Yves here. As many Naked Capitalism readers know well, the Democratic party has become the instrument of the professional managerial class and the tech/financial elites. The idea that it would take a genuine interest in the desires of ordinary people of any stripe, even ones they need to win over like independents, is quite a stretch. So the question then becomes whether the Democrats can snooker them and get them to come out and vote, or hope that continued citizen apathy and their presumed demographic advantage over time gives them enough wind at their back to stay their current bad course. Among other things, it seems presumptuous for the Dems to act as if they own the Hispanic vote (that very belief showing a failure to recognize that “Hispanics” are not a monolithic group).
By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at God’s Spies
“I don’t care who people vote for as long as I get to choose the candidates.”
—Boss Tweed, who didn’t mind saying who’s in charge
The Apparent State of the Nation
Consider this relatively innocuous chart:
Bespeaks a “divided nation,” doesn’t it? A nation roughly split between two warring groups — the Democratic Party’s owners, paid system and media, and the mass of voters they target; and the Republican Party’s owners, their ecosystem, and their own targeted voters.
In both cases, the first two party groups — the owners; their ecosystem and media — have almost all the control. They choose the candidates, mostly, or curate who you get to chose among, which amounts to the same thing. (See Boss Tweed’s quote above.)
The controllers also choose where the money goes. All those donations gleaned from mailers and articles like this, “The Republican Party is now the most dangerous threat in the world”, and this, “Chuck Schumer’s Embrace of Mobs Is a Menace to Constitutional Democracy”; all those billionaire dollars; every dime that flows into party and lobbyist coffers; it all goes to party operatives to control.
If you’re a target of this messaging, as most of us are, you likely think one of the statements above is true, and find yourself glad to destroy the evil depicted. You may even be factually right.
But that aside, we still appear to be a nation divided, liberal “left” against conservative “right.” The chart above confirms these ebbs and flows. A commonplace wisdom, a given, a “what we all know.”
The Actual State of the Nation
Now consider a different graph depicting roughly the same data:
If you were asked to deduce from the chart above what’s really the divide in the nation, what would you say?
What does the data say? Does it say that since the seminal, crisis election of 2008 (my purple line above), when both sides claimed to stand on the side of the people, and one side was believed…
…does it say that the betrayals of 2009 and later have divided the nation, not between “left” and “right,” but between those who still feel part of the party system, and those who don’t?
One sample of those betrayals could stand for them all:
Do they think we can’t see these things? Do they think its victims have no memory?
As Krystal Ball explains explains here and in second paywalled piece, most of these “independents” are younger voters, millennials and Gen-Z, who, naturally unaffiliated in their youth, have stayed unaffiliated longer than their parents, or even their older siblings. They’ve also stayed more disillusioned.
I’m not writing today about right versus wrong, or even right versus left. I’m writing about the country and its real divide — its perpetrators, its victims.
What Divides the Nation Is Trust
The nation is evenly split between those who think, with all the fervor they have, that one of our political parties still tells the truth, and those who don’t trust either to have their back. That split in 2022 was 56-42 in favor of the party trust.
If the latest Atrios piece is right, it’s now 50-50:
Driving the news: Gallup polling last month found that a record 49% of Americans see themselves as politically independent — the same as the two major parties put together.
- By far the dominant U.S. party isn’t Democrats or Republicans. It’s: “I’ll shop around, thank you.”
While it’s true that among the “neithers” are those who lean, some to Republican prosecutorial virtue, some to Democrats’ sometime kindliness.
But a 50% voting bloc would control the country, if they would unite against both legacy parties and back a third. Not going to happen, of course. But dreams are still nice.
The Love They Take
Which leads to my main point du jour. Does the Democratic Party really think it will grow its love among the indie class by acting like this?
It would be one thing if Taibbi’s testimony before Congress were false, especially knowingly false. (Though “knowingly false” didn’t trouble James Clapper too much.) But the fact is, whatever you’ve come to think of the man, even that he “serves the Right,” the facts are on his side. Not a good look for the reality-based community, denying the facts.
And the circle below, by the perceived-to-be party-aligned Times, is impossible to square:
How do you defend these acts to those who don’t already believe that any act that stems the fascist tide is justified, even if the effort itself is questionable at best, and unconstitutional at worst?
How do you defend them to those not already convinced?
Waiting for Democratic Deliverance
I write this not to trash Democrats, some of whom display an honor honestly gained, but to weep for them, their wicked misleadership, and then to despair. Like dreams, hope is nice, but it’s not thick on the ground.
After all, Republicans, as they’re now misled, seem hell-bent on a Christo-fascist coup. But to trust Democrats to save us? An errand for fools, if past is prologue at all.
Feste: Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun — it shines everywhere.
