finally won the GOP nomination for the 1980 election. By this time, white working-class voters were a notable presence in the party’s support. </p>
<p>As the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0bL60Sv9-O8C&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=Reagan+Democrats%E2%80%9D+pollster+Stanley+Greenberg+dentified+outside+Detroit&source=bl&ots=S-18ExEP1X&sig=z2J2v7K3ehS77_Rcz-kvqPf9mu0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwibwbyhssXKAhUIHD4KHZxQBV4Q6AEITTAI#v=onepage&q=Reagan%20Democrats%E2%80%9D%20pollster%20Stanley%20Greenberg%20dentified%20outside%20Detroit&f=false">work of pollster Stanley Greenberg</a> confirmed, many “Reagan Democrats” in the Detroit area were also union members. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109394/original/image-20160127-26792-ly3hgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109394/original/image-20160127-26792-ly3hgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109394/original/image-20160127-26792-ly3hgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109394/original/image-20160127-26792-ly3hgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109394/original/image-20160127-26792-ly3hgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109394/original/image-20160127-26792-ly3hgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109394/original/image-20160127-26792-ly3hgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William F. Buckley Jr. visits Ronald Reagan’s Oval Office.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C44909-16.jpg">White House photo office</a></span>
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<p>Reagan’s nationalist rhetoric and demonization of welfare allowed him to keep white populists in his coalition even as he pursued deregulation, tax reform and assaults on workers’ rights such as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/opinion/reagan-vs-patco-the-strike-that-busted-unions.html">his breaking</a> of the Professional Air Traffic Controller’s Union. </p>
<p>George H. W. Bush, who had few pronounced political differences with Reagan, lacked the persona to bridge the elite/populist divide, and was subject to a 1992 primary challenge by former Nixon speechwriter and columnist Pat Buchanan. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/17/us/1992-campaign-challenger-for-buchanan-s-campaign-improvising-strategy.html">“Pitchfork Pat’s” campaign</a> against “King George” attacked banks and big business as well as feminism, gay rights and multiculturalism, while at the same time courting labor unions through protectionism and opposition to immigration.</p>
<p>Although George W. Bush had a feel for the GOP base, proclaiming his evangelical faith in a Texas drawl, popular exhaustion with his two wars and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html">the Great Recession </a> depleted his populist appeal, as did his political strategy of appealing to Latinos and calling for broad immigration reform. </p>
<h2>The Great Recession makes things even worse</h2>
<p>It was the financial crisis of 2008 that deepened the fault lines within the GOP as the stresses on the lives of the Silent Majority multiplied. </p>
<p>The earliest rage of what became the Tea Party movement was aimed at the Bush/Obama <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/TARP-Programs/Pages/default.aspx">Toxic Asset Relief Program</a> (TARP), commonly understood as a bailout for Wall Street. </p>
<p>Calling TARP “the last straw,” Tea Party icon and South Carolina <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/69360/george-w-bush-he-gave-rise-tea-party">Senator Jim DeMint put it this way:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s a lot of affection for Bush because of how passionately he fought the war on terror. But as far as domestic policy goes, conservatives felt betrayed. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>By the 2010 midterm elections, Tea Party organizations were supporting 138 Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/us/politics/15teaparty.html?_r=1&hp">They won</a> approximately a third of races. </p>
<p>The chasm in the GOP only widened in the 2012 presidential campaign, made visible by candidate – and former venture capital CEO – Mitt Romney’s dividing the electorate into “makers and takers” and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/09/17/romneys-theory-of-the-taker-class-and-why-it-matters/">describing</a> nearly half of Americans as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>people who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This cramped notion of producerism could hardly inspire a beleaguered middle class, who felt increasingly abandoned by a party whose economic policies <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/r42729_0917.pdf">demonstrably contributed</a> to one of the largest wealth gaps in American history. </p>
<p>The majority of Americans are now decades into an era of <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/stagnant-wages-in-2014/">stagnant or declining wages</a>. A <a href="http://www.pnas.org./content/112/49/15078.full.pdf">recent Princeton study</a> on rising morbidity and mortality rates among non-college-educated whites is merely one indicator of the physical and psychic costs of this abandonment. </p>
<p>Yet these white middle and working-class Americans who are getting left behind are dismissed by conservative elites. </p>
<p>In his 2012 book “<a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/119020/coming-apart-by-charles-murray/9780307453433/">Coming Apart</a>,” conservative sociologist Charles Murray portrays the white poor in terms he once reserved for African Americans, describing them as a socially disorganized, economically dependent, culturally deficient and even genetically debased population. </p>
<p>It is no coincidence that Trump’s <a href="publicreligion.org/research/2015/11/survey-anxiety-nostalgia-mistrust-findings-from-the-2015-american-values-survey#.VqMt--ffb5d">strongest support</a> comes from working-class Republicans who feel their whiteness no longer protects them. </p>
<p>What now, then for the GOP? </p>
<p>In every polarized era, one or two key problems become the lens through which all others are viewed. </p>
<p>In this <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27419853">Second Gilded Age</a>, these are perhaps the twinned issues of excessive wealth and economic abandonment. </p>
<p>Yet unlike the leaders of past populist revolts however, Trump seems less a champion of working people than a figure who confirms their debased status. Having titled his campaign memoir <em>Crippled America</em>, the candidate revels in such terms as “disgust,” “weakness,” “losing,” and “pathetic.” And of course he was the star of a reality show whose tag line was “You’re fired.” </p>
<p>Trump’s followers respond less to appeals to their value as producers, which in a fiancialized economy seems nostalgic anyway, than to brutal rage against immigrants and Muslims, who along with establishment elites are seen as the authors of their misery.</p>
<p>NR’s anti-Trump campaign signals a crisis for conservatives, for never has it devoted an entire issue to opposing a GOP candidate, let alone one who is wildly popular among Republican voters. </p>
<p>Should Trump win the nomination, he may lurch even more toward the populist elements that have been minor chords in his campaign but have broad appeal: infrastructure investment, bank regulation and protectionism, among others.</p>
<p>But NR has been supplanted in many ways by the 24-hour-cycle media outlets of the populist right whose stock in trade is less ideology than emotion, or what political theorist Elizabeth Anker calls <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/orgies-of-feeling">“orgies of feeling.”</a> </p>
<p>Trump’s strongest voices of support are among these media personalities including Rush Limbaugh, who says that Trump is rejected by “the establishment elite political club” because he is an outsider. “You have to be a certain type. You have to come from a certain place.” </p>
<p>Even though the candidate has refused to take part in the latest GOP debate hosted by Fox News, hosts at the cable channel <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/430238/against-trump-fox-newss-fury-national-review.">lined up</a> to blast NR for its attack.</p>
<p>The GOP’s historic alliance between conservative elites and the Silent Majority is perhaps finally breaking down. </p>
<p>NR’s anti-Trump campaign may not make any difference in the outcome of the nomination contest, but it measures the distance from when conservative elites and white populist voters built the party together. </p>
<p>What we now see is the exaggerated features of each in a party that can scarcely hold them together.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53616/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Lowndes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The leading conservative magazine National Review has played a critical role in creating modern GOP. Their repudiation of Trump signals crisis for Republicans.Joseph Lowndes, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/534532016-01-20T12:29:53Z2016-01-20T12:29:53ZWhy Donald Trump really does need Sarah Palin<p>With the Iowa caucuses less than two weeks away, former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/19/politics/sarah-palin-donald-trump-2016/">has endorsed</a> Donald Trump’s bid to become the Republican nominee for president. Palin and Trump are, in many ways, kindred spirits: both have a flair for self-promotion that would put <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0705.html">P. T. Barnum</a> to shame, and both have the habit of making outrageous statements that delight their supporters and horrify everyone else.</p>
<p>Given Trump’s signature disdain for “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/08/08/losers-a-list-by-donald-trump/">losers</a>”, you’d think he’d be less effusive in his praise for Palin, a failed candidate and <a href="http://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1908800,00.html">notorious mid-term dropout</a>. But with the first caucuses primaries looming, her support could actually make a crucial difference.</p>
<p>Regardless of one’s view of Palin and her suitability for high (or any) office, she draws both big crowds and hysterical press attention. Her involvement in an event guarantees coverage, even if it’s not necessarily of the most flattering kind. Much of Trump’s success has been built on a template very similar to her own post-2008 style: a potent blend of old-style political populism and inflammatory outbursts on any number of sensitive issues.</p>
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<p>In this regard, she may be able to do a rather better job for Trump than she’s ever done for herself. Whereas Palin’s dismal grasp of policy all but destroyed her national reputation even on the right, Trump so far seems largely immune to criticism for his endless gaffes – meaning Palin isn’t quite the liability she might be for any other candidate.</p>
<p>One of Trump’s key assets is his uncanny ability to all but monopolise the media’s attention. The nonstop media coverage of the Trump circus means that his rivals in the GOP have been starved of coverage. As a result their own messages, or attacks on Trump, haven’t necessarily received the coverage they normally would have. </p>
<p>Equally, Trump hasn’t had to spend millions of his own money buying airtime for political ads; at his every radical or offensive pronouncement, journalists come running. Palin only guarantees more coverage. For the next day or two everyone will be discussing her and Trump – another two days when his rivals won’t get the attention they desperately need.</p>
<p>And besides, for all that she’s now considered almost a fringe figure, Palin could still rally some crucial supporters to Trump’s madcap cause. </p>
<h2>Firebrands unite</h2>
<p>As things currently stand, his only main rival in Iowa and New Hampshire is <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/ted-cruz-finds-eager-religious-audience-in-moderate-new-hampshire-217998">Ted Cruz</a>, the variously loved and loathed Texas senator who notoriously helped <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/ted-cruz-blasted-by-angry-gop-colleagues-government-shutdown-097753">shut down the government</a> for nearly three weeks in 2013. To win the nomination, both he and Trump must win over the same wings of the conservative base. </p>
<p>Until recently they kept their relationship fairly civil, each hoping that when the other falters or drops out, their supporters would happily come around. But with the race down to the wire, the gloves are coming off. Trump is now returning to his trademark practice of questioning other politicians’ American citizenship – this time a strategy targeted not at president Obama, but at Cruz, who was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-35320021">born in Canada</a>.</p>
<p>This is where Palin could make a real difference. Despite years of media ridicule and Tina Fey’s immortal caricature on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HsyEvr5Pnw">Saturday Night Live</a>, she still has a significant base of support among the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430028/tea-party-movement-dead">furious remnants of the Tea Party</a>. </p>
<p>Her endorsement might help Trump win over hard-right conservatives sceptical of his historically inconsistent views on gun control and his weak grasp of various right-wing shibboleths. If she can only bring across 5% or so of undecided Republican voters or Cruz supporters, she could push Trump over the top. </p>
<p>That she is a proudly religious woman could also help persuade <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ted-cruz-chases-the-evangelical-vote-in-iowa/">conservative Christian Iowans</a>, who feel queasy about voting for a candidate who’s been married three times and who has struggled to convince them he’s a man of faith.</p>
<h2>Creative destruction</h2>
<p>Trump and Palin supporters won’t be the only ones delighted by their meeting of minds. For many Democrats, this is a dream come true. </p>
<p>The other side is desperate for Trump to win the nomination. He’s currently succeeding by radically out-right-winging the rest of the Republican field on things like national security and immigration. This has dragged Trump’s rivals to the right as well, even to the extremes: former moderate standard-bearer Marco Rubio, for instance, has all but embraced Trump’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ROKBaTpy60">call to close mosques</a> as part of a crackdown on Muslims. </p>
<p>Regardless of who wins the nomination, this will make it much more difficult for them to appeal to the crucial independent and centre voters who will decide the election. For everything Trump says or does that delights his fans, he alienates a large chunk of moderate Americans. </p>
<p>And while there’s no serious talk of a Trump-Palin ticket as yet, the very idea of it has the mainstream left salivating. It would be nothing short of a dream come true – and would virtually guarantees Hillary Clinton (or <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/poll-hillary-clinton-trump-bernie-sanders-217963">perhaps even Bernie Sanders</a>) the key to the White House.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53453/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sarah Palin may have been relegated to the fringe, but Trump needs the fringe to win.Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/520782015-12-15T00:21:44Z2015-12-15T00:21:44ZDear Republicans: Do your patriotic duty<p>Dear Republicans:</p>
<p>For the past week, we have been reminded of the precarious position in which we find ourselves as Americans. The situation I’m referring to is the latest poll numbers for the GOP candidates. </p>
<p>What has drawn the lion’s share of the attention to date is Donald Trump’s increasing lead over the field. Nationally, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2015/12/14/donald-trump-monmouth-poll-republicans/77291172//">The Donald has 41%</a> with Ted Cruz in second place at 14%. The situation is reversed in Iowa, an important first litmus test for presidential aspirants, where <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/12/12/big-shakeup-iowa-poll-cruz-soars-lead/77199800/">Cruz has the advantage</a> over Trump: 31% to 21%. </p>
<p>This is all the more alarming in the wake of Trump’s <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/donald-trump-muslim-ban-immigration/">latest verbal bomb</a> in which he proposed to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Cruz has remained all but mute on Trump’s comments.</p>
<p>Across the country, more than half of your Republican electorate (55%) supports these two Tea Party <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-goldwater-can-win-the-gop-nomination-why-not-trump-46981">favorites</a>. Either of these men, if nominated, would cause irreparable harm to the country. Of course, the damage would be worse if they were actually elected president.</p>
<p>This is why I’m calling on you, rank-and-file Republicans, to do the right thing and vote for a more moderate Republican like Jeb Bush or John Kasich during the primary. If this strategy to protect the country fails – which seems likely – and one of the Tea Party candidates wins in the primary, I urge you to do the patriotic thing and vote for the Democratic standard-bearer in the general election.</p>
<p>Yes, I’m suggesting that Republicans consider voting to put a Democrat in the White House. As someone who has studied patriotism as well as <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9954.html">reactionary movements</a>, I’d suggest this is the GOP’s best move if you really care about the country as much as you often claim. </p>
<h2>Be patriotic, not nationalistic</h2>
<p>A tall order? It shouldn’t be.</p>
<p>After all, for the last 50 years, your party has laid claim to patriotism, draping itself in the flag at every turn. But let’s be clear on <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1065912908327228">what is and is not patriotic</a>. </p>
<p>Patriotism is a product of republicanism – the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08913819808443493">ideology</a>, not your party. It demands the sacrifice of self-interest in service to the nation. It is not about touting the superiority of America when it’s convenient, or waving a flag at some parade. That’s commonly known as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2005.tb02206.x">nationalism</a>, something that doesn’t require sacrifice of any kind. </p>
<p>According to Aristotle and Machiavelli, two very different republican theorists of some renown, patriots put country first. If, as <a href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300092158">some argue</a>, partisanship is tied to one’s identity, failing to support one’s party is a difficult sacrifice. </p>
<p>Recognizing that, take a look at the current political moment. Do you really think a Trump or Cruz candidacy is good for America? </p>
<p>Let’s begin with the obvious: Trump’s statement that he wishes to <a href="https://theconversation.com/scholars-trumps-call-to-ban-muslims-is-un-american-52065">ban Muslims</a> from entering the US. Not only does it run counter to a foundational principal of America – religious freedom – but his statement has earned a sharp rebuke from <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/donald-trump-muslim-comments-216515">the international community</a>. President, or even candidate, Trump promises to hurt America’s reputation abroad. </p>
<p>It will likely also hurt his credibility domestically, something true patriots should welcome. In fact, this latest verbal gaffe has hurt him even among some conservatives like Speaker of the House <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/08/paul-ryans-succinct-near-perfect-response-to-donald-trumps-muslim-immigrant-ban/">Paul Ryan</a>. Many conservatives have used patriotic rhetoric to blast Trump, arguing that views and the policies that would follow, are against the American way of life. </p>
<p>That’s fine, but a problem remains. His comments may only endear him to some of your fellow Republicans. Indeed, in some quarters, his support among the rank-and-file of your party is, at least in part, <a href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/donald-trump/">predicated on his anti-Muslim views</a>. </p>
<p>Both <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-bomb-isis-2015-11">Trump</a> and <a href="http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/12/mccaul-dubious-on-ted-cruz-plan-to-defeat-isis-through-carpet-bombing.html/">Cruz</a> wish to bomb Iraq and Syria as a means of rolling back ISIS. </p>
<p>Surely, as Republicans, you know that much of <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/10/17-conservative-foreign-policy-parker-blum">conservative foreign policy</a> is driven by the preservation of American national interests, a very pragmatic goal. Where is the pragmatism in such rhetoric? </p>
<p>The Bush administration’s break from this more realist, pragmatic tradition to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan cost us dearly. That its foreign policy failed to achieve most of the goals sought by your party should caution against such intervention. Furthermore, intervention will give ISIS what it wants: engaging Western forces in what ISIS’s followers <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/">believe</a> will be an apocalyptic war. </p>
<p>This will only make easier for ISIS to recruit and diminish our security. Needless to say, such an outcome isn’t in our national interest. Even <a href="http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/12/mccaul-dubious-on-ted-cruz-plan-to-defeat-isis-through-carpet-bombing.html/">other Republicans</a> like House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul doubt the wisdom of such a strategy. </p>
<p>There are some <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/12/09/understanding-why-trumps-latest-outrage-is-different/">who suggest</a> that the more Trump and Cruz say outrageous things that stand little chance of practical implementation, the more likely you GOP brethren will punish them during the primaries. However, in reality, this isn’t likely to happen. As it turns out, primary voters <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40263411">tend to prefer</a> more ideologically extreme candidates. </p>
<p>So, where does this leave you Republicans? </p>
<p>It’s simple: you need only act upon the patriotism you so often claim. If you really love America as you say you do, you must put the country first, and sacrifice the interests of the party – at least for the present election cycle. </p>
<p>You must vote for Hillary Clinton – or Bernie Sanders, if he prevails in the primary. </p>
<p>It’s your patriotic duty, the republican thing to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
That means turning against Tea Party favorites Trump and Cruz.Christopher Sebastian Parker, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/478762015-11-25T09:49:12Z2015-11-25T09:49:12ZRight-wing populism is surging on both sides of the Atlantic – here’s why<p>On both sides of the Atlantic, right-wing populist parties are enjoying another moment in the sun. In Europe, the Austrian Freedom Party (<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/27/us-austria-election-idUSKCN0RR0ZQ20150927">FPÖ</a>) recently doubled its vote in a state election. Fellow travellers are making headway across Europe – France’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/front-national">Front National</a>, Hungary’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/stranded-on-a-platform-refugees-feel-the-force-of-hostility-in-hungary-47047">Jobbik</a>, Bulgaria’s <a href="http://www.novinite.com/articles/171535/Leader+of+Bulgaria's+Ataka+Party+Refuses+to+Give+Up+Immunity">Ataka</a>, and the party formally known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/finland-election-anti-eu-right-marches-onto-centre-stage-40504">True Finns</a>.</p>
<p>Many explanations for the European surge point to a xenophobic knee-jerk reaction to the refugee crisis, but that’s far too simplistic; the phenomenon is hardly confined to Europe. Look at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-republican-party-became-a-haven-of-resentment-and-rage-47073">surprising success of Donald Trump</a> in the US’s Republican party primary campaign. Many of his fellow candidates are struggling to keep up with his firebrand pronouncements, not least his proposal to <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2015/11/11/trump-ill-create-a-deportation-force-to-eject-all-illegal-immigrants/">deport millions of illegal immigrants</a>.</p>
<p>So why exactly are these leaders and parties enjoying such success – and are they really all birds of a feather?</p>
<p>Right-wing populists succeed by instilling fear of various real or imagined dangers, and in particular by scapegoating particular people or groups for threatening or actually damaging “our” societies. While plenty of political tendencies rely on attacking various groups to some extent, the right-populists do this particularly explicitly and venomously. And on both sides of the Atlantic, they tend to do this using a few distinctive principal strategies.</p>
<p>First and foremost is the notion of “the people” – an (often racially) “pure” community, referring to the anachronistic concept of the nation as a “body” – imagery once favoured by fascist and National Socialist ideologies. Jobbik, in particular, has taken up this language, <a href="http://www.jobbik.com/foreign_affairs_policy">advocating</a> the “reincorporation into the national body of both Western and Carpathian-basin Hungarians”. This nation, the argument goes, has to be both restored and protected against forces both internal (opposition parties, minorities) and external (such as migrants). </p>
<p>The “heartlands” or “homelands” many of these campaigners purport to defend are supposedly under threat from various outsiders, chief among them “<a href="http://conservativeintel.com/2015/10/13/liberal-elites-call-dr-ben-carson-ignorant-in-vicious-oped/">elites</a>”, ethnic or religious “minorities”, and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-far-rights-rise-and-dehumanising-of-conflict-victims-are-greatest-barriers-to-joint-10492109.html">immigrants and refugees</a>. </p>
<p>This is a paradox: on the one hand, we live in a ever more globalised world, but on the other, walls and fences are being proposed and even erected on the borders of <a href="https://theconversation.com/fencing-off-the-east-how-the-refugee-crisis-is-dividing-the-european-union-47586">Hungary</a>, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/bulgaria-builds-final-part-of-razor-wire-fence-to-keep-out-refugees-10437962.html">Bulgaria</a> and <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1816488,00.html">the US</a> to keep specific people out.</p>
<h2>Be on your guard</h2>
<p>These populists use latent prejudices to whip up fear: fear of losing one’s job, fear of “strangers” and their culture, fear of losing national sovereignty, fear of new gender roles, fear of “being left behind”, and so on. Ultimately, right-wing populism succeeds by imagining and trying to create existential clashes between “the people”, “the elite” and “outsiders”.</p>
<p>They attract voters by breaching taboos, saying “<a href="http://joemiller.us/2015/07/watch-news-anchor-gets-fed-up-with-obama-says-what-everyones-thinking-in-epic-rant/">what</a> <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/462471/Ukip-We-ll-speak-up-for-silent-majority-in-Euro-elections">everyone’s</a> <a href="http://www.teaparty.org/trump-to-sarah-palin-were-bringing-back-silent-majority-116129/">thinking</a>”. They speak for “the people”, however arbitrarily defined; in turn, their supporters appreciate not being “talked down to”.</p>
<p>Like all politicians do to some extent, they offer simplistic explanations for complex problems in defiantly blunt soundbites and successfully address different groups with bespoke (and sometimes directly contradictory) programmes to satisfy everybody’s needs. Saying one thing today and denying it tomorrow doesn’t matter as long as the crowd’s roiling emotions are catered to.</p>
<p>Crucially, many journalists and politicians who are doggedly opposed to right-wing populists repeatedly fall into the traps they set and simply end up oxygenating their campaigns – which quite brazenly use provocation and exaggeration to get attention. The cycle is all too predictable: some racist, sexist, anti-semitic utterance, slogan or poster campaign is launched, and the mainstream media immediately reacts and reports on it. This puts the right-wing populist parties’ agenda on every front page. </p>
<p>Once the whole process has run its course, its populist initiators can present themselves as victims of campaigns by “the establishment” and/or the media. Once the provocation has been proven wrong or exposed as untenable, some kind of ambivalent apology follows – and the entire process can begin all over again. </p>
<h2>Here and there</h2>
<p>While there are variously important differences across Europe’s right-populist parties, they generally differ from their American comrades in certain fundamental respects.</p>
<p>Religion, for example, is far less important to their cause. Some of Europe’s right-wing populists do explicitly claim to defend Christian values, but this is hardly universal; Austria’s FPÖ makes a show of standing up for the “<a href="http://gatesofvienna.net/2011/01/heinz-christian-strache-defending-the-judeo-christian-occident/">Judeo-Christian Occident</a>)”, but very little of that rhetoric is on display in, say, France or Scandinavia. </p>
<p>By contrast, Christian fundamentalism has been a core theme of American right-wing populism <a href="https://youtu.be/e-taxWx-0Ag?t=17m50s">for decades</a>. That has played out in a series of rigid stances on social issues – many of which, such as abortion, rarely surface in European populists’ programmes at all.</p>
<p>Equally, almost no populist party in Europe dares to explicitly oppose the continent’s well-established social health systems – at least not as long as they’re exclusively for “us” and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/03/nigel-farage-hiv-claim-criticised">not for foreigners, migrants or refugees</a>. But in the US, any healthcare system remotely resembling “<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-23/cruz-rubio-threaten-to-kill-partial-obamacare-repeal-bill">socialised medicine</a>” is vehemently rejected by the populist right (as is more or less every policy put forward by the Obama administration).</p>
<p>Another theme that is particular to the US is a brand of economic populism shot through with social conservatism. The “<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/what-does-mama-grizzly-really-mean-72001">Mama Grizzly</a>” campaign promoted by Sarah Palin and other Tea Party women could never have succeeded in Europe as it did in the US. </p>
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<p>Formed to raise funds for Republican women running in 2010’s state and local elections, the Mama Grizzly coalition revolved around the concept of “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/sarah-palin/lame-duck-president/10150246675673435">kitchen table economics</a>” – the position that the American economy should be run like a family budget. The conservative group Concerned Women for America (CWA) provides members with a brochure named “<a href="http://www.cwfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/how-to-lobby.pdf">How to Lobby From Your Kitchen Table</a>”. </p>
<p>This anti-intellectualism is vehemently directed against the US’s elites, in particular against Obama, who studied at Harvard, taught law at Chicago, and is altogether the <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2012/06/young-barack-obama-in-love-david-maraniss">embodiment of cosmopolitan intellectualism</a>.</p>
<p>These furious American populists aren’t singing from quite the same hymn sheet as their European cousins, and the stakes for their success are of course rather different. But with this particular breed of remarkably venomous rhetoric playing out on both sides of the Atlantic, it pays to work out what makes these movements tick.</p>
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<header>Ruth Wodak (with Gerard Delanty and Paul Jones) is co-author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/39368/">Identity, Belonging and Migration</a></p>
<footer>Liverpool University Press provides funding as a content partner of The Conversation UK</footer>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Wodak is the author of The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean.</span></em></p>Furious nativist radicals are on the march – but are they really all birds of a feather?Ruth Wodak, Distinguished Professor and Chair in Discourse Studies, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/482032015-09-25T19:48:01Z2015-09-25T19:48:01ZBoehner resigns: scholars see trouble ahead for GOP<p><em>Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) called it quits Friday. He will leave his position – and his seat – at the end of October. Three scholars of American politics tell us what forced Boehner out and predict how his abrupt departure will resonate in the US Congress.</em></p>
<h2>The Tea Party strikes again</h2>
<p><strong>Christopher Parker, University of Washington</strong></p>
<p>For some, Speaker John Boehner’s resignation comes as a surprise. Why voluntarily resign from the third most influential position in American politics? </p>
<p>It’s quite simple: after four years of trying and failing, the speaker grew weary of trying to persuade some members of his caucus to compromise. On several occasions, the Tea Party faction of the GOP has refused to even attempt finding common ground with Democrats. From debt ceiling fights to government shutdowns (and threatened shutdowns), to comprehensive immigration reform, and now to Planned Parenthood, the speaker, an establishment conservative, has tried to persuade these reactionary conservatives to do the right thing. </p>
<p>Why did he have such a tough time with the reactionary wing of the GOP conference? As I have illustrated in <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9954.html">my book</a> on reactionary politics in the US, the Tea Party faction represents constituents fraught with fear and anxiety that their country is being “stolen” from them; it’s changing too fast. For these people, as <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/">Richard Hofstadter</a> pointed out many years ago, compromise is commensurate with capitulation to evil. </p>
<p>The battle between establishment and reactionary conservatives will continue for the foreseeable future. However, the reactionary faction won’t have John A Boehner to kick around any longer. </p>
<p><em>Christopher Sebastian Parker is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington. His book <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9954.html">Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America</a>, explores the beliefs, attitudes, and behavior of the Tea Party. He is working on a second book about the Tea Party.</em></p>
<h2>In the age of Trump, Boehner’s days were numbered</h2>
<p><strong>Anthony Gaughan, Drake University</strong></p>
<p>By any reasonable measure, John Boehner is one of the most conservative speakers in the history of the House of Representatives. When Boehner became house speaker in 2010, the American Conservative Union gave his congressional voting record a career score of 94, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/09/12/john-boehner-is-a-conservative-so-what-do-you-call-house-republicans-opposing-him/">an almost perfect rating</a>.</p>
<p>But the extreme and unbending conservatives who now dominate the Republican Party <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/rebels-give-boehner-another-chance-086426">never liked</a> Boehner. Notwithstanding his conservative voting record, the house speaker lacked the uncompromising zealotry and irresponsible rhetoric that the conservative Tea Party faction demands from Republican leaders. Boehner wanted to cut deals with the White House, while the Tea Party wanted to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/us/politics/07budget.html">shut down</a> the entire government. </p>
<p>One need look no further than the Republican presidential race to understand Boehner’s lack of appeal to extreme conservatives. In the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/24/fox-news-poll-outsiders-rule-2016-gop-field-support-for-biden-nearly-doubles/?intcmp=hpbt3">latest GOP polls</a>, Donald Trump and Ben Carson stand in first and second place, respectively. Trump and Carson are exactly the kind of leaders that Tea Party conservatives love: they lack government experience, they have a poor grasp of the issues, they take absurdly extreme policy positions and they make crudely offensive and deeply divisive statements on a routine basis. In the age of Trump and Carson, Boehner’s days were numbered.</p>
<p>There will be much talk in the days ahead of the brewing civil war between the conservative and establishment factions in the Republican Party. But in many ways, the so-called “civil war” within the Republican Party gives the establishment far too much credit. Establishment candidates have largely cowered before the Tea Party onslaught. </p>
<p>Indeed, just yesterday, Jeb Bush – the ultimate establishment Republican – declared that he wouldn’t give <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/09/24/jeb-bush-win-black-voters-with-aspiration-not-free-stuff/">“free stuff” </a>to African Americans to win their votes. Bush’s disgraceful racial demagoguery sounds a lot more like Donald Trump than Abraham Lincoln. It demonstrates the extent to which Tea Party toxicity has spread beyond the conservative base to poison the establishment itself. </p>
<p>One thing is certain: John Boehner won’t be the last victim the Tea Party claims. The extremists who dominate the Republican Party today won’t be happy until they have driven the entire party off a cliff. </p>
<p><em>Anthony Gaughan is an Associate Professor of Law at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. His academic specialties include civil procedure, evidence, election law, national security law, and political and constitutional history. He is a former United States Navy officer and an Iraq War veteran. He is the author of <a href="http://lsupress.org/books/detail/the-last-battle-of-the-civil-war/">The Last Battle of the Civil War: United States versus Lee</a>, 1861-1883.</em></p>
<h2>Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah</h2>
<p><strong>Jeanne Zaino, Iona College/NYU</strong></p>
<p>At the press conference announcing his resignation, a reporter told Boehner that he “seemed very relieved.” To which the speaker replied, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.”</p>
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<p>The song the speaker hummed is part of the opening credits for “The Wonderful World of Disney.” The music was also originally included in the animated film “Song of the South.” One has to wonder whether the speaker planned this seemingly “spontaneous” moment or not? </p>
<p>Whistling a “Song of the South” on your way out the door hardly seems accidental. It seems to portend that the GOP is fractured to a degree that it has now become ungovernable: fractured between not just the traditional North and South divide, but urban and suburban, wealthy and poor, white and nonwhite, and myriad other ways that make it almost impossible for our representatives to work together to govern effectively.</p>
<p>This may be why Representative Paul Ryan <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/paul-ryan-house-speaker-102526">has said</a> he’s not interested in Boehner’s job. Apparently Ryan – like so many others – sees serving as speaker as an impossible task.</p>
<p>If this were just about Boehner and the House, that would be one thing, but it isn’t. This is about the Republican Party as a whole. Very much like the Democratic Party of the 1970s and 1980s, the GOP is divided. We have seen this play out not just in Congress but on the campaign trail where the battle between the “establishment” and “outsiders,” the “hawks” and “isolationists,” the “libertarians” and more “traditional republicans” rages on. </p>
<p>After failing to capture the presidency in 2012, the GOP made a concerted effort to study and understand what went wrong. Their findings were captured in the <a href="http://goproject.gop.com/">“Growth and Opportunity”</a> report. Among other things they concluded that they “need to resolve and downplay internal divisions,” many of which had forced Mitt Romney too far to the right to win the general election. </p>
<p>Those who care about the health of the GOP may want to downplay internal divisions, but the announcement by Speaker Boehner today is just another in a long line of reminders that the chasm is deep and, at least in the short term, intractable. We are likely to see a battle for leadership which we haven’t seen for some time. While Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is the <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/boehner_quits_mccarthy_seen_as_successor-243839-1.html">odds-on favorite</a> to become the new speaker, we shouldn’t forget that is only because his predecessor, Eric Cantor, was <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/eric-cantor-primary-election-results-virginia-107683">unexpectedly ousted</a> by the unknown Dave Brat in the 2014 primary.</p>
<p>If Cantor’s ouster wasn’t enough, in the current race for the 2016 GOP nominee Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, and Dr. Ben Carson sit on top of the polls. The fact that these three, none of whom has held elected office, are in the lead is another in a long line of indications that the chasm in the Republican Party is real and consequential. “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.”</p>
<p><em>Jeanne Zaino’s work has been published in journals such as Campaigns and Elections, Journal of Politics, Journal of Political Science Education and the Chronicles of Higher Education. Her most recent books are Adventures in Social Research: Data Analysis Using SPSS (Sage) and Core Concepts in American Government (Prentice Hall).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony J Gaughan is a registered independent and a former Republican. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Sebastian Parker and Jeanne Zaino do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The speaker calls it quits after five years of trying to get Tea Party leaders to stop squabbling and play nice. The road ahead looks rocky for the GOP.Anthony J. Gaughan, Associate Professor of Law, Drake UniversityChristopher Sebastian Parker, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of WashingtonJeanne Zaino, Adjunct Professor, Political Campaign Management, NYU-SCS; Professor, Political Science, Iona College, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/470732015-09-17T16:02:52Z2015-09-17T16:02:52ZHow the Republican Party became a haven of resentment and rage<p>The latest <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/17/politics/republican-debate-winners-losers-donald-trump/">Republican presidential primary debate</a> had it all: denunciations of President Obama, angry rants about America’s future, and all manner of bile. It seems like a new low – but in reality, Republican candidates have been singing this tune for years.</p>
<p>In the fall of 1962, Richard Nixon lost a bitter, divisive campaign against the incumbent Governor of California, Pat Brown. Furious and stunned, he was not in the best shape to hold a press conference. His press secretary wanted him to be magnanimous and statesmanlike, but Nixon could hardly control his anger and contempt. </p>
<p>Stuttering with resentment, he drenched the 100 reporters on hand at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RMSb-tS_OM">Beverly Hilton Hotel</a> with sarcasm: “For 16 years, ever since the Hiss case, you’ve had a lot of fun, uh, a lot of fun. You, you, you, you’ve had an opportunity to, to uh, attack me, and I think I’ve given as good as I’ve taken.” </p>
<p>Then, he delivered his parting shot, with a nervous smile that was as much a grimace: “But as I leave, uh, I want you to know, just think how much you’re going to be missing. You don’t have Nixon to kick around any more.” </p>
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<p>So began decades of Republicans taking imaginary kickings.</p>
<p>Ever since then, conservative politicians have led a victimhood parade of cranks, conspiracy theorists, and anti-intellectuals. Nixon may have been the most hardcore of the lot, but others merely picked up where he left off. Presidential candidates Barry Goldwater in 1964, George Wallace in 1968, and Ronald Reagan in 1980 implored and sometimes convinced voters to doubt or reject the wisdom of elites. </p>
<p>With the 2016 presidential primary campaign now at full throttle, the legacy of that angry populist wisdom seems more powerful than ever.</p>
<h2>Under fire</h2>
<p>Today, communists are no longer hiding under every rock or bed, but Republicans, masters of the paranoid style, have plenty of targets to fit the pattern: <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/11/so-the-liberal-media-really-doesnt-have-anything-on-the-gop-field-right/">journalists</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/20/trump-hotel-employee-mexican-immigrant-video">Mexican immigrants</a>, <a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/2015/08/10/climate-change-hoax-costs-us-4-billion-day">climate scientists</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/14/scott-walker-union-plan-labor-laws">unions</a>, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/09/19/ultra-liberal-professor-disrupts-college-republican-meeting-with-vulgar-rant.html">academics</a>, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2010/09/15/129877484/castle">treacherous politicians</a>, or <a href="http://video.foxnews.com/v/4449833453001/gun-control-debate-explodes-on-the-five/">gun control advocates</a>. </p>
<p>White politicians and activists are driving a great deal of the political conversation, to the joy of voters who feel beset by forces out of their control. The language of embattlement runs through these circles like a raging river. </p>
<p>Conservative Christian candidates such as <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/kim-davis-mike-huckabee-visit-kentucky-gay-marriage-213394">Mike Huckabee</a>, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/scott-walker-campaign-scrambles-213768">Scott Walker</a>, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/03/12/life-of-the-party-ryan-lizza">Rick Santorum</a>, and now <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/09/14/donald-trump-leading-among-evangelical-voters-despite-multiple-marriages-and-past-support-abortion-rights/yYaJO34EAm5QJtNCdZ84NL/story.html">even Donald Trump</a> pander to the base with apocalyptic denunciations of political correctness and screeds about the dangers that whites and Christians face. </p>
<p>Some of this bile is relatively new, oozing out of the “<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/05/birther-queen-orly-taitz-s-big-comeback-on-california-senate-ballot.html">birther</a>” or Obama-is-a secret-Muslim swamp that first started fermenting in 2008. But as the historian <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/what-conservative-culture">Rick Perlstein suggested</a> nearly a decade ago: “Conservative culture was shaped in another era, one in which conservatives felt marginal and beleaguered. It enunciated a heady sense of defiance.” </p>
<p>And today, this defensive, distrustful mindest is in full flower. </p>
<h2>The A-Team fights back</h2>
<p>The Grand Old Party hosted its latest banquet of disenchantment at the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/16/annotated-transcript-september-16-gop-debate/">Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California</a>, on September 16. Nearly 53 years after Nixon’s snippy remark about getting kicked and abused, the spirit of embattlement is still strong. The liberal media still can’t be trusted. </p>
<p>“Donald Trump’s being in this race,” quipped <a href="http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/09/16/ted-cruz-voters-want-consistent-conservative-not-campaign-conservative">Ted Cruz</a>, the junior US Senator from Texas, “has forced the mainstream media finally to talk about illegal immigration.” </p>
<p>Then, between barbs aimed at the gallant, anti-immigrant frontrunner, who celebrates mammon and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/18-real-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-women_55d356a8e4b07addcb442023">denigrates women</a> with equal zeal, the candidates at the Reagan Library were eager to convince Americans that an overbearing government and a traitorous president had ruined their country and abused them. The kicking must stop. </p>
<p>Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2015/0418/Huckabee-for-president-Why-2016-won-t-be-like-2008-video">veteran of the 2008 primaries</a>, was ready and able to stand up for the downtrodden. Huckabee has a special skill for demagoguery and martyrdom, and has recently made a rabbit’s foot out of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34247029">Kim Davis</a>, a Kentucky clerk who refused to do her job and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. </p>
<p>“I know that there are some in the Wall-Street-to-Washington axis of power who speak of all of us contemptuously,” he assured the hungry audience. “But I’m here to say that I think we are, in fact, the A-Team.” </p>
<p>That would be true only if the plot of the schlocky 1980s TV show involved renegades roaming the country, nurturing grudges, and speaking untruths to the already powerful.</p>
<p>From the debate stage, former Florida governor <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/republican-debate-jeb-bush-donald-trump-bundlers-213626">Jeb Bush</a> tried to stake out some kind of middle ground, with an eye on his viability for the general election in November 2016. In doing so, he strayed far from the Tea Party hymn sheet of poisonous outrage, waxing romantic about sunny Reaganism. </p>
<p>“Are we going to take the Reagan approach, the hopeful optimistic approach, the approach that says that, you come to our country legally, you pursue your dreams with a vengeance, you create opportunities for all of us? Or the Donald Trump approach?” The latter was the “approach that says that everything is bad, that everything is coming to an end.” </p>
<p>Surely the answer the Republican base prefers at this moment is option B. </p>
<h2>Angry alchemy</h2>
<p>The base is animated not by optimism or hope, but by bitterness and longstanding grudges. Blinded by rage at the left and centre, its stalwarts will believe almost anything that fits their sense of embattlement – no matter the reliability of its source. The physicist Karl Giberson and I <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anointed-Evangelical-Truth-Secular-Age/dp/0674048180/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1442490123&sr=8-2&keywords=the+anointed">wrote a book</a> about the preference for renegade experts and anointed leaders with dubious or no credentials.</p>
<p>The modern right’s ideological alchemy has already turned Kim Davis into a latter-day <a href="http://www.afa.net/the-stand/news/kim-davis-is-rosa-parks/">Rosa Parks</a>, the founding fathers into born-again evangelicals, climate science into a hoax, and Reagan’s outlandish and discredited “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV4TCUAcPes">voodoo economics</a>” into the only way America can get back on track. </p>
<p>On the latter point, incidentally, the right’s partisans might pay heed to how slash-and-burn tax cuts have worked out in my home state of <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119574/sam-brownbacks-conservative-utopia-kansas-has-become-hell">Kansas</a>. As of April, the Republican governor Sam Brownback’s land of Oz <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/magazine/the-kansas-experiment.html?_r=0">needed $400m</a> to close the deficit.</p>
<p>Since July, pundits have been variously marvelling and panicking at the surprising rise and continued rise of Donald Trump – but really, it makes perfect sense. The party that cultivated the politics of outrage and bolstered stubborn anti-intellectualism is racing to the bottom of a bottomless pit. </p>
<p>The frontrunner (for now) is a Frankentrump of the GOP’s own creation. He is the embodiment of decades of anger, antipathy, and anti-establishment hostility.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Randall J. Stephens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The angry right wing of American politics is mired in a swamp of outrage and victimhood. ‘Twas ever thus.Randall J. Stephens, Reader in History and Programme Leader in American Studies, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/469812015-09-14T10:15:11Z2015-09-14T10:15:11ZIf Goldwater can win the GOP nomination, why not Trump?<p>As the primary season heats up, few believe he can win the GOP nomination. The establishment choice is a shoo-in, but the upstart candidate believes the country is on the wrong path, well on its way to losing its greatness. The newcomer promises to reclaim America for “real” Americans, through the restoration of law and order. He advances a platform that makes the establishment cringe, but he enjoys the support of a cadre of conservative activists.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94318/original/image-20150909-18665-1cxrtlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94318/original/image-20150909-18665-1cxrtlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94318/original/image-20150909-18665-1cxrtlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94318/original/image-20150909-18665-1cxrtlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94318/original/image-20150909-18665-1cxrtlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94318/original/image-20150909-18665-1cxrtlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94318/original/image-20150909-18665-1cxrtlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Barry Goldwater in 1962.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BarryGoldwater.png">Marion Trikosko</a></span>
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<p>The year is 1964. The candidate is Barry Goldwater – not, as you may have assumed, Donald Trump. </p>
<p>After Republican nominee Richard Nixon lost a close election in 1960, the more conservative faction of the GOP sought a “real” conservative standard-bearer in 1964, and found one in Goldwater. He would go on to win the Republican nomination.</p>
<h2>A call to restore America to glory</h2>
<p>Despite a solid civil rights record earlier in his career, as a senator from Arizona, Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, arguably the most important civil rights legislation in 100 years. He promised to arrest what he believed was America’s decline and restore the United States to glory. But it wasn’t until New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s campaign stumbled that Goldwater’s took off. His surge was made possible by a relatively small, activist faction of the Republican party: <a href="http://www.rickperlstein.net/before-the-storm/">the John Birch Society</a>.</p>
<p>Today, the GOP establishment favorite is former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Like Rockefeller, Bush is off to a rough start – especially when compared to Trump. For proof, consider the most recent <a href="http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-gop-primary">Huffington</a> Post poll, an average of 154 polls. Trump enjoys a comfortable advantage over Bush, the establishment candidate: 33% to 9%. </p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly, Trump holds a decisive edge among the modern conservative reactionaries: the <a href="http://issuu.com/mleditor/docs/econtabreport_rep_with_tp__2_">Tea Party</a>. A quick analysis of American National Election Study data suggests that a majority of Republicans also identify with the Tea Party.</p>
<p>Among Tea Party supporters, in <a href="http://issuu.com/mleditor/docs/econtabreport_rep_with_tp__2_">an analysis</a> of an Economist/YouGov poll I requested, 86% support Trump, versus 29% who support Bush. Further, Trump is the preferred nominee among 52% of Tea Party supporters versus only 10% for Bush. Finally, 91% of Tea Party supporters will be “enthusiastic” about their preferred nominee versus 78% of Republicans overall. </p>
<p>The Tea Party’s enthusiasm about Trump almost certainly stems from his extreme position on immigration. He has said almost nothing about shrinking government, a core concern of the Tea Party. Consider Trump’s solution to the problem of “<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-anchor-babies-arent-american-citizens/">anchor babies</a>,” children born on American soil to illegal immigrants. He wants to get rid of <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-battle-against-birthright-citizenship-46428">birthright citizenship</a>, something guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Tea Party conservatives embrace this position far more than establishment conservatives, as Matt Barreto and I show in our <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9954.html">book</a>, Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America. </p>
<h2>More engaged supporters</h2>
<p>Tea Party supporters, like the John Birch Society supporters in the 1960s, have proven to be a force in the GOP. They are far more politically engaged than establishment conservatives. </p>
<p>In our book, Barreto and I demonstrated that, compared to establishment conservatives, Tea Party conservatives are more interested in political affairs than establishment conservatives. For instance, during the Tea Party wave of 2010, 85% of Tea Party conservatives were interested about what was “going on in Washington” versus 66% of establishment conservatives. More important, where 96% of Tea Party conservatives voted for Republicans, only 74% of establishment conservatives did so.</p>
<p>We also showed Tea Party conservatives are more likely to vote and donate money to candidates than establishment conservatives. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94319/original/image-20150909-18622-1jhpge4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94319/original/image-20150909-18622-1jhpge4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94319/original/image-20150909-18622-1jhpge4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94319/original/image-20150909-18622-1jhpge4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94319/original/image-20150909-18622-1jhpge4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94319/original/image-20150909-18622-1jhpge4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94319/original/image-20150909-18622-1jhpge4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Goldwater-Miller bumper sticker promises a change.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As in Goldwater’s case, few gave Trump much chance to win the nomination when he announced his candidacy just over two months ago. Some still consider him a long shot. The establishment has its candidate and, like Goldwater, Trump continues to say things that cause mainstream conservatives to pause – all while gaining momentum and setting the agenda. </p>
<p>Also like Goldwater, Trump can win the nomination with the backing of a committed faction of activists animated by the fear that “their” America is slipping away. Illegal immigrants are taking American jobs and committing crimes of all kinds, including rape and murder, he says. Trump, like Goldwater, promises to rescue America through the restoration of law and order.</p>
<p>A key difference remains: Unlike Trump, Goldwater was an experienced politician. Goldwater had solid, thought-out policy proposals based on sound conservative principles. For instance, his promotion of small government was rooted in economic liberty, and the belief that big government tempered the practice of personal responsibility. In short, he sought to remove the state from personal and economic life. Trump lacks political experience and has yet to show much in the way of policy over rhetoric. </p>
<p>Even so, do not be surprised if Trump wins the nomination. Yes, Goldwater was eventually beaten badly by Lyndon Johnson in 1964, but not before igniting the grassroots conservative movement that dominated American politics for a generation. Just over a half-century later, as conservatives again lament their loss of control amid issues of race and immigration, it could happen again. </p>
<p>History has a way of repeating itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Sebastian Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1964, the John Birch Society pushed Barry Goldwater to victory in the Republican primary. The same could happen with the Tea Party and Trump this election cycle.Christopher Sebastian Parker, Associate Professor, Political Science , University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/441272015-07-07T09:00:47Z2015-07-07T09:00:47ZWill the Charleston tragedy serve as an inflection point for race relations?<p>On June 17, in Charleston, South Carolina, it was once again proven that – to some, at least – black lives <em>don’t</em> matter. But this time it wasn’t under color of authority. This time, it was in a church, and at the hands of a person who’s clearly and unambiguously <a href="http://lastrhodesian.com/data/documents/rtf88.txt">racist.</a> </p>
<p>What’s happened in the wake of the tragedy is as shocking in scope as it is in its swiftness. President Obama used it as an opportunity to remind us of the racism that continues to plague the nation. Further, the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/take-down-the-confederate-flag-now/396290/%20http:/www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/take-down-the-confederate-flag-now/396290/">suspect’s affinity for the Confederate battle flag</a> led to Governor Nikki Haley’s call for its removal from the State Capitol and on <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-confederate-flag-south-carolina-20150706-story.html#page=1">Monday July 6</a> the South Carolina Senate voted 37 to 3 to do just that. People of all racial hues took to the streets to protest the killings and their basis in racism.</p>
<p>All of this has led <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/is-charleston-a-turning-point-for-america-on-race_b_7666608.html">some to believe</a> that what’s happening in South Carolina represents an inflection point when it comes to race: an opportunity to hit the “reset button” where racism is concerned in America. </p>
<p>Before we embrace this conclusion lock, stock and barrel, however, we need to take a closer look. </p>
<p>My experience writing on <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10354.html">race, social movements</a> and the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9083.html">postwar South</a> suggests that we must look to the past for clues about the likelihood Charleston serving as a game changer. </p>
<h2>The role of both domestic and international opinion</h2>
<p>Whether we define racial progress in symbolic or substantive ways, history suggests that when whites use violence against blacks, it sometimes backfires, resulting in racial progress. </p>
<p>However, the conditions under which it happens are very specific. </p>
<p>Typically, there are at least two audiences – third parties, if you will – to which forces of change appeal: one domestic, the other international. </p>
<p>The sympathy of the domestic audience (generally non-Southern) has – for much of the past 60 years – resided with the progressive forces as they witnessed scenes in which peaceful black protesters, who simply wished to be treated in accordance with the law of the land, were brutalized by white southerners. Such scenes evoked moral revulsion and emotional shock.</p>
<p>The international audience was no less important.</p>
<p>In the context of the Cold War, during which the United States was engaged in a global ideological struggle with the Soviet Union, race and racism were crucial elements.</p>
<p>To the extent that both superpowers were in a competition for international influence, and the United States often advertised itself as a beacon for freedom and democracy, the continued oppression of 10% of its population rendered such a claim dubious at best. </p>
<p>Further, to the degree that much of the competition for strategic access and alliances, by the 1950s, took place among nations in which people of color were in the majority, Jim Crow – and African diplomats being <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Epsource/PDF/Archive%20Articles/Spring2012/2012%20-%20Spring%20-%208%20-%20Murray%20Vachon,%20Nicholas.pdf">kicked out</a> of diners – didn’t play too well. </p>
<p>Of course, the Soviets took advantage of every act of violence and repression that took place in the South, denouncing such blatant hypocrisy to worldwide audiences. The violence associated with the Freedom Rides serves as one example of this. “Scenes of bloodshed in Montgomery are,” <a href="http://www.crmvet.org/riders/ns6107_world.pdf">said Radio Moscow</a>, “the worst examples of savagery…taking place in a country which has the boldness to declare that its way of life is…an example for other people.” </p>
<p>With these caveats in mind, let’s now consider the relationship between violence and racial progress, beginning with the civil rights legislation of 1957 and 1960. </p>
<h2>Violence and racial progress</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Emmett Till was 14 when he was killed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:14EmmettTillBefore_(2534273093).jpg">ImageEditor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was close on the heels of the<a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-of-emmett-till"> murder of Emmett Till</a> (1955) and the attempt to integrate Central High School in <a>Little Rock, Arkansas</a> (1957) that civil rights bills were ratified with the intention of improving access to voting for black southerners. </p>
<p>Ultimately, however, both <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Black_Ballots.html?id=RqFOuIhndtYC">fell far short</a> of the stated goal. For instance, as of 1958, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1952827?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">only Tennessee</a> could boast that more than 40% of its black eligible voters were actually registered. </p>
<p>What happened? </p>
<p>In the aftermath of Emmett Till’s murder and, especially the white resistance at Little Rock, the Eisenhower Administration was moved to <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9560.html">push for civil rights legislation</a> as a means of blunting continuing <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40023174?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Soviet assaults</a> on the “American way of life.” As the president <a href="http://faculty.nwacc.edu/dvinzant/documents/LaytonIntlPressureandLRCrisis.pdf">himself said</a>, after ordering the deployment of federal troops to protect the new black students at Little Rock’s Central High School:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[I]t would be difficult to exaggerate the harm being done to the prestige and influence, and indeed to the safety, of our nation and the world. Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our whole nation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On the domestic side, however, the audience was limited to white southerners, because civil rights failed to register on the national agenda in the 1950s. And since southern reactionaries and their representatives weren’t too keen on displacing white supremacy, it is hardly surprising that the civil rights legislation of 1957 and 1960 failed to achieve its goals.</p>
<p>Now go forward four years. </p>
<p>The racial progress achieved with the legislation of 1964 and 1965 also took place in the shadow of the Cold War. </p>
<p>These were the days of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the domestic audience also played an important role here – and this time it was nationwide. </p>
<p>The attacks on Freedom Riders and sit-in participants, the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in which four young girls were murdered, the spectacle during which fire hoses and dogs were turned loose on women and children protesters, and the “Bloody Sunday” march from Montgomery to Selma: this violence was extensively covered by the <a href="http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/march-7-1965-civil-rights-marchers-attacked-in-selma/comment-page-1/">national media</a> with shocking photographs like that of protester Amelia Boynton lying unconscious on the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alabama police attack on Bloody Sunday.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bloody_Sunday-Alabama_police_attack.jpeg">FBI</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Civil rights catapulted to the top of the American social and political agenda. </p>
<p>Many Americans were <a href="http://www.history.com/news/selmas-bloody-sunday-50-years-ago">outraged</a> at the behavior of many southern whites, law enforcement included. Ultimately, this outrage resulted in legislation that outlawed discrimination on the basis of race (among other factors), segregation, and expedited the implementation of the Brown decision. </p>
<p>Let us now return to the tragedy in Charleston.</p>
<h2>Who is watching Charleston?</h2>
<p>The domestic audience is certainly paying attention to South Carolina, as any glance at today’s media shows. What’s missing, however, is the international audience. This, in my judgment, is critical. </p>
<p>In the absence of an external existential threat to keep America honest, the impetus for racial progress lies squarely in the domestic sphere. </p>
<p>And this means that change is at the mercy of reactionary conservatives, people who, as my <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10354.html">research and that of Matt Barreto </a>into the Tea Party has shown, are fervent, disdainful of compromise and fearful of an existential threat to an American way of life in which mainly white Christians are the chosen group. </p>
<p>As I’ve argued <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9083.html">elsewhere</a>, these sentiments can be traced to the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, in which the return of the “New Negro” from World War I represented a threat to the existing racial order. </p>
<p>Dylann Roof is an outlier in terms of his actions, but his resentments are more widespread than may be generally acknowledged. Research I conducted in 2010 makes the case that the suspect isn’t the only one who harbors such sentiments; disdain for blacks is quite prevalent among contemporary <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/mssrp_table.pdf">reactionaries.</a>.</p>
<p>When it was discovered that Roof has an affinity for the Confederate battle flag, it further confirmed what many blacks have come to believe: that the Confederate flag <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/22/416548613/the-complicated-political-history-of-the-confederate-flag">represents the continued oppression of blacks. </a> </p>
<p>This, then, is what needs to be kept in mind as we witness South Carolina’s lawmakers <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-confederate-flag-south-carolina-20150706-story.html#page=1">debate </a>Governor Haley’s call to remove the flag from the State Capitol. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fWlh5CdQTRI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">South Carolina’s Senate debates - now comes the House.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yes, white-on-black violence, as it appears to prick the conscious of sympathetic whites, has resulted in adjustments in the past, and it may do so again. </p>
<p>However, we must remain mindful of the fact that more enduring progress has taken place when domestic sympathy was reinforced by the political pragmatism associated with the presence of an international pressure. </p>
<p>If we’re talking about a <em>global</em> military and ideological threat that has the capacity to threaten the existence of the United States or, at the very least, that claims to be interested in black lives, we’re fresh out of those at the moment: Islamist terrorism fails to meet either criteria. </p>
<p>What is more, as my own research confirms, the <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/06/04-tea-party-future-political-movement-parker">reactionary right</a> only continues to grow. Today’s Republican Party has been forced to adopt positions on, say, comprehensive immigration reform that are at odds with the moderate wing of the party. </p>
<p>The fact is that GOP moderates and reactionaries significantly <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10354.html">part ways</a> on issues related to race. For instance, only 10% of reactionaries believed coverage of the George Zimmerman trial “raised important issues about race” warranting further discussion, compared to 40% of GOP moderates. In another example, when asked to evaluate the persistence of racial discrimination when it comes to voting in the wake of the 2013 Supreme Court <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/supreme-court-ruling.html?_r=0">rollback of voting rights</a> for blacks, 50% of GOP moderates believe this to be true versus 37% of GOP reactionaries. </p>
<p>I for one, remain to be convinced that the popular outrage we see now will result in real change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44127/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Sebastian Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On July 6, the South Carolina Senate voted to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds. In the past white-on-black violence has led to real change - but under specific conditions.Christopher Sebastian Parker, Associate Professor, Political Science , University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/382742015-03-03T11:03:34Z2015-03-03T11:03:34ZForeign policy hot topic at CPAC<p>Last week the race for the Republic presidential nomination was kicked off in earnest by the Conservative Political Action’s annual Conference. </p>
<p>Yes, they all, predictably, want to “save our country” from the perils posed by President Obama’s intrusive government bureaucracy and the accompanying limits it supposedly imposes on our freedom. </p>
<p>The attendees, echoing Rudy Giuliani’s controversial comment, all believe that they, unlike Obama and by extension his supporters, love America. They are the only ones who should be entrusted with governing it.</p>
<p>But beyond the usual clarion calls, intended to appeal to the audience of diehard libertarians in attendance, the gathering in suburban Maryland proved revealing in at least three dimensions.</p>
<h2>Foreign policy comes to the fore</h2>
<p>The first is that the early signs are that foreign policy will be more important than usual in next year’s presidential election. </p>
<p>This is explained by several factors. </p>
<p>There is now a pervasive sense that finances are in short supply: America has to make a real choice between spending money on foreign policy or investing more at home. The phenomenal growth of the Chinese economy has fueled debates about China as an emergent threat to the United States. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have failed to achieve their goals and have cost much in terms of blood and treasure. Al-Qaeda successor terrorist groups are proliferating in “ungovernable” territories, most notably in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. And, finally, there is a widespread restlessness about our inability to control the behavior of many governments – principally Iran and Russia -and what that failure says about America’s global leadership. </p>
<h2>Americans are looking abroad</h2>
<p>The second thing the conference revealed is that Republicans believe that the average American beyond the Washington bubble really cares about the degree and form of America’s engagement with the rest of the world. </p>
<p>We are, apparently, frustrated. We supposedly blame President Obama and are allegedly deeply disgruntled with his policies. </p>
<p>So much so that the simple, well-known adage, “it’s the domestic economy stupid,” won’t apply next year. Indeed, the Republican candidates portrayed next year’s election as a historic opportunity to reset US foreign policy.</p>
<p>Some constituencies, we are told, are particularly aggravated - and can be pealed off from Obama’s winning coalition. </p>
<p>The Cuban community, the Republican candidates suggested, is unhappy with the new opening to Cuba. The Jewish community is pained by the administration’s fissure with Israel. Cubans and Jews are, it was said, deeply divided over Obama’s policies. At least some of them may be ready to vote for a Republican candidate who addresses their concerns. And, according to some candidates, we are all deeply concerned about the threat posed by ISIS and the Muslim community’s role in the fight against it. </p>
<p>Of course, there is more than a little wishful thinking here. But electoral politics is about building a winning coalition. Republicans calculate that they can peal off the Cuban community from other Hispanics and a segment of the Jewish community as part of a “divide and conquer” strategy in building a winning coalition. Attracting some votes from these groups (and the funding that goes with it) is better than none at all. </p>
<h2>Opposing views of the world</h2>
<p>The third thing we learn is that foreign policy doesn’t just divide the two main political parties. It fragments within the parties in a way rarely seem in modern times, particularly among Republicans. </p>
<p>They may unanimously denounce the president’s current foreign policies. But they vehemently disagree when it comes to the question of what should be done instead. </p>
<p>The spectrum is enormous. At one extreme, Rand Paul returned to this isolationist grassroots Tea party theme at CPAC, advocating greater disengagement from America’s foreign policy commitments. He <a href="http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/rand-paul/the-tea-party-goes-to-washington/9781455503117/">prefers</a> to focus on more border controls coupled with domestic reforms than foreign engagement. By implication, this means cutting the military budget from its current level of approximately 3.8% of GDP. </p>
<p>In contrast, at the other extreme, Rick Santorum <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/27/cpac-2015-rick-santorum-says-commander-chief-not-e/#ixzz3TFwzDys3">exhorted</a> the benefits of full-blooded engagement. He compared the threat posed by ISIS to that of fascism in the 1930s, and said “If ISIS wants to establish a 7th century caliphate, well let’s oblige them by bombing them back to the 7th century.” He may justifiably be regarded as a fringe candidate at this point. But his exuberant advocacy of the use of overwhelming force mirrors the views of more prominent candidates like Scott Walker and – more modestly - Jeb Bush.</p>
<p>We probably shouldn’t read too much into the fact that Paul won the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/28/politics/cpac-2015-straw-poll-results-rand-paul/">straw poll</a> with over 25% of the vote, as he did for the prior two years, and that Jeb Bush finished fifth with 8%. </p>
<p>As a beauty contest, CPAC’s voters represent only one wing among Republicans, and certainly not the more moderate establishment. But the result confirms the view that foreign policy, along with immigration reform, will be hotly contested in the primaries. And all this before the official primary campaign has even got underway.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38274/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Last week the race for the Republic presidential nomination was kicked off in earnest by the Conservative Political Action’s annual Conference. Yes, they all, predictably, want to “save our country” from…Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/345122014-11-25T10:15:25Z2014-11-25T10:15:25ZBeyond left and right: revelations from the Common Core debate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65247/original/image-20141123-1049-456319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New Jersey high school students</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/33193739@N06/3094838806/">j.sanna</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A paradoxical situation seems to confront today’s political scene and the choices it generates. </p>
<p>On the one hand, the market and its particular logic have come to dominate more and more human affairs. Even after the Great Recession and the documented failures of this logic, we continue to be told of the need to bring a market rationality to solve a host of public problems – from the “crises” in public education to the efficient delivery of mail. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the state – the occasional counterbalance to market swings and excesses – has become more business-oriented itself. Today’s state is attempting to rationalize, audit and assess all public expenditures and “nudge” people toward particular types of market appropriate behavior. This can be seen in attempts to offload more of the cost of a university education in order to reduce tax burdens,create efficiencies and make students more responsible and risk-aware. </p>
<p>The upshot is that the tension between market and state that once was more overt seems now to have dissolved. The boundaries between the two at times seem indeterminate.</p>
<p>This paradoxical state of contemporary politics can be observed in the current debate over the <a href="http://www.corestandards.org/">Common Core</a>and standardized testing. </p>
<h2>An emblematic debate over Common Core</h2>
<p>Common Core has been readily condemned on both sides of the political spectrum. </p>
<p>On the one hand, there are individuals such as academic Diane Ravitch and schoolteacher Mercedes Schneider, and organizations like the National Education Association and the Chicago Teachers’ Union. They deplore the testing mania, the push to privatization, and the excessive influence of venture philanthropies such as the Gates and Walton Foundations on education policy as well as the loss of teacher autonomy they believe Common Core generates. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum are people such as Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, TV host Glen Beck and Senator Rand Paul and groups like FreedomWorks and the libertarian Cato Institute. They condemn Common Core as a power grab by the federal government. They see it as a part of the government’s efforts to further nationalize education and indoctrinate children. </p>
<p>Adding to this Common Core confusion is a great motley mixture of supporters, ranging from Jeb Bush, the Business Roundtable and Conservatives for Higher Standards to former DC Schools Chancellor Michele Rhee, the National Governors Association, the Southern Poverty Law Center and, somewhat tentatively and timidly, the American Federation of Teachers.</p>
<p>What, then, does Common Core’s reconfiguration of the usual right and left political positioning signal about the state of contemporary politics in the US? </p>
<h2>Beyond left and right</h2>
<p>Explaining these unlikely alliances and divisions over education policy requires a very different understanding from the usual liberal versus conservative framework that has come to dominate our thinking on political matters in the US. </p>
<p>For the last few decades a new political model has been unfolding in various places around the world, one that brings together an activist, pro-market state that has intensified its monitoring of public agencies with a less regulated and more expansive market. Or, put it another way, what we are seeing emerge is a highly regulated public realm coupled with a highly deregulated private realm. </p>
<p>In this new configuration we encounter what I would call a “worst of both worlds situation.” Markets expand into what was previously the public domain and go largely unchecked in order to stimulate the never ending pursuit of growth and accumulation. Meanwhile, thanks to <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eachaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Public_choice_theory.html">public choice theory</a> (which gives material interest priority) and new forms of public management in institutions like schools, the public sector – and the people in it such as teachers or government workers – are no longer trusted by governments. As a result, they are increasingly monitored and managed from above instead of from within their own professional ranks. </p>
<p>It is in this newly created political space that the strange politics of Common Core are currently playing out.</p>
<h2>Strange bedfellows</h2>
<p>In the resistance to Common Core we are seeing the emergence of a style of politics that links libertarians who fear the increased intrusion of the state with the anti-corporatist activists who fear the growing dominance of the market. </p>
<p>Interestingly, this is similar to the situation that emerged in the 1930s that resulted in political coalitions between those Americans who feared the intrusions of state-centered socialism like Nazism and Soviet Communism and those who protested the the growing economic inequality that resulted in the Great Depression. These coalitions were ultimately responsible for launching the social liberalism that came to dominate American politics for almost fifty years. </p>
<p>More recently such a political take can be found in Ralph Nader’s new book Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State and his rather astonishing appearance over the summer at the Cato Institute. </p>
<p>The debate over Common Core reveals, to my mind, that the Occupy Movement and Tea Party both have valid points to make in their critiques of contemporary political scene. In America democratic participation has been usurped. Power today has become centralized in the hands of both the market and state. Politically speaking, it is simply a matter of which centralizing power one focuses on in a given moment. </p>
<p>The political story of Common Core is dramatic proof that the real problem is both.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34512/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven C. Ward does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A paradoxical situation seems to confront today’s political scene and the choices it generates. On the one hand, the market and its particular logic have come to dominate more and more human affairs. Even…Steven C. Ward, Professor of Sociology , Western Connecticut State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.