social issues

Brandon Griefe at U.S. News and World Report wrote a piece yesterday arguing that the Republicans have an opportunity to make amends with young, Millennial voters given the "genuine fear" created by Democratic spending.

With such a large and active base of young supporters it would appear Democrats have their Republican opponents nearing checkmate. But a closer look at the chessboard reveals neither party is in good strategic position to topple the other’s king.

The Republicans’ problem has been their inability to connect with youth and minorities. Only recently have they begun to deemphasize the socially conservative aspects of their platform that have polarized voters since the culture wars of the 1960s. A recent Pew Research poll found that young adults are “clearly more accepting than older Americans of homosexuality, more inclined to see evolution as the best explanation of human life and…are much less likely to affiliate with any religious tradition.” These and other social issues are not major concerns of young adults, a fact that is slowly being realized as Republicans seek to broaden their voting base.

But Democrats’ recent legislative priorities show they’ve also done a poor job at setting the board up for success. Enormous debt and deficit spending to fund a variety of new programs has created a dire fiscal future that is creating genuine fear among young adults. Then-Sen. Barack Obama said it best in 2006:

Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

The rhetoric of 2006 has not translated into reality come 2010. The failure of leadership now continues under his watch with trillions in new debt obligations. Young adults will not be able to ignore the red ink that fills the nation’s ledger forever. Unless Democrats act quickly to reverse the growth of the government’s deficit they will poison the well of Millennial support that carried them to historic victories in 2008.

Griefe's analysis is faulty and disingenuous for three reasons.

1.) I don't believe I saw anything from Griefe or anyone else about deficit spending when George W. Bush was in the White House. When Bush entered the Oval Office, Bill Clinton handed his administration a surplus. When he left, we were trillions of dollars in debt. Two major tax cuts and two wars did quite a bit of damage:

Obama's stimulus package accounted for only .07/$1.00 of the national debt when he signed it into law. Nearly 90 percent of the debt was created under George W. Bush.

To clean up the mess Bush left, Obama has to spend more.

2.) The message about the national debt does not carry any water with Millennials, especially since they are encountering the worst youth unemployment rate since World War II. Our friend Karlo tackled this conservative talking point last year, aptly comparing someone climbing a hill to one's life-long relationship with government.

Imagine for a moment that you are trying to traverse a hill. The hill represents how much taxes you expect to pay over your lifetime. One end of the hill is the start (the beginning of your life), the top of the hill is middle-age, and the other end of the hill is, well, six-feet-under. At both ends of the hill, you pay relatively little in taxes, and the top of the hill is when you pay the most in taxes. This is what tax-paying looks like throughout the course of one's life. For some generations, traversing this hill was made easier (but not faster), because the government helped invest in the well-being of the tax-payer very early on in life.

This is not the case with Millennials. The rising cost (PDF) of college and beyond has not resulted in a proportionate increase in services or resources. When you place this fact of rising costs into the context of rising college attendance, the effect is magnified. The share of young people that have attended college has increased 21 percentage points from the 1970s to the present (PDF, pg. 5). What's more is the fact young people with post-graduate degrees on are on the rise, too. What all this amounts to is a more difficult (but not slower) journey over the hill. It's almost as if Millennials have to carry a heavy backpack (read: student debt) and still keep pace with everyone else. Now add to that the fact that the end of the hill for Millennials is much farther away than it is for previous generations due to longer life expectancy.

In addition to this, Millennials themselves tell National Journal that they think Obama's spending has been a good thing.

A plurality of Millennials say they believe that the president's agenda will increase rather than diminish opportunities for their generation (41 percent to 27 percent). More respondents say that his policies averted an even worse economic crisis (44 percent) than believe that Obama ran up the national debt without doing much good (36 percent). By 46 percent to 31 percent, they also say that the comprehensive health care reform bill Obama recently signed into law is a good thing for the country. Just one-fourth believe that the country is worse off because of the president's policies; the rest feel that his efforts have significantly improved conditions (16 percent) or are beginning to move the nation in the right direction, even if they haven't yet produced major gains (43 percent).

Given the toxic economy the Bush policies gave Millennials as they have come of age, making the figurative hill even steeper, the government must invest in the youngest generation to ensure they have a chance of getting over the top, and thankfully, it is.

3.) Griefe comically cites a list of GOPers including Rand Paul and Bob McDonnell as smartly handling social issues in order to keep the focus on the fiscal matters at hand.

This is pretty simple.

Rand Paul doesn't think the 1964 Civil Rights Act should have passed.

Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia issues a proclamation for Confederate History Month in the commonwealth, failing to mention trafficking of human beings and the consequential brutal decades of Jim Crow.

I'm not sure whether Griefe had a brain lapse here or what. Griefe is right that if the GOP can't get social issues right, they won't have any shot at Millennials period. Justin Miller at The Atlantic notes this, describing Millennials as the generation least tolerant of racism. The list of Republicans Griefe provides, though, is laughable. Their clumsy navigation of social issues has provided Democrats with several opportunities to beat back any Republican momentum.

The generational theft argument sounds good, but it doesn't play with young people. It plays even less with Millennials when it's shrouded in social issues.

Nice effort. Back to the drawing board.

The Center for American Progress released a report by Ruy Teixeira this week, "The Coming End of the Culture Wars," in which Teixeira examines the increasing impotence of social and cultural issues in today's political debate.

The report makes a few conclusions that should be familiar to FM readers.

Teixeira views the ongoing millennial boom as one reason for the decline in the social issue's prominence. Given the millennials' socially liberal views on many traditionally contentious social issues, they don't seem particularly "alarmed" when conservative concern trolls warn Americans of the country's leftward shift.

CAP’s Progressive Studies Program’s ideology survey similarly found that 18- to 29-year old Millennials were the most progressive generation by far on a comprehensive 10-item progressive cultural index covering topics ranging from religion, abortion, and homosexuality to race, immigration, and the family. Each item on this index had a 0-10 point range, with the most progressive response on each item receiving 10 points and the most conservative response receiving zero points. Millennials scored 56.6 out of 100 on the index, compared to a range of 46.4 to 52.9 for older generations.

And as more millennials ascend into positions of power and, thus, control the debate, more substantive, quality of life issues will be prevalent, drowning out discussions on issues such as abortion.

Another strong cause for the decreased power of the culture wars is found in demographics.

...The culturally conservative white working class has been declining rapidly as a proportion of the electorate for years. Exit polls show that the proportion of white working-class voters—scoring just 46.3 out of a 100 on the Progressive Studies Program comprehensive 10-item progressive cultural index covering topics ranging from religion, abortion, and homosexuality to race, immigration, and the family—is down 15 points since 1988, while the proportion of far more culturally progressive white college graduate voters (53.3 on the index) is up 4 points, and the proportion of minority voters (54.7 on the index) is up 11 points. State after state since 1988 has replicated this general pattern—a sharp decline in the share of white working-class voters accompanied by increases in the shares of minority voters and, in most cases, of increasingly progressive white college graduate voters.

Along with the decline in white working class voters, the numbers of traditionally progressive portions of the population are on the rise. Single women and professionals headline this group.

It's very important to point out that millennials aren't more progressive due to their increased diversity. Teixeira's report finds that white millennials are more progressive than many of their older siblings and parents.

But it is worth stressing that white Millennials, while not as culturally progressive as their minority counterparts, are still much more progressive than the overall population. Both white college graduate (56.1 on the PSP index) and white working-class Millennials (54.2) are more culturally progressive than older white college-graduate (53.5) and especially white working-class (45.6) adults. The difference between white working-class Millennials and older generations of the white working class is particularly important since it suggests that the white working class as a whole will become significantly less culturally conservative as culturally progressive white working-class Millennials replace conservative older white working-class voters in the electorate. This will severely undercut the popular appeal of culture wars politics, since this segment of the population has provided the bulk of support for such politics.

Teixera concludes by noting that conservatives will most likely continue to inject what they think are divisive issues into the political debate for political gain, though they'll find these efforts to be less successful with time. With the millennials coming into power, the American political dialogue should change for the better thanks to a far more focused discussion of the issues that can drastically improve Americans' quality of life.

Update: I don't pretend to believe that Huntsman's economic policies are going to be appealing to Millennials. But even so, the GOP is in such a bad strategic spot right now that merely talking about the economy represents a turn in the right direction. --Craig

In my last post, I used Frank Rich's column to point out the triumph of the economy over social and cultural issues in the national political conversation. In this one, I'll use a Times story on Gov. Jon Huntsman in Utah to look at a way forward among youth for the GOP, now handcuffed thanks to their inability to pursue social issues.

The majority of Utah's population is affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (including Huntsman himself). Because of the church's staunch stance against the use of alcohol, the state's liquor laws have been extremely restrictive since the 1960s. But Huntsman is one Republican who wasn't afraid to sacrifice a social issue for the betterment of the economy.

The old law [in Utah]... required anyone who walked into a bar to first buy a membership card to the bar’s “private club,” which typically cost $10 to $15. Tourism and restaurant lobby groups complained for years, saying the law made the state seem unwelcoming to outsiders.

“One of our economic pillars is travel and tourism,” said Mr. Huntsman, whose family roots in Utah — and family fortune in the Huntman Corporation, a chemical manufacturer — made him prominent here long before he first ran for governor in 2004. “And if that’s going to be hampered by these jaded and old-fashioned views, then that’s going to impact the cash register and therefore our ability to fund the things that most citizens care deeply about, like our schools.”

Talk like that, at a time of economic pain and budget turmoil, gave the liquor proposal legs, and led to a compromise that would abolish the private club system while tightening rules intended to keep under-age drinkers out of the bars. It is the most sweeping overhaul of state alcohol law since the 1960s.

So here's the first lesson Huntsman is teaching his fellow Republicans, similar to what I argued in my earlier post -- in economic hardship, cultural issues are less important. While one might think this move on Huntsman's part would be political suicide in Utah, it was not. Huntsman's adjustment to the liquor law was made to push Utah's tourism-driven economy forward; the legislature met him halfway because they know their constituents care about their own economic situations, not whether people might be drinking alcohol miles away from them.

“It’s been a kindler, gentler session,” said State Representative David Litvack, a Democrat from Salt Lake City and the minority leader in the House. “Where we are economically has made a big difference.”

And then we get to the GOP's second lesson from Huntsman: If you're going to talk about social issues, moderation is the name of the game.

But there are hints that Mr. Huntsman’s message of moderation, especially given his popularity in the state, is resonating beyond the Legislature and drawing support among the broader population.

In February, for example, when the governor announced that he would support civil unions for gay couples, many politicians here braced for a backlash.

Utah voters had approved an amendment to the State Constitution in 2004 banning same-sex marriage or anything that might approximate it, and one opinion poll by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research in January said 70 percent of Utahans still opposed civil unions.

But the backlash never developed. Indeed, after his announcement, a poll by Deseret News/KSL-TV found that two-thirds of respondents said their opinion of the governor had not changed or had become more positive because of his position on civil unions. Over all, the governor’s approval rating had barely budged, with 80 percent of residents saying they thought he was doing a good job.

While civil unions are hella anachronistic in many parts of the country, the statistic above illustrates the big step Huntsman was taking when he announced his support for civil unions for gay couples. But again, in a tough economy, the public doesn't have the luxury of worrying about social issues.

What does this have to do with young people? Over the past couple weeks, many of the writers at FM have explored the impact of the economy on youth. Faced with student loan debt or in a financial situation that kept them from going to college in the first place, many young people are squeezed more each day in the job market, either being laid off or unable to find a steady job to pay the bills. Many are risking everything to hone entrepreneurial skills that might get them quick cash. If a Republican candidate can understand this and sacrifice conservative stands on social issues for some straight talk on the economy, like Huntsman has begun to do in Utah, the GOP might gain some relevance among youth.

Unfortunately, though, party boss Rush Limbaugh and his machine still control the GOP, and they'd rather become irrelevant among today's youth than give up dividing people.

Note: Sorry for the light content yesterday. My car battery died, and it was a bit of a hassle trying to take care of that. Lots of stuff today, so get ready to read. -- Craig

Frank Rich's column today in the Times is a must-read.

Rich writes the obituary for the culture wars, demonstrating how social issues just don't matter anymore for the majority of Americans like they did even a couple years ago.

What has happened between 2001 and 2009 to so radically change the cultural climate? Here, at last, is one piece of good news in our global economic meltdown: Americans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years. Culture wars are a luxury the country — the G.O.P. included — can no longer afford.

Not only was Obama’s stem-cell decree an anticlimactic blip in the news, but so was his earlier reversal of Bush restrictions on the use of federal money by organizations offering abortions overseas. When the administration tardily ends “don’t ask, don’t tell,” you can bet that this action, too, will be greeted by more yawns than howls.

Once again, both the president and the country are following New Deal-era precedent. In the 1920s boom, the reigning moral crusade was Prohibition, and it packed so much political muscle that F.D.R. didn’t oppose it. The Anti-Saloon League was the Moral Majority of its day, the vanguard of a powerful fundamentalist movement that pushed anti-evolution legislation as vehemently as it did its war on booze. (The Scopes “monkey trial” was in 1925.) But the political standing of this crowd crashed along with the stock market. Roosevelt shrewdly came down on the side of “the wets” in his presidential campaign, leaving Hoover to drown with “the dries.”

[...]

In our own hard times, the former moral “majority” has been downsized to more of a minority than ever. Polling shows that nearly 60 percent of Americans agree with ending Bush restrictions on stem-cell research (a Washington Post/ABC News survey in January); that 55 percent endorse either gay civil unions or same-sex marriage (Newsweek, December 2008); and that 75 percent believe openly gay Americans should serve in the military (Post/ABC, July 2008). Even the old indecency wars have subsided. When a federal court last year struck down the F.C.C. fine against CBS for Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl, few Americans either noticed or cared about the latest twist in what had once been a national cause célèbre.

Being a nut for generational theory, especially as it applies to politics, I liked that Rich reached back to the Great Depression to illustrate the power that the economy has over cultural issues in trying times. Just as many GIs were raised amid a culture of indulgence in the '20s, Millennials shared a similar experience in the 1990s. With the glitz stripped away by the stock market crash in 1929 and this decade's terror attacks, the War in Iraq, and financial meltdown, the issues of prohibition, same-sex marriage, and church and state relationships suddenly take on a new irrelevance.

In Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas, we learn why a focus on economics is unfavorable for the GOP:

In fact, [conservative] backlash leaders systematically downplay the politics of economics. The movement's basic premise is that culture outweighs economics as a matter of public concern -- that Values Matter Most, as one backlash title has it. On those grounds it rallies citizens who would once have been reliable partisans of the New Deal to the standard of conservatism... Over the last three decades they have smashed the welfare state, reduced the tax burden on corporations and the wealthy, and generally facilitated the country's return to a nineteenth-century pattern of wealth distribution. Thus the primary contradiction of the backlash: it is a working-class movement that has done incalculable, historic harm to working-class people. (p. 6)

In other words, turning the spotlight on economics restricts the Republicans in their efforts to distract voters so that they can rob them of their quality of life.

With all this in mind, we now have the Millennials arriving -- a generation more focused on the common good than any in the last seventy or eighty years -- who think the government has a large role to play in ensuring Americans' economic security. Far from ideological, youth today just want something to work. Squeezed by the economy even before the meltdown, are youth really going to care that gays are serving in the military, especially given their already progressive views?

Perhaps we have a generation that gets engaged every eighty years because there's suddenly an important political dialogue to be had. Not one that's focused on distraction and division, but a conversation that is positive and constructive, one led by young people who are builders by nature, whose meritocratic attitudes push institutions upward. There are no limits on what can be accomplished. The work to be done is so serious that the pettiness of Republican "backlash" politics doesn't even have a place in the discussion anymore.

The hypnotism of America is over. And while there's much work to be done, let's be grateful that we can actually start working.