The Daily Beast’s Editor John Avlon, who has written some of the best books from a centrist’s and an independent voter’s point of view, has a take on what happened in the New Hampshire primary: “Team Crazy Wins the Sane State.” It’s worth noting that the prospect now seems more likely than ever that chunks of each party may not vote for a nominee they didn’t support, even though both parties know full well that several Supreme Court justices could be appointed by the next President. In news articles and comments on the internet, there is growing evidence that ideology and personal attachment to candidates could mean one or both nominees could come out of a convention with members of their party that would rather teach their party a lesson and let the other side win.
Here’s a big chunk of Avalon’s take and some comments:
Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu is fond of saying “Iowa picks corn and New Hampshire picks presidents.” Let’s hope that he’s wrong this time, or America is headed for an apocalyptic “choice, not an echo” election.
Celebrity demagogue Donald Trump and democratic socialist Bernie Sanders won massive victories Tuesday, sweeping virtually every voter group in the Granite State. It was a night for pitchfork populism, with the politics of cultural and economic resentment hitting overdrive.
What’s truly troubling is that New Hampshire traditionally serves as a speed-bump in the crowded primary calendar, calming hyperpartisan passions and pandering. Unlike the low-turnout Iowa caucuses and play-to-the-base South Carolina, the “Live Free or Die” state offers an electorate that reflects the independent centrist sensibility of the American general electorate.
Actually, the 21st century is becoming a century where speed bumps are being removed. With great speed.
We’ve seen a good example of it this week when Trump dropped the f— word and indirectly but quite clearly dropped the p—y word. In previous generations, dating back to our country’s founding, people in public life, as fiery as they could be, didn’t speak as if they might talk in private because political debate had not just a dignity but a majesty and consquences. Some including those around Trump then argued he had increased freedom of speech.
A speed bump used to be campaigns that HAD to offer specific policies and have constraints on the kinds of names called or policies that would be considered mainstream on the American political stage. No longer. One of Avlon’s books deals with talk radio and its influence on our culture. We are now in the Twitter/troll-in-comments/talk radio political culture.
Avlon notes some facts about New Hampshire’s traditional polity and role, then adds:
For Republicans, New Hampshire is a rare state where the party is evenly divided between conservatives and moderates. Libertarians have a strong presence and perhaps not coincidentally it’s the least religious state in the nation. Social-conservative litmus tests have limited appeal here. For example, New Hampshire became the first state to legalize marriage equality via the legislature in 2009. While the state isn’t exactly a bastion of racial diversity, New Hampshire has ideological diversity and a proud live-and-let-live culture. In the last two presidential primary cycles New Hampshire backed John McCain and Mitt Romney after the Iowa caucuses elevated Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. Earlier in the cycle, it seemed like one of the strong center-right governors—Chris Christie, John Kasich, or Jeb Bush—would be primed to repeat the pattern.
So much for that streak. The record will now show that Donald Trump romped to victory in 2016 with a nativist campaign. He updated the conservative populism of Pat Buchanan, the right-wing pundit who narrowly won the state in 1996 with an anti-immigrant, anti-trade, and anti-establishment agenda. Trump’s proudly anti-PC appeals defined deviancy down in this campaign, delighting in the attention that outrageously ugly “us against them” rhetoric can bring. His Teflon comes from being a reality-TV star with a reputation for ruthless business success. Fame and fury more than compensate for a lack of conservative philosophy to those folks who just want an anti-Obama in the White House. Trump’s victory cut across all age, income, and ideological groups, according to CNN’s exit polls—though the more educated and wealthy a voter is, the less likely they are to buy his B.S.
Avlon notes what I have noted repeatedly here: so I will say it again Sanders’ campaign, and his supporters are turning the word “moderate” into as dirty a word as it has been turned into in the Republican Party. Any day now we’ll hear about someone being a DINO. (Also read THIS POST by Mark Daniels on Sanders using moderate as a negative word.)
Sanders’ campaign has so far succeeded in making “moderate” a dirty word in the Democratic primary—a mirror image of what the dynamic Republicans have been wrestling with for decades. Whatever the ultimate impact, we are witnessing the birth of a left-wing Tea Party that may divide the Democratic Party—with predictable results—for decades to come.
No doubt Bernie’s big win was boosted by his status as a senator from Vermont. New Hampshire has traditionally rewarded neighboring state elected officials, from Paul Tsongas to John Kerry. But his campaign also became a crusade against the governing establishment represented by Hillary Clinton. In the psychology of support, it is cool to like Bernie now. And according to CNN’s exit polls, he won almost every voter cohort—including, somewhat surreally, moderate voters. Only non-white voters, senior citizens, and those who made over $200K supported Clinton in New Hampshire.
It’s worth noting that these two opposite-in-everything men share two broad policy positions: a distrust of free-trade deals and a belief that big-money super PACs are trying to buy elections.
But while Bernie also rode a wave of populism to his victory, buoyed by his unscripted authenticity—any parallels to Trump stop there. While The Donald glories in incivility, Bernie refuses to go negative during the campaign. While Trump’s policies are all bumper-sticker bluster, Bernie glories in a five-year plan with detailed bullet points.
Avlon also correctly notes that you can’t compare Trump to Sanders in several ways, including the political calenders they now face:
Perhaps the most relevant difference is that Trump has a positive primary calendar ahead of him—he leads the polls in the upcoming conservative states throughout the South. Bernie has a much tougher road ahead in states that are both more conservative and more diverse. Democratic socialists from Vermont via Brooklyn don’t expect a friendly reception in the South.
Adrenaline is surging for Trump and Sanders supporters after their lopsided wins in a centrist state. But there is something nihilistic behind the anti-establishment anger that drove them to the polls. Because polarization doesn’t solve problems—it compounds them.
But the problem now is you do indeed have people on the political right and political left who believe polarization is important to get out the ideological and partisan vote but pressing the political fight or flight mechanism. If the center has been under assault for years, it is now more than ever in a political year when “moderate” or “going moderate” sneered with as much contempt as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and countless GOPers sneered the word “liberal” to the extent where “liberals” soon adapted the label “progressives,” which even a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli on the shelf at Safeway knows they would not have done if conservatives had turned the word into a word with negative connotations.
Polarization can also be seen now in the fact that many people will don’t want to see, read or watch anything that they don’t already agree with in advance. We are in a political self-affirmation culture.
The authoritarian-tinged appeal of a strongman or the promise of ideological purity makes true-believers feel invincible—until they collide with reality in a constitutional democracy. Victory in presidential elections requires reaching out beyond the base and winning over the reasonable edge of the opposition. Effective presidential leadership requires working with Congress in a spirit of principled compromise, defining common ground, and achieving common goals.
The frustration that many folks feel with Washington stems from its current division and dysfunction, the sense that special interests are ignoring the national interest. They’re right. But the populist protest candidacies of Trump and Sanders will only deepen Washington’s division and dysfunction because they don’t offer any practical bipartisan solutions as a matter of pride. Banning Muslim immigration or single-payer health care may have their constituencies but they aren’t going to pass Congress. Insults and ideological purity are only a recipe for further polarization, creating a feedback loop of frustration and alienation. Their prescriptions double-down on the disease.
Some hard-core partisan supporters no doubt love the idea of a Trump-Sanders general election, effectively forcing America to choose between two extreme visions. But despite their current popularity with the partisan base, neither man represents the vast majority of Americans. And here’s a proof-point to keep the moderate majority from fearing the future: Less than 0.3 percent of Americans have voted so far in the 2016 primaries. We’ve still got some time for sanity to catch up with all the crazy talk.
That’s true. Hope springs eternal.
But reality intervenes. I’ve said it from the start: the smug talking heads and writers who insist the election will wind up one way and so and so “never” can be elected need to study history. Political history, history, and even entertainment history has many examples of people who were counted out and dismissed, only to rise to the top. Nor does our media help the situation: the thirst for audience share and hits means the loudest brashest voices are what’s needed. Just watch a cable political talk show where two guests turn red faced interrupting and screaming over each other and the host says, “We’ll have to leave it here. We have to have you two back!”
But she has hummed.
And she’s humming it to the right of her, to the left of her, and those in the middle can’t quite hear — or think they hear a tune they don’t quite like.
graphic via shutterstock.com
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.