| Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Tuesday's big flap was an interview at Vox with James Carville, who accused Democrats of being too "woke" and using "faculty lounge" language instead of rhetoric voters like. Kevin Drum adds: "one thing that's clear is that Republicans sure think that attacking wokeness is a winning strategy."
I'm not so sure. The truth is that all the rhetoric probably doesn't matter much. If the economy is doing well, then the president's party benefits. Voters tend to reward peace and prosperity; they punish economic downturns, casualties in foreign wars and presidential scandals. It's obviously not that simple, but the effects of the other stuff are very hard to see in election results. Sure, it's better to give good speeches than bad ones! But there's simply not much evidence that good slogans help or that inelegant or out-of-touch language hurts very much.
Getting to my point here, while it's probably true that some liberal writers and activists use language that doesn't resonate with swing voters, the politicians who focus most on obscurities are Republicans who are deeply steeped in the various controversies that dominate conservative media.
Which is where I really disagree with Drum. Do Republicans think that "attacking wokeness" will help them win? I have no idea. What seems more plausible is that the stuff they're talking about is what sells in the conservative marketplace. It's what keeps ratings high at Fox News, elevates conservative talk-show hosts, sells books and wins donations. Republican politicians who want to get noticed in this world have learned exactly which parades to jump to the front of — and those aren't necessarily the parades that swing voters are cheering.
Carville closes by urging Democrats to emulate Republicans. This is … a bit weird, given that Democrats (despite some disappointments) just delivered unified government, and have now won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. They haven't done that because they're actually better at electioneering; the point is that it just doesn't matter much.
What does matter is the effect all this has on a party's capacity to govern. By empowering their media allies to the extent that they dominate the party, Republicans have seriously harmed their ability to run the government. Democrats certainly don't want to allow a small fringe to run their party. And we'll see how their policy agenda turns out. But the last thing they should be doing is attempting to copy the way Republicans have organized themselves.
1. Monique Newton at the Monkey Cage on the police and Black Lives Matter protesters.
2. Scott Lemieux on the Supreme Court and campaign finance.
3. Andrew C. McKevitt on the Gun Control Act of 1968.
4. Aaron Carroll on the end of the pandemic.
5. Theodoric Meyer on the central role of reconciliation in the legislative process.
6. And Bloomberg's Marie Patino, Aaron Kessler and Sarah Holder on U.S. internal migration.
Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. | 
Post a Comment