JONATHAN CHAIT APRIL 8, 2010
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Cato's Will Wilkinson predicts that a generation of younger, libertarian-leaning voters will takeover the Democratic Party and push it in a libertarian direction:
I think this might pose a problem for liberals like Chait, who continue to see moderate social democracy as the ideal of American liberal government. If libertarian-ish young people drift into the Democratic Party simply because they’re grossed out by everything responsible for making Sarah Palin a hero, they’ll have to be convinced by old-guard liberals that, say, turning Social Security and Medicare into forced savings programs defies all that is liberal and holy before the youngsters manage to convince other Democrats that this type of thing is a pretty good idea.
Wilkinson seems enchanted by the prospect of me in the future, shaking my cane at those damn kids taking over the Democratic Party with their loud music and fervent desire to privatize Social Security. I actually think that sounds like lots of fun. Sadly, it has little bearing on reality.
Despite Wilkinson's description of younger voters as "libertarian-ish," the reality is that young voters are far more pro-government than any other generation. This can be seen in the Pew Survey report (PDF) on Millenials, entitled "A Pro-Government, Socially Liberal Generation." It features data like this:
That's not very libertarian-ish at all,is it? And on Social Security, if George W. Bush couldn't convince Americans to privatize the program in 2005, after a 25-year bull market when stocks were widely assumed to be lucrative and safe, I don't see how anybody who lived through the current crisis is going to come around.
Indeed, when libertarians like Wilkinson talk about "libertarian-ish" voters in any context, they're leaning very, very heavily on the "ish." The most thorough breakdown of the electorate is Pew's voter typology survey, last conducted in 2005, which categorizes voters into nine basic groups. The overwhelming finding of this research is that the components of both electoral coalitions are far less libertarian than their parties -- the GOP coalition has a lot of hawkish or socially conservative voters who favor more economic activism, and the Democratic Party has a lot of social conservatives who are skeptical of immigration and gay marriage. The sorting of the parties is one reflection of the massive over-representation of libertarian-ish views among elites.
If you look at Pew's typology, principled anti-government economic views tend to hold only among voters who are also down-the-line conservatives. And that viewpoint is quite small. To be sure, most Americans will express opposition to government in the abstract, and don't want to pay higher taxes. They can be skeptical of government programs that they think will benefit other people at their own expense. But these sentiments shouldn't be confused with any principled opposition to government, at least not a principle that can survive contact with real-world questions. Raising taxes on the rich is overwhelmingly popular. In 2000, about 90% of the public favored adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. The remaining 10% corresponds to what Pew calls "Enterprisers," which is the hard-core group of Republican partisans who are anti-government on economics, very hawkish and socially conservative. Which is to say, people with principled opposition to economic activism and left-of-center social views or dovish foreign policy views aren't numerous enough to register.
Practically speaking, the libertarian vote is non-existent, while the opposite viewpoint -- economically liberal and socially conservative, which some call populist -- is quite large. This fact tends to get lost in the political discussion because the political discussion is run by elites who are far closer to libertarianism than the public as a whole. (Case in point: Press critic Jay Rosen recently suggested CNN divvy its evening lineup into left/right/libertarian blocs, ignoring the vastly larger populist segment of the electorate.) Populist voters simple lack any intellectual infrastructure whatsoever.
Now, this has no bearing on the intellectual value of libertarianism, which obviously is unrelated to its popularity. But it's worth keeping in mind when we discuss the electorate, because such discussions often operate under the mistaken assumption that there's an enormous pool of libertarian or libertarian-leaning voters ignored by the two-party system. The opposite is the case. If the parties were to restructure themselves so as to become more responsive to public opinion, then Democrats would move rightward on social issues, and Republicans leftward on economics.
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12 comments
Young people tend to be pretty close to the center on economic issues, from what I can tell. They want an active but restrained government. They tend to like the status quo. They don't support a large expansion of government, but nor do they support efforts to shrink it.
- Virginia Centrist
April 8, 2010 at 12:26pm
Practically speaking, the libertarian vote is non-existent, while the opposite viewpoint -- economically liberal and socially conservative, which some call populist -- is quite large. This fact tends to get lost in the political discussion because the political discussion is run by elites who are far closer to libertarianism than the public as a whole. . . . Populist voters simple lack any intellectual infrastructure whatsoever. Sigh. How true. I guess it's up to people like me to provide it, since I have yet to see an economically liberal/socially conservative writer turn up at TNR.
- timteeter
April 8, 2010 at 12:26pm
tim, that is true. I think Huckabee is the closest to a populist that the Republicans got. But he incorporated a lot of nutty views lately. Pa. is a state that seems to hew towards that kind of populist line of being economically Liberal and socially Conservative. And lets be absolutely honest: libertarian-ish is about being able to smoke weed and get laid, both things which people tend to grow out of (by laid I mean promiscuous sex). Young people might still retain their openess towards this kind of social libertarianism, but I don't see how that trends towards economic libertarianism.
- blackton
April 8, 2010 at 1:26pm
Someone, please explain where the Cato Institute gets it's name. Whenever I hear "Cato" I first think of Bruce Lee/The Green Hornet, and next the chain clothing store I see in malls. I sometimes wonder if they do a lot of martial arts during a Cato Inst. staff meeting....
- tnmats
April 8, 2010 at 2:24pm
From Wikipedia: "The Institute is named after Cato's Letters, a series of British essays penned in the early 18th century by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon expounding the political views of philosopher John Locke. The essays were named after Cato the Younger, the defender of republican institutions in Rome." Bruce Lee's character's name is spelled "Kato" BTW
- zardoz67
April 8, 2010 at 3:23pm
Is Chait a liar or just stupid. He intentionally left out 2 facts that you (or anyone should know) should know about the survey. 1. THE HEADLINE ---- "DEMOCRATS’ EDGE AMONG MILLENNIALS SLIPS" The “Millennial Generation” of young voters played a big role in the resurgence of the Democratic Party in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but their attachment to the Democratic Party weakened markedly over the course of 2009. Actually support has gone down 50%. 2. The older a generation becomes the more conservative and more likely to vote they become. Chait is just a moonbat cheerleader. Do some critical thinking once in a while.
- mr_rationale
April 8, 2010 at 3:41pm
Zardoz: thanks. And here I was, thinking the Cato Institute was named after Cato the Elder (the Censor), the ultra-conservative philosopher/politician/Patrician-wannabe, who railed against the Plebian Ascnedancy and was a key figure in starting the class wars that led to the Gracchi, the Marii and ultimately the Spartacus uprising ... Cato the Censor (he was responsible for the Senate rolls, usually cutting people in debt from the Senate) is also known for his endless prophesies of doom and gloom and the end of Roman Civilization. In Second Century BC. Five Centuries before the final fall of Rome. And for demanding the destruction of the sea-faring, mercantile, entrepreneurial Carthage. Things never change.
- icarusr
April 8, 2010 at 3:56pm
"Is Chait a liar or just stupid." "Do some critical thinking once in a while." Projecting, what?
- icarusr
April 8, 2010 at 3:57pm
"2. The older a generation becomes the more conservative and more likely to vote they become." Mr. Rationale, this is not a fact. This is a conclusion. Do some critical thinking once in a while.
- timteeter
April 8, 2010 at 5:38pm
timeteeter, Check out the charts in the link. Lots of other empirical evidence that supports this as well. Of course Pew could be wrong.
- mr_rationale
April 8, 2010 at 7:47pm
Sigh. Mr Rationale, there could be a thousand charts and hordes of empirical data. That is irrelevant. The statement "the older a generation becomes the more conservative and more likely to vote they become" would still not be a fact, even though I agree with it to some extent. It is a predictive statement based on past patterns of behavior. Unless you believe that the social sciences have achieved a level of empirical certainty comparable to the hard sciences--that is, unless you believe that something like sociology or economics has achieved the same kind of demonstrable certainty as chemistry or physics--then such a statement is not, and cannot be, a fact. And if you do believe it, you are displaying a type of epistemological hubris more appropriate to science fiction or a column by David Brooks.
- timteeter
April 8, 2010 at 10:40pm
Timteeter, You have gone off the deep end. I was using fact in the appropriate context -- analyzing empirical evidence. Not a scientific fact. If you want a philosophical debate -- how do we even know we exist? First Law of thermodynamics not a fact in that context Both pedantic and stupid at the same time
- mr_rationale
April 9, 2010 at 5:15pm