AdNags has a formulaic and mostly unobjectionable piece up at the New York Times on the Republican Party’s internal squabbles and fears about how their opposition to gay marriage will play out in the 2016 election.
As you might expect, Nagourney relies heavily on consulting class conservatives for his sources and analysis. These are people who can read the internals of polling data, but they’re also a class of people for whom gay marriage is not a particularly passionate topic.
The basic story is familiar. America, as a whole, has moved rather rapidly to embrace gay marriage and it is widely expected that the Supreme Court, which will hear argument on this topic tomorrow, will soon move to ratify the public’s shift in law. But, when you drill down into the data, you soon discover that Republicans (alone among ideological groups) continue to oppose gay marriage. That might be nearly the end of the story, except that when you drill down still further you find that young Republicans are different. A majority of them differ with their elders and also embrace gay marriage.
“This is an issue that is being decided by demography every single day — 59 percent of Americans support marriage equality, including 52 percent of Republicans under 50 and more than 60 percent of evangelicals under 30 — and also by human experience,” said Ken Mehlman, a businessman who came out as gay after serving as the Republican national chairman. “When people see couples who have married, they see love, they see more stability, they see more commitment and they see more compassionate care for people who are old and are sick and more stable homes where children are being raised.”
Ken Mehlman refers there to 60% of evangelicals under 30 supporting gay marriages, and this suggests to me that the number may be higher for young Republicans as a whole. Without access to the polling data, I can’t be sure how these groups are split out, but the point is that there is a big generational divide within the right. The future seems to be foreordained on this issue, even for the GOP.
Yet, if you turn on Fox News or Hate Radio, or you read right-wing periodicals and blogs, you’ll notice that there’s a bit of full-court press going on at the moment. The idea they’re pushing very hard right now is that opponents of gay marriage are being oppressed and that this constitutes an overt and aggressive war on Christians and Christianity itself. The president is portrayed as the alternatively atheistic or Muslim leader of this war, and the Supreme Court is coming under preemptive fire, but it’s the so-called “Gaystapo” or “Gay Mafia” and the liberal left who are the primary villains in this story of martyrdom.
It’s hard to separate true passion from cynicism in this media campaign, as both are present in large supply. What’s a bit easier to assess is the effect. The predominantly older white conservatively Christian audience for this barrage is being told in a very repetitive and aggressive manner that their way of life is under siege. And it’s not just media that is engaging in this rhetoric. Many of the putative Republican candidates for the presidency are pushing this line, too. Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz have gone so far as to suggest that the Supreme Court’s ruling (presuming it favors gay marriage) should not be respected.
Let’s pause here for a moment to talk about Senator Cruz since he’s in the news on this subject and what he’s saying is fairly representative of what right-wing media have been saying.
In the likely event that the Supreme Court brings marriage equality to all 50 states this summer, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) wants to strip the entire federal judiciary of its power to hear cases brought by same-sex couples seeking the right to marry, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Cruz’s remarks came during a speech in Sioux City, Iowa, where the tea party senator also praised the original, more discrimination-friendly version of Indiana’s new “religious liberty” law, and claimed that a cabal of liberals and big business endorsed a “radical gay marriage agenda” which says that “any person of faith is subject to persecution if they dare” disagree with marriage equality.
Now, let’s put aside any possible merits to Cruz’s argument. What is the likely result of sending these kinds of messages to the conservative base of the country in a presidential election season?
I think this polarizes the electorate at the same time that it corrodes acceptance of the legitimacy of our most important political and legal institutions.
And, perhaps unfortunately, the Democrats have little reason to discourage this kind of behavior for a variety of reasons. First, they have the majority position. Second, they are on the right side of history and well-positioned for the future. And, third, it is one area of real strength with independents.
During the 2016 campaign, Mr. [Glen] Bolger [a Republican pollster] said, he thought same-sex marriage would fade as an issue. Still, he said, a key question is whether independent voters, who strongly support same-sex marriage, end up considering its importance when the time comes to vote.
“Independents are the vanguard — they are the tip of the spear on this,” he said. “This is one of those issues where independents look more like Democrats. It’s one of the few issues where they do.”
I think the Dems are better positioned with independents than Mr. Bolger does, but he’s correct to identify this as probably the starkest issue advantage the Democrats have with that cohort. So, we shouldn’t expect the Democrats to let this wedge go untapped. Even if the Republicans were inclined to gloss over their differences and focus on other things, the Dems won’t allow it.
I say that this is unfortunate not because the Democrats are wrong or even responsible for this debate, but because it’s a phony and temporary war that will help the Republicans rally their base while alienating everyone else. It will also exacerbate racial/tribal thinking on the right and further diminish their respect for government and the legitimacy of our courts and justice system.
It’s bad leadership on the right’s part that might mobilize their supporters but not in a good way. It makes them worse people, and it will make it harder for the rest of us to deal with them later.
And, no matter what the right does, they can’t propagandize their way out of the fact that this issue divides them.
On a personal note, it’s hard to overstate how much destruction and irreparable harm to relationships is being wrought within familial circles around the country when such absolutely dangerous and inflammatory bullshit is peddled around the clock across the media spectrum. It is permanently scarring and destroying families.
I don’t hesitate to use the word “evil” to describe this stuff. Especially knowing that a large portion of the propaganda is disseminated out of political expediency (i.e. the need to rile up the troops) rather than conviction.
For me personally, those lines between conviction and political expediency are blurred. There is an interconnectedness between this and other issues related to those people among us who are “different”. Whether it be by race, religion, ethnicity, political persuasion or any other characteristic which seemingly places someone outside the acceptable or proper tribal circle.
I struggle daily to try and find a way to keep some separation in my mind between my feelings for those who I have loved my entire life, from views they hold which I find personally reprehensible. It grows harder every day. And pieces of shit like Cruz and Huckabee, who seem to gleefully thrive on feeding this monster of hate, only make my personal efforts more difficult.
I am, by nature, a very patient and empathetic person. So I don’t say this lightly; but I hate people like Cruz and Huckabee. They are loathesome human beings. Yes, your description of “evil” might be very appropriate in this case.
If those young Republicans vote for a Democrat for President twice they’ll mostly become Democrats.
Wedge away. Also, the Republicans will have to fold, and soon, and the bigger an issue it is beforehand the worse it will be for them.
Obamacare, as the Right intentionally christened it, may prove to be the pointy edge of the wedge. Opinions on gay marriage may vary but everyone needs health insurance.
I reckon that’s Obama’s legacy; a divided and spent Republican party and the rest of us sick of them but covered.
After the ‘war on women’, it seems to me. Just because they have gone quiet about criminalising contraception doesn’t mean it isn’t still an aspiration among the most conservative.
But back to your thesis, it would seem that candidates like Cruz are making things difficult for the mainstream GOP to promote a winning platform. Assuming he or his strategists aren’t stupid (‘can read the internals of polling data’) what do you suppose his motives are? And his price for silence on the subject? The vice presidency?
Or is he merely addicted to celebrity of sorts?
Maybe the whole party has lost the plot:
Sheesh. Reality television for a niche audience.
Judging from the past three or four decades, many in the leadership on the Right seem to see this as a feature, not a bug. Those institutions are in their way, so if they can call the legitimacy of those institutions into question, it’s easier for them — and their owners — to get away with shit.
And they use the Culture Wars — aka, the slow crumbling of the Christianist de facto theocracy — to blame the problems they cause on the supposedly “unAmerican” people who oppose them.
Well, if the USSC rules in favor of SSM, then it’s almost certain that Roberts will go along with it.
That should tell the RW GOPers: Roberts is a traitor to their cause. He ruled in favor of Obamacare, he rules in favor of gay marriage.
So they should start impeachment proceedings immediately; sure, they might not remove Roberts, but they can give him a good scare.
OR, they can be whiny cowards and just run their mouths.
I know which one I’m betting on.
Why are old people perpetually old and cranky on issues that make them look old and stupid? Yet, quick to embrace a new ethos or standard when the old one was best preserved?
Thus, torture today is no longer unacceptable. A few decades ago, it seemed as if evolution was finally acceptable, but somehow it has become unacceptable again in spite of the growing body of evidence for its validity over those decades.
Regardless of whether or not marriage is a healthful institution, it is a legal one that all consenting adults should have the right to choose to participate in. With one restriction that it’s limited to two people for the practical reason that more than two raises too many difficult and thorny questions and issues that are beyond our legal system to accommodate.
Same-sex couples have existed for probably as long as straight couples have. Marriage is a relatively recent construct and had more to do with property than love. That’s why the elites created it for themselves.
WaPo – SCOTUS oral arguments
The Week dot com
Is Kennedy ignorant or willfully ignorant? Some hope if it’s the former, but not looking good if it’s the latter. That would put the ball in Roberts’ court where he doesn’t like having it land.
Okay. So lets take his question at face value.
It was also a long-standing view in much of the world; for millennea, in fact, that it was okay to own other human beings as property.
So that makes it a rational position for someone to hold today? Seems to me like a pretty fucking stupid premise for a Supreme Court Justice to make.
I might have read something into what you wrote that you didn’t intend:
“I think this polarizes the electorate at the same time that it corrodes acceptance of the legitimacy of our most important political and legal institutions.
And, perhaps unfortunately, the Democrats have little reason to discourage this kind of behavior for a variety of reasons.”
The behavior I thought you were highlighting was the corrosive-of-institutions part. I don’t think you were, but I’m asking the question: Why do Democrats let Republicans get away threatening to overthrow the government and basic institutions of functioning democracy?
I’m actually quite a bit concerned about this trend, because while it’s been a regular part of American politics since at least the John Birch society back in the 50’s, it’s never been something talked about openly in a national context, much less having to be at least tacitly-approved-of by any serious presidential candidate [correct me if I’m wrong — I came of age during Ronald Reagan, and maybe I wasn’t paying attention, but starting on 9/11, but really only blossoming after the election of Obama, is some real, mind-boggingly terrifying stupid.]
It reminds me of 1930’s Italy, when fascists just took over by fiat*, flat-out ignoring any authority but their own. If there is ever a real, society-wide shock, I’m pretty sure these guys would make a fairly transparent play for power (like Jeb trying to head off a federal court order by kidnapping the body of that braindead woman a few years ago; or, in Florida again, threatening ballot counters).
I’d feel a lot more comfortable if that kind of stuff was actively countered. It’s plain unacceptable; Cruz should be run out of town.
* Fiat the word, not the car. I just had this image of little Italian fascists driving fiats into court houses and declaring themselves judges
Anti-government impulses, persuasions, and personalities have been with us since before there was an US. Probably not unique to this country. They only coalesce into a large group when the perceived grievances become intolerable and experienced as wide-spread. Insurrection follows from that. So far, that’s only happened twice in US history.
It may be less regionally concentrated today, but not uglier than it was in 1957. How many of us could have managed the horror that Elizabeth Eckford was subjected to?
What was rare at that time wasn’t the existence of a large and conservative group defying federal law, but that TPTB cracked down on them. “Conservatives” know that they’re tolerated regardless of how wacky and unhinged they become, as long as they don’t kill a LEO, because their anti-government stylings don’t threaten TPTB. It’s always the “lefties” that are a threat.
That’s because conservatives only very rarely fight against the entrenched powers. After all, the bedrock principle of conservatism is defense of arbitrary hierarchical domination in all of its forms: whites vs. non-whites, heteronormatives vs. queers, manly men vs. milksops, Christians vs. non-Christians, etc. etc. The aristocracy finds this arrangement very convenient to assume power in, much like how Bronze age shepherds found the arrangement of flocks convenient for assuming domination over livestock.
The times that they do manage to fight against The Man they are always easily placated — look at how quickly the Tea Party abandoned even its quarter-loaf anti-corporatism. The KKK and Minutemen and even the birchers don’t really threaten the overclass. They’ll still get the lion’s share of society’s spoils no matter how many of the social conservatives’ inane demands that they accede to. Unless of course doing so threatens their own power. Look at how quickly the overclass turned on the conservatives over gay marriage.
Look at how quickly the overclass turned on the conservatives over gay marriage.
The speakers for their useful idiots are still speaking. Either totally oblivious of what happens when they become inconvenient or each having the high expectation of becoming TPTB’s main man. If one of them should somehow gain too much legitimate power among the rabble, TPTB can always use the Night of the Long Knives option.