Thomas Frank offers one of the clearest anaylses on culture war wedge political issues I’ve ever seen. He takes the FMA as his example, but his topic is really the mechanics of getting the base so fired up they’re beating down the doors to get in on election day. He’s writing from a pro-liberal point of view, but I’m going to edit his text just a bit in order to examine this unpartisanly (no, I’m not edging toward the middle…there’s a method to this madness):
[W]hat culture war offensive isn’t doomed to failure from the start? Indeed, the inevitability of defeat seems to be a critical element of the melodrama, on issues from school prayer to evolution and even abortion.
Failure on the cultural front serves to magnify the outrage felt by conservative[/liberal] true believers; it mobilizes the base. Failure sharpens the distinctions between conservatives and liberals. Failure allows for endless grandstanding without any real-world consequences that might upset more moderate Republicans[/Democracts] or the party’s all-important corporate[/social issue] wing. You might even say that grand and garish defeat — especially if accompanied by the ridicule of the sophisticated — is the culture warrior’s very object.
The issue is all-important; the issue is incapable of being won. Only when the battle is defined this way can it achieve the desired results, have its magical polarizing effect. [No way to edit this next line, so consider it an example.] Only with a proposed constitutional amendment could the legalistic, cavilling Democrats be counted on to vote “no,” and only with an offensive so blunt and so sweeping could the universal hostility of the press be secured.
Losing is prima facie evidence that the basic conservative[/liberal] claim is true: that the country is run by liberals[/conservatives]; that the world is unfair; that the majority is persecuted by a sinister elite. And that therefore you, my red-state[\blue state] friend, had better get out there and vote as if your civilization depended on it.
Now, when I first read that I was fired up. “He’s right, dammit! They are playing those poor unsuspecting folks back home like a finely tuned fiddle. If only their base really knew what they were up to, why they’d turn on those dastardly politicians…” And then something clicked.
Would they? Do we, the folks back home, really object to be being played like a fiddle? Or do wedge politics simply offer us a license to release some of the prejudice we carry around in our day-to-day lives?
My day job is making highly annoying demands on my time this morning, so I’ll leave this rather open-ended, but I think personally, when I agree with an issue, I’m rather relieved, if not delighted, to be played.
Whereas I’d prefer to toss all the distorted loadings of an issue out the window as the very first act so we can then start to examine it factually and logically, and come to some conclusion as to what the best policy might be, and then see what we can do to convince people of that, doing our best to keep party, prejudice, and nonsense aside.
Weird, eh?
Whereas I’d prefer to toss all the distorted loadings of an issue out the window as the very first act so we can then start to examine it factually and logically
In the realword, however, most find that as productive as banging their head on their desk, Gary. Not that it’s not the most conceptually sound approach, just that it doesn’t seem to work that way.
What would the Democratic analog to this strategy be?
You know Gromit, I started and rejected several replies to your question, but just don’t think I’m the best person to answer that (despite my painful attempts to be balanced in the post).
Would any of our Republican friends like to answer Gromit’s question?
I don’t think there’s really an advantage to be gained by loosing dogs that won’t hunt. The “pro” outrage and the “con” outrage seem to balance each other out. (Am I just paraphrasing Edward?)