Over at The American Conservative, Larison uses the NY Times/CBS News poll to argue that the Tea Partiers aren’t populists but rather “base” conservatives. He echoes Peter Beinart, who points out the differences between the Tea Partiers and the followers of William Jennings Bryan. As far as the data go, they’re right. Tea Party supporters appear to be better educated, wealthier, and more likely to call themselves conservative than the general population.
Does that mean that they can’t also be populists? I’m not sure. On the one hand, populism can refer a particular tradition of redistributionist, anti-corporate, usually agrarian political ideas. Most Tea Partiers reject that tradition. On the other hand, populism can describe a conception of the appropriate relation between governors and governed in a representative democracy. On this view, policy should be much more closely tied to public opinion, or to direct popular decision, than to the judgment of legislative or bureaucratic elites.
Many of the Tea Partiers, it seems to me, are populists in the latter sense. If you prefer, call them plebiscitarians rather than populists. Thing is, white, male, married conservatives over the age of 45 are not a majority in this country, or even a majority of voters. I suspect that this frustrating reality is the source of the racial and cultural anxieties beneath the surface of the small-government rhetoric.
UPDATE: Larison responds with a typically thoughtful post. I agree with much of it. But I don’t think that undermines the argument I made above, because we’re actually making slightly different points. To be clear, I’m suggesting that the Tea Partiers tend to regard themselves as plebscitarians. Larison, on the other hand, points out that they really aren’t–or at least that their majoritarianism seems conditional on getting their way.
But both these things can true. Given the incoherence on policy that many Tea Partiers demonstrate (especially in regard to entitlement and defense spending), there’s no reason that they shouldn’t also be incoherent in their self-conception.
So where I disagree with Larison is his claim that “Conservatives actually know very well that they do not speak for a majority in this country, and they are also well aware that changes that would allow for more direct, plebiscitary democracy, whether in presidential elections or in passing legislation, would work to the detriment of their smaller states and their overall political interests.” That assumes a level of cynicism that may be cultivated by a Mitt Romney, but probably not many rank-and-file conservatives, who either don’t know this, or suffer from such extreme cognitive dissonance that it doesn’t effect their thinking.
April 17th, 2010 | 11:46 am
Your last paragraph exposes the contradiction at play; the constant cries of representing the “people”, when its fairly apparent the people doing the shouting are, by any objective measure, no where near the majority anymore, and are fast on their way to be a minority. That doesn’t make, like Daniel pointed out, them wrong, but on a procedural basis, what they advocate is certainly not true.
April 17th, 2010 | 12:05 pm
[...] Goldman at Postmodern Conservative responds to the previous post with a fair point: Does that mean that they can’t also be populists? I’m [...]
April 17th, 2010 | 12:19 pm
Sam, you know, you’re writing a nice, informative blog here and you end it with this:
“Thing is, white, male, married conservatives over the age of 45 are not a majority in this country, or even a majority of voters. I suspect that this frustrating reality is the source of the racial and cultural anxieties beneath the surface of the small-government rhetoric.”
I’ve been to a number of TP events and never ran into a ‘racist,’ or someone suffering from ‘cultural anxieties.’
The TPers by and large do see our Kenyan president (Michelle recently said Kenya was his “home” country, so I’ll take her word for it because she is smart) as your typical derailed Leftist-socialist-communist (pick one) Democrat and they’re aware that he’s really, really screwing up the country. They don’t dislike him because of his light brown skin, or that he’s the product of miscegenation, or the texture of his hair but rather because he’s an incompetent ‘community organizer’ who is determined to transfer public monies to the parasite class, while simultaneously punishing the productive class with punitive taxes and the threat to the Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs they were required to join by previous Democrat regimes.
The very good thing about the TP phenomenon is that they may not only be the catalyst for unseating the Democrats, they may be able to thwart the efforts of the GOP neocons and the country club set to control the party, but we’ll have to see.
I don’t have the room here to tell you of my TP adventures yesterday so I’ll blog something!
April 17th, 2010 | 6:12 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Martinez Glaspie. Martinez Glaspie said: Of Parties and Populists » Postmodern Conservative | A First …: Tea Party supporters appear to be better educate… http://bit.ly/aLnL22 [...]
April 17th, 2010 | 9:37 pm
Sam, I think you’re over thinking this TP thing. For example: “Thing is, white, male, married conservatives over the age of 45 are not a majority in this country, or even a majority of voters. I suspect that this frustrating reality is the source of the racial and cultural anxieties beneath the surface of the small-government rhetoric.” Well, the comment isn’t really applicable.
These people want what FDR and LBJ forced them to take: Social Security and Medicare. They think that they are owed it now that they’ve been forced to pay into it for the past forty years or so. And, Sam they’ve got a good point!
They are also fed up with the parasite class and illegals being the recipients of federal largesse. These folks, these old, white, conservatives you speak of, all members of the productive class have been required to do the heavy lifting, to pay with their sweat and toil for the dope smoking, baby breeding, non-working recipients of generational “welfare.”
These old, white, conservatives don’t dislike our Kenyan (Michelle recently remarked that Obama’s “home” country was Kenya) President because of his light brown skin, or that he’s the product of miscegenation, or because of his hair texture rather because of his Marxist sympathies and his apparent efforts to ‘socialize’ the United States. I should think they have every right to be upset. I don’t know what political clout they will have, we’ll have to see.
Something I would like you to examine is the liberal voting record of the American Jewish community. I’d really like to know why so many Jews support a man who obviously abhors Israel.
April 18th, 2010 | 7:23 pm
“Something I would like you to examine is the liberal voting record of the American Jewish community. I’d really like to know why so many Jews support a man who obviously abhors Israel.”
Uh, because they are, as you say, Americans, not Israelis. To suggest that Jews’ religion should steer their views on foreign policy is insulting and asinine. Not to mention the stuff of classic anti-Semitism (also, change a few words, anti-Catholicism).
April 18th, 2010 | 9:50 pm
Philip, “insulting and asinine,” not to mention “anti-semitism”. Well, dude, that’s quite a laundry list of prohibitive acts.
Still, i would like to understand how an American Jew, presumably one who supports the continued existence of the state of Israel, could support President Obama’s foreign policy related to the Middle East and Israel in particular.
And Philip, i could care less who’s insulted by the question. All I want is a truthful answer.
April 19th, 2010 | 7:45 am
Bob, that’s a question for another thread. Part of the answer is that many American Jews agree with Obama that Israel has choice between retaining the territories (whether for security reasons or for Greater Israel) and remaining a democratic state, which is a more important value for them than nationalism. With certain qualifications, so do I. And I see no evidence that Obama, or any other major player in the Administration “abhors” Israel.
April 19th, 2010 | 4:43 pm
Some additional thoughts here, which some of you may find interesting.
April 19th, 2010 | 9:54 pm
“And I see no evidence that Obama, or any other major player in the Administration “abhors” Israel.”
Sadly, there were Jews in Germany in 1934 or so, who said the very same thing about Herr Hitler, though Dear Leader is by no means the Fuhrer. But Sam, you’re right. That’s for another thread and I hope you write it.l
April 21st, 2010 | 2:22 pm
[...] Goldman at Postmodern Conservative responds to the previous post with a fair point: Does that mean that they can’t also be populists? I’m [...]
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