It’s a war of ideas, not of interests

Mike Konczal has an interesting piece on how the progressives are unlikely to win over Trump’s base of white, male, working class voters – even if they take their concerns to heart and propose policies that will help them.  He thinks progressives lack specificity and clarity on the “specific approaches and programs [that] would convince Trump’s voters to join liberals.” More fatally, he believes the progressive agenda, if successfully implemented, would actually fail to bring these voters along.

Here is the gist of the argument:

“Yet any sufficiently important left project going forward is going to involve at least four things: a more redistributive state, a more aggressive state intervention in the economy, a weakening of the centrality of waged labor, and a broadening, service-based form of worker activism. These four points, essential as they are, will likely further drive Trump’s white working-class supporters away from the left, rather than unite them.”   

Konczal might well be right, but I want to entertain the possibility that he is wrong.

The progressives’ preference for specific policies is rooted in the view that voters’ “interests” – as they derive from their occupation, income, race, or gender – are fairly fixed. So policies are winners as long as they appeal to those “interests.”

But there is a complementary perspective in politics that says political competition is as much about shaping those interests. The politics of ideas is about activating identities that may otherwise remain silent, altering perceptions about how the world works, and enlarging the space of what is politically feasible.

If left-liberals take for granted that the white middle class is essentially racist, hate the federal government, oppose progressive taxation, don’t think big banks and dark money are a problem … and so on, then indeed many of the remedies that progressives have to offer will fail to resonate and there is little that can be done. But why should we assume that these are the givens of political life?

A large literature in social psychology and political economy suggests that identities are malleable as are voters’ perceptions of how the world works and therefore which policies serve their interests. A large part of the right’s success derives from their having convinced lower and middle class voters that the government is corrupt and inept. Can’t progressives alter that perception?

Note that what is required here is not one more well-designed program. It is a narrative, a marketing device – a bumper sticker.

Consider one of Konczal’s examples. He mentions Arlie Hochschild’s book Strangers in Their Own Land, which describes people living in the polluted “Cancer Alley” of Louisiana.

“They are people who are conscious of the environmental wreckage industry has brought to their area, yet they vote for people opposed to the Environmental Protection Agency and environmentalism generally.

Hochschild finds that her subjects don’t experience this as a tension because they view the federal government as something that is helping people ‘cut in line.’”

In other words, people dislike and distrust the government. And yes of course, conditional on that belief, the progressives’ agenda of enhanced environmental regulation will not draw the support of the people it tries to help. Same with dealing with the banks, creating more jobs, or progressive taxation.

Clearly, the progressives have lost the war of ideas here – on government as a force for good. Equally clearly, they will not win it by offering detailed policy proposals on each one of these areas.

Progressives need to shape the narrative that structures voters’ interests. They need to be able to appeal to identities beyond race and gender – occupation, social class, income status, and patriotism. They need to convince the electorate that it is their interests they have at heart – not those of bankers or of large corporations.  They need to forge a story line that will shape a package of policy proposals into a politically appealing whole.

Progressives need not give up on the white, male working class. But they need to understand that politics is as much about redefining perceptions of interests as it is about responding to those interests.

Comments

[Timnuoa]

And even if this effort is unsuccessful with the current generation of white working class adults, it seems as though it will be much easier with the next generation, who don't share their parents' post-war nostalgia and are already mostly opposed to Trump. https://t.co/DU5JaQyTQ5

[Eamon Aghdasi]

It's not an accident that progressives have lost the ideological war. There is a lot of money dedicated towards convincing voters that the government is bad, that taxes should be low, or that the US is over-regulated. That supremely rich individuals who benefit from this way of thinking have such enormous power over the conversation is the main problem, if you ask me.

[Conorjsim]

exactly. self-defeating conservative politics undermines a "rational ontology." So we have to assume interests are socially constructed. Why assume the left has no power to influence these? I argue the left is exerting the wrong kinds of influence -- pushing individual consciousness on a working class that is, paradoxically, collective. The left needs to demonstrate that flag, family, neighborhood are essential to social democracy.

[George H. Blackford]

This is one of the most insightful political posts I have seen, mostly (as strange as it may seem) because it reinforces what I have believed since the Democratic Party took an "if you can't beat em, join em" attitude in the 1980s and the New Democrats took over the Party. From that point on there was no one out there with a voice that could be heard countering the absurd antigovernment rhetoric of the fanatical right with their incessant mantra of "lower taxes,less government, and deregulation" and their insane goal of "drowning the government in a bathtub." I still can't fathom why no politician bothered to point out that trying to save the country by destroying the government is not a good idea in campaigning against those who signed Norquist's pledge. It's not that difficult to counter the absurd arguments in favor of destroying the government if one tries. See Douglas Amy's website http://www.governmentisgood.com/ or my essay http://rwEconomics.com/IVR.htm ) The problem is that not enough people try.

[Seth Edenbaum]

"Clinton’s victory will show that the Democrats can win without the white working class"

Clinton's a republican in everything but name.

Interests? Erdogan is responsible for a rising middle class that wouldn't exist if you and your wife, and her father, had your way. That puts paid to that claim.

The corollary to Trump is Sanders. Neither would exist if the republic were in good shape. But Sanders would have beaten Trump easily. Clinton had to hope he'd self-destruct. Lucky for her he did.

All your shit is predicated on a contempt for the working class. Worse than a crime; it's a mistake.

[Lauren Kaplan]

Two issues might cut into white male working class support for forty years of Right-Wing ideological "free market" orthodoxy that has led to the dead-end of Trumpist white-nationalist resentment.
1. Gingrich etc. are RIGHT when they condemn "crony-capitalism". That was OUR bumper-sticker they stole. Progressives need to seize it back. Unless the terrain of the revolving door of influence between regulators and the regulated is recaptured with "jail the banksters" rhetoric and action, the manipulated working class is RIGHT not to trust government.
2. One partial answer is to embrace transparent, decentralized local decision-making; for example with infrastructure spending. Information tech can help solicit citizen engagement if folks come to believe their input is consequential.
Additionally, the kind of ongoing mobilization necessary so the '18 midterms don't result in another 'Dems stay home' republican re-taking the Senate, ought to be built into all jobs, justice-reform, global warming, affordable college and comprehensive immigration reform. Make the enabling legislation genuinely access-able to local constituencies constituencies. Obama promised in '08 that health care reform would be open and transparent. Instead, he went behind closed doors and made deals with the Insurance Industry and big-pharma. Brand New Congress and Bernie's ongoing "Revolution" has to press hard to open up the PROCESSES of reform to citizen engagement

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