WHY REPUBLICANS RISK LOSING IN NOVEMBER!
There used to be what was known as the mercantile theory (a model really) of political parties. The notion was that the two parties acted like rival department stores. During the holiday season each could depend on its regular customers, and then compete for the last minute shoppers. The model suggested that, as the number of regular customers declined and the stores were forced to increasingly depend on the last minute shoppers, the system would become increasingly chaotic and unpredictable. The stores would have to depend on advertising and marketing to win over the increasing number of the uncommitted.
That model does create a picture of what is happening to the parties as we approach the off-year election this November: The Republicans, relying on Trump rally goers, are vulnerable to losses of more prosperous suburban voters (their regular customers) turned off by a president who is clearly floundering. As newly fledged last minute shoppers, those people are turning to Democratic candidates and that is why we hear so much about the Democrats doing well in the suburbs.
The Democrats have been hoping to turn a “coalition of the emergent.” (young people, Hispanics, newly activated black voters, women) into committed “regular customers”. That has so far not worked well. Voters in those groups have proven to be, up till now, last minute shoppers. During off year elections they tend not to shop at all. Without all the publicity and the star power of a presidential campaign they stay home.
In all this the Republican Party is the most vulnerable. Republicans were traditionally the party of small towns, farm owners, business owners, professionals; the good people. That identity, built on conservative moral values, competence in governing, leadership in the long Cold War, was solidified during the long period of prosperity following World War II.
Beginning in roughly 1968, that Republican principled competence at the national level began to erode (local Republicans did just fine). That erosion led to a decline in conscientious governing that culminated in the election of Donald Trump. The Republicans now in Congress are now simply uninterested in doing anything new for the ordinary voters who still support them. With no real program (other than increased military spending and huge looming deficits), and forced to rely on the manipulation of anger to bring out voters, the Party in clearly vulnerable as its most informed “regular customers” shop elsewhere.
The Democrats in the meantime have their own problems. Beginning with the Clintons in 1992, the Democrats allowed their very real connection with ordinary workers to be lost. Beginning with the Clintons, the well credentialed Democratic leadership (all the best universities) lost sight of the need to encourage real worker participation in the party. Too many Democratic Party actives also took up social causes (abortion, gay rights, gay marriage) worthy in themselves but not likely to appeal to the traditional Democratic working class “regular shoppers”. Workers moved to the Republicans and their “real manhood campaign”.
Think of “shoppers” as consumers. Americans, more than half of whom live in suburbia, are really expert at being consumers, a great deal of their lives center around buying things. They buy things that make them feel good about themselves. At this point what the Trump administration is producing is most definitely not something that makes many Republicans feel good about themselves. So, people who have been regular customers of the Republicans are moving on. That is showing up as increased voting for Democrats in the suburbs.
Democratic actives are divided about what “customers” they should pursue. Many believe that their party is more apt to win if it can concentrate on attracting voters from those educated traditional Republicans in the suburbs. They advocate the creation of a moderate responsible image. Others, whose interests are often connected with Bernie Sanders of Vermont, want the party to offer far more programs to benefit ordinary people. They hope that the greater equality promised by those programs will help to win the huge number of potential shoppers from among minorities and the young. They hope to finally turn those people into real Democrats.
When so many voters are on the move, thinking of our model, we do have a great increase in “last minute shoppers”. The real question for November is whether a significant number of traditional Republicans will find themselves moving to the Democrats. If they do then we may have a real increase in regular customers for the Democrats and the Republican prospects for 2020 will look increasingly grim. Both parties need to think carefully about whether what they are offering their “shoppers” that will make those people feel good about themselves. If they offer nothing, they lose!
H.J. Rishel
8/29/2018
