In the most recent polls, an overwhelming 68% of the American public want a compromise on the debt ceiling. Break down those numbers by party, however, and a different picture emerges. 81% of Democrats want a compromise compared to only 53% of Republicans. Even more strikingly, 53% of the Tea Party oppose a settlement compared to 42% who favor it. The Tea Party, in opposition to the majority of the country, the majority of the Republican electorate and the weight of professional opinion, takes the my-way-or-the-high-way approach. What is going on?
The short answer is that the Republican leadership, in general, and the Tea Party, in particular, is designed to be a party of extremists. That is, the modern Republican party is built on its appeal to those most likely to see the world in black and white. Giving power to the true believers of any stripe is dangerous, and the debt limit makes visible a decades long process that increases the risk that the country will become ungovernable.
The debt ceiling is a perfect issue to illustrate the intransigence of the new group because the underlying issue is meaningless. The ceiling is an artificial restriction that essentially says that after Congress has passed a budget and the U.S. has borrowed money in accordance with that budget, it cannot make payments on the debts it has already incurred unless Congress increases the debt limit. Ordinarily, Congress raises the debt limit without much fuss. It has done so over 70 times since the limit was enacted in 1917 and, indeed, 17 times during the Reagan Administration alone.
While increasing the debt limit is therefore meaningless, the failure to raise the debt ceiling is not. The refusal to make monthly payments on debts already incurred marks one as a credit risk. Ask anyone who misses an occasional monthly payment on their credit cards. Interest rates go up, even if the debtor has lots of money in the bank. At the national level, the mere threat of default -- the signaling that the U.S. is not a reliable borrower -- could play havoc with national and international markets.
So why risk it? Because it is what true believers do. The conventional wisdom is that we are living through a period of greater political polarization. It is true that Congressional districts have become more polarized, with more safe Republican and safe Democratic districts. It is also true that the views of members of Congress no longer overlap much, with virtually all Republicans to the right of virtually all Democrats on substantive positions. People with different views, however, are capable of compromise. The substantive differences between Democrats and Republicans do not explain why they can't reach an agreement especially on an issue like the debt limit where there are many intermediate solutions. Abortion, after all, can be cast as murder; the only issue for the debt limit is the price that can be extracted for the vote.
Understanding the stalemate therefore requires understanding the modern Republican party and how it has been assembled. The result is not a parallel construction of liberals versus conservatives. It is rather the construction of one party (and only one) designed not to compromise.
First, with respect to substance, the Republican party has become dramatically more conservative while the Democratic party has not become similarly more liberal (See Hacker and Pierson, Off-Center). Republicans have been able to do so and still win elections principally by adopting policies that increase turnout and those policies tend to be the ones that fire up the base and attract deep pocket funders. The principal difference between the outcome of the 2008 and the 2010 elections, for example, was the identity of those who showed up at the polls.
Second, the appeal to the base involves an appeal to those least likely to compromise -- and Republican partisans are more inflexible than Democratic partisans. An intriguing study attempted to determine whether political orientations were inherited by examining the difference between identical and fraternal twins. It described conservatives (irrespective of their positions on individual issues) as those "yearning for in-group unity and strong leadership." They desire clear, unbending moral and behavioral codes, a fondness for systematization, a willingness to tolerate inequality and an inherently pessimistic view of human nature. In contrast, those with a more liberal political orientation tend to be more tolerant of out-groups, and to take a more context-dependent rather than rule-based approach to proper behavior. They also demonstrate more empathy, optimism and "suspicion of hierarchy, certainty, and strong leadership." The polar opposites in this typology are the true believers v. the flip-floppers. While the jury is out on how conclusively the twin studies establish a genetic component, other studies tend to find that such preferences are hard to change and influence perceptions of facts as well as policies. 64% of Tea Parties, for example, incorrectly believe that President Obama raised taxes in comparison with 34% of the country overall.
Third, Republicans have adopted an intentional rhetorical strategy that tends to appeal to those who prefer fixed, unbending values. According to linguist George Lakoff, for example, conservatives celebrate the "strict father," who enforces relatively fixed and hierarchical values, while liberals prefer the "nurturing mother" who makes context-based decisions designed to promote individual well-being.
Fourth, with the multiplication of cable TV channels and internet sites and the decline of the mainstream media, we increasingly listen only to those with whom we already agree. 63% of Tea Parties, for example, say that they get the majority of their political and current events news on television from the Fox News Channel, compared to 23 percent of Americans overall.
Finally, these effects are greatest for those with the most influence. Polarization on issues -- and values preferences -- are dramatically greater for political activists and the more educated generally than for the rank and file. Tom Ferguson explains that the big increase in political contributions has come from conservative big money donors who both respond to and shape the "no compromise" rhetoric (*For more on how money drives polarization, see Lynn Parramore's ND20 interview with Ferguson).
A half century ago, neither political party disproportionately consisted of those who favored a my-way-or-the-high-way approach. Unbending ideologues did not make it into leadership positions. Today, it may be the only way to get elected - for one of the parties. That party has framed the debt limit as a matter of principle and used it to fire up the base. For a group inclined to see the world in terms of absolutes, compromise can accordingly only be seen as betrayal.
June Carbone is the Edward A. Smith/Missouri Chair of Law, the Constitution and Society at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
*Re-posted from newdeal20.org.
Who's opinions are reported? Who makes it on the 5:00 News?.................Only those with the most extreme viewpoints...........
Makes for a great headline, or 15 second soundbite, but also makes for lousy news, and worse yet, lousy government.
If the inmates are running the asylum.........................they've had a lot of help.
Both far right and left are extreme at times and have too much power. When last week Obama barely floated the idea of changes to SS and Medicare, the far left went into attack mode. Everyone knows even with the tax increases dems want, we cant solve medicare, social security, and medicaid without structural reforms.
You need to get out of the ivory tower of academics and live in the real world!!
Let's all face facts....we need to adjust how much we spend and where the monies go. ALSO, we need to close tax loopholes and make sure everyone pays their fair share. Here's a thought. 1/2 pay ZERO taxes....let's get the flat tax????
An example is why would so many republicans believe the president is a Muslim, when he's a Christain. It's because some body is promoting this lie, knowing that thru media this lie will get repeated and repeated thereby shaping public opinion. Media is the problem, not 'safe congressional seats.'
I believe the political system needs a complete revamping. Two eternal parties does not work. Parties need to be able to come and go with the times, and in any case, two is not enough to represent everyone.
We should all be in the streets demanding justice and democracy. People power works. But in the meantime we must organise and vote. The Bagger Party is an example, showing that with fervent belief and billionaire backing things can get done in America, still. In three years they have brought the nation to its knees. We must bring it back. We, unlike them, believe in freedom and democracy. We may even have a few billionaires. The next time we have a government held by Democrats in both houses and the presidency, we must be all over them to force them to make the necessary changes to eliminate the threat from the right that, by now, hopefully everyone accepts as reality.
I am not impressed with the "fiscal conservatism" of the conservatives nor ability of the liberals to face the reality that our resources are not unlimited.
We can't keep living on borrowed money, and that means we can't keep spending money we don't have.
Believe it or not, I think that Obama is the correct balance, but I could be wrong. At any rate, no Republican will give him a chance.
Tax cuts don't create jobs, but the Propaganda Machine says they do so many people believe it. Investment in our country isn't money wasted, but the Machine says we can't do anything good through government spending, except wage war, so America will never do anything great again in a collective manner. It's the lack of jobs that's killing us, but the Machine has got all of Washington focused on the debt, so rather than invest in job creation we're going to cut spending. We're going to create jobs by cutting back on direct funding for jobs. Sound illogical? No, no, the Machine says that that is the way to go. So we're going to do the exact opposite of what Economics 101 suggests when in a recession. No matter what happens the wealthy and powerful will be okay, so don't worry about them. They're not worried about you.
There is a very healthy form of political conservatism that is an open-ended, learning philosophy just like Progressivism. It just evolves more slowly, and doesn't believe that all change is positive change per se. It makes for a healthy counter-balance to the character flaws and blindspots of Progressivism.
The problem is that contemporary American Conservatism is NOT that kind of conservatism.
What we are dealing with is not conservatism....it is AUTHORITARIANISM that is calling itself "conservatism". All of the personality characteristics that the author cites above are character traits of "authoritarian follower" personalities:
The ethnocentricity. The intolerance towards difference. The black-and-white, either-or style of thinking. The need to be part of a like-thinking group, and seek safety under the aegis of a 'strong leader'. The pattern of cognitive distortions (faulty reasoning) when confronted with new information. Especially information that calls what they currently believe into question (see Michelle Bachmann).
The problem that they've inherited is that authoritarians are committed to CONTROL. They don't care about responsible government, and are therefore willing to BREAK things in order to impose their will upon them. So that leaves the Democrats in the position of having to be the adults in the room. Which makes it difficult to advance your own values, when so much of your energy is being spent keeping your opposition from smashing up the place.
The problem Democrats own is that they do not understand that people make political decisions on emotion, values, and identity....not rational self-interest. So when Democrats try to frame issues based upon reason, facts, and self-interest...and they are met with Republicans who frame that same issue in terms of group self-image, prejudices and FEAR....Democrats quickly loose control.
Because the media quickly picks up on the Republican line because it sells better...and the unsophisticated pay more attention to that same line, because it taps into our biologically hard-wired survival mechanisms.