John Henke’s post Organizing Against WorldNetDaily has prompted some response in the blogosphere. This Conor Friedersdorf post is the second contribution he has made to the discussion. Much of the debate has revolved around the intellectual/elite vs. populist dimension. Because it is a debate where rhetoric can get out of control some people are acting as if one must choose between elites and the masses, or, that a movement can be organized around only elites or masses. In a democratic republic a movement based on elite concerns only has no electoral base. On the other hand it seems that movements from the bottom-up which have no elite leadership or intellectual superstructure and are driven only by inchoate impulses tend to lose steam and lack long term focus.
This observation is trivial, but from what I know it is also a rock-solid inference one could make from a conservative model of how societies are organized, that is, they are organic wholes characterized by a diversity of roles, status and abilities. Movements or subcultures have the same characteristics. A totally flat and egalitarian structure in any movement is simply not scalable, so populism naturally throws up elites (other elites may call these demagogues, but sometimes it is in the eye of the beholder). Similarly, elites which take over societies can often generate populist cadres through the leverage they have in offering up patronage and advancement to the abmitious.
The natural compromises which emerge between the leaders and the led can take various forms. Black Americans are part of the liberal movement in the United States, and subordinate their social and religious conservatism to party loyalty and racial and fiscal liberalism (the exceptions of recent note have been via direct democracy). The black political elite espouses social liberalism in keeping with the movement elite. Though the American population tends to be suspicious of the advantages of free trade and the logic of comparative advantage, both Democratic and Republican elites have tended to push forward globalization despite populist resistence. In the case of Republicans, the party has been socially conservative for a generation now, and yet has yielded few efficacious policies which are purely driven by social conservatism* (e.g., welfare reform is arguably a social conservative victory, but it was also a fiscal issue). While black political leaders simply ignore the sentiments of the black masses and espouse social liberalism explicitly, Republicans have in the main respected the beliefs of the grassroots in their espoused planks. But they simply haven’t expended much political capital in reversing the trend toward social liberalism over the past generation from what I can tell (I think “South Park conservatism” is a classic case of declaring victory and ceding the war).
Because of the first-past-the-post winner-take-all nature of our legislative districts I suspect that a two-party system is the equilibrium for the American republic. But there are more than two strands of political thought in the United States. Naturally this results in a situation where coalitions emerge out of compromises. The process of discussion, argument and factional strife is simply a byproduct of this structural reality.
* Bush’s policy on embryonic stem cells is a prominent exception to this.
Looking at the issues on which the elite differs from most people, the elites tend to be a bit economically more conservative (pro free trade, against things like maximum salaries for execs) and socially more liberal (pro affirmative action, gay marriage, immigration). The pattern I notice is that people with high IQs tend to be a bit more economically conservative and socially liberal. The difference between the feelings of the elites and the rest of the people may simply be a result of the fact that elites are smart.
As much as I would like to agree with my fellow libertarians that the Republicans should drop the religious conservatism and adopt a more explicitly libertarian line, I think this would be electoral suicide. If we like things like low taxes and free trade, the fact is we need the religious right as allies. Besides, social conservatives are usually better at issues like national security and immigration than a lot of my fellow right-libertarians.
A true populist candidate, someone who is for more government spending, protectionism, and is against abortion and wants lots of restrictions on immigration, would probably do very well. But, the elites in both parties would never let this happen. I’m actually glad about that.
A true populist candidate, someone who is for more government spending, protectionism, and is against abortion and wants lots of restrictions on immigration, would probably do very well.
proportional representation would bring this sort of right-populism to the scene. to some extent christian democrats and nationalist parties like the danish people’s party lean in this direction. but in the former case christian democrats tend to emerge out of the context of the institutional backing of the catholic church, so they aren’t pure populist movements. and nationalist parties tend to come to power only in coalition with mainstream parties.
Responded here. My basic point is similar to Hume’s above. Henke is missing a few important points in his call for boycott.
Elite and Populist Conservatives
The idea of boycotting WND is just silly. It was a sad thing to watch WND’s decline after Y2K, though the seed were present, but the site really has declined in importance. Imposing a self-righteous boycott just gives Farah an audience he wouldn’t otherwise have. It certainly doesn’t hurt him to have pricks like Frum and Friedersdorf as his enemies.
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