Every now and again I do a mental check of the people in my life to figure out if I'm aquainted with any republicans. Ususally my check comes up negative. Apparently, I've been forgetting to run the algorithm on my extended family....but then, I've always assumed that they all vote as democrats since most of them are firmly seated in the working class. This Thanksgiving weekend I've learned that this assumption is misguided. At Thanksgiving dinner (which I did not attend since I was waiting out a plane delay in Chicago O'Hare), the fam got to talking politics and the most recent presidential election. Apparently, the voting broke down as such:
Kerry:
- My sister (highly educated - MD plus fellowship, pediatrician and endocrinologist)
- My father (highly educated - PhD, engineer)
- My mother (highly educated - two masters degrees, professor)
- My uncle B (higher education completed - BA, postal worker)
Bush:
- My great aunt (high school education, wife of deceased working class husband)
- My Uncle T (high school education, Vietnam vet, steel mill worker currently out of work, single handedly raising his grandaughter)
Outstanding:
- My grandmother (retired working class)
At some point during dinner, my father asked Uncle T what issues drove him to vote for Bush. His response was something to the effect of, "at this time in our nation's history, we really need God involved." He was voting for God, not for tax policies or the war in Iraq or healthcare or anything else that may be related to his self-interest. I don't think he has ANY idea, in fact, that he was voting AGAINST his self-interest. Of all of the people at that turkey table, he is the one who could benefit most from a switch to a democratic president. He's also the one, though, who does not have the educational background to critically evaluate the issues at hand.
I am expecting a thorough analysis from all you political scientists out there.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
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8 comments:
Well, I think Uncle T provides a nice confirmation of the whole "What's the Matter with Kansas" argument - that the Republicans have craftily reframed everything around social issues, which leads to their winning elections, after which they can proceed with economically screwing everyone except for the rich.
I don't get the 'God in the White House' thing - probably because I don't understand how religion could be that dominant in one's thinking. It's so strange to me that many think that God is speaking/acting through Bush, including Bush himself, but somehow is not speaking/acting through anyone who's a Democrat. Last time I checked, most conceptions of God didn't include a strong-Republican position on the partisan identification scale.
The only Republicans I know are people who should be Republicans (rich social conservatives). But J.Bro has some puzzling Republicanism in his family, so he may have more insights...
Unfortunately, the puzzling republicanism in my family is, I believe, a product of two things - a misinformed belief that free markets are good for small farms and that good-old rural do-it-yourselfism. There's a good article on The New Republic Online that talks about how undecided voters understand politics and issues - the part that struck me as particularly insightful was when the author wrote that many, many voters just didn't comprehend the things that qualified as political. Saying that Kerry had a plan to lower health insurance costs, for example, was like telling them that he had a plan to extend summer to December. I'd also like to know how many people vote on god (or abortion, or gay marriage, or whatever) because (1) they don't think they can understand economic issues or (2) don't think either candidate could actually do anything about them.
I lent my mother my copy of What's the Matter with Kansas, but I would encourage you to read the article-length version rather than buying the book - Spice could probably send you the pdf file or a link to it. I thought the second half of the book (how conservatives engineered social-issue-prominence) was much weaker and far more tedious than the first half (how rural voters would be better off under Democratic economic programs).
I just finished skimming "What's the Matter with Kansas" last night. I agree that the article-length version is all you need - the book is kind of repetitive and has more style than substance. I felt like he did a good job of outlining the phenomenon, and then did a totally crappy job of explaining why it happened. I guess it could have used a little more social science...
I think Spice's characterization is excellent - fascinating question, sub-par analysis.
Okay people, you are providing me with most excellent information and education. That article rocked my world and helped me understand a few things:
(1) I have NO concept of what it's like to make political decisions when one of the following figures prominantly in one's worldview: god, family values, american tradition, etc.
(2) I am (perhaps proudly) one of those latte-wielding, elitist, argumentative, west-coast liberals (although I still have some midwestern in me)who thinks they know what's good for people of low economic status (and it doesn't include god).
One thing I did appreciate about Frank - although I wish he had done more with it than a footnote - was his acknowledgement that the media overlook the Midwestern blue states because they don't know what to do with them (my God, some of those backwards fly-over state residents are actually sophisticated enough to vote Democrat?). There are plenty of latte-drinking (or in my case, chai-drinking) liberals who think they know what's good for poor people here, too. Tomorrow I will partake in a weekly convention of them, known to most as my poverty policy class :)
Which brings me to another issue I had with the book - the focus on state borders rather than the urban/rural distinction that's emerging as the more salient one (red states are simply states in which rural voters outnumber urban ones, and blue states are vice versa). For example, in the book he notes the liberalism of Lawrence, Kansas, but doesn't draw any lessons from it. There are university towns _everywhere_, and I think it's important to figure out why they foster liberalism beyond a tautological definition that university town=liberal. Similarly, there are scary hard-core Republican towns in all of the coastal states - although interestingly they are generally inland (see central Oregon or Pennsylvania for oodles of examples). Why is that?
I think being a political geographer would be really cool.
In closing, though - what in the hell is wrong with someone who has spent a lot of time studying something claiming to know what's good for people who do not have the time/energy/resources/whatever to do similar research? After taking a whole class on poverty, I think I might actually have a better sense of what should be done than your average person. Why, then, should my opinion not be given a little more weight? And why would it be a bad thing for me to try to convince other people that I'm right and that they're voting against their own interests?
I guess I'm stuck in that 'reality' thing that the Bush administration is so opposed to.
This is a highly commented blog and that makes me happy.
I agree with Spice whole-heartedly about the existence of liberal enclaves/people/urban areas/etc in the midwest (my family and their county, for example). They serve lattes in the midwest too, believe it or not. And the basis for all of my liberal beliefs comes from my upbringing there. So stop bashing the midwest folks! (Not that anyone who doesn't agree is reading this blog except, perhaps, GM).
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