Nate Silver, in a post asking how Democrats regained the momentum on health care, makes an interesting observation:
[T]he tea party/town hall movement that dominated the headlines in August is at this stage somewhat immature, with a lot of sound and fury but not so much focus — sort of where liberals were at in 2002/03 before the failures of the Bush administration became more manifest. Whereas liberal activists have been focused on a laser like the public option, conservative activists have been distracted by ACORN, Van Jones, the NFL’s conspiracy against Rush Limbaugh, and who-knows-what. Usually it’s liberals who have amorphous, omnibus critiques of the government, and conservatives who bear down on specific policies; the polarity seems somewhat to have reversed.
Indeed. And so the question must be asked: conservatives, why do you hate America? 😛
That isn’t even an observation, let alone interesting.
Anyone remotely familiar with conservative talk radio, the conservative blogosphere, or FNC knows that the public option has been front and center on the Right since the health care debate began. In no universe has ACORN and Van Jones preoccupied the Right more than the health care debate, not by a long shot. Nate Silver obviously has no idea what the Right is doing. I suspect that he hears Glenn Beck’s rants about ACORN and Van Jones*, and makes the lazy liberal assumption that Beck = the Right, and thus erroneously believes that whatever Beck is talking about is what the Right must be talking about.
As for Limbaugh and the NFL, that story had legs for 3-4 days tops (no one is talking about it anymore), and even then it was covered at least as much on ESPN and in the MSM — where upholding the morals of the NFL was suddenly of utmost concern — as it was by the Right, if not more so. To the extent it was a “distraction” at all, it was more of a distraction for Democrats.
* Beck probably does give an inordinate amount of attention to ACORN and Van Jones, and understandably so since those are the scalps he wants to show off. Exposing leftist whackjobs in the WH and ACORN’s repugnant criminality — stories that wouldn’t be covered anywhere else, to the MSM’s great shame — makes it almost worth suffering through Beck’s hyperbole and silly blubbering.
I have literally never watched Glenn Beck’s show in my life (I’ve seen a few YouTube clips, and Jon Stewart highlights, but that’s it), and yet I was under the distinct impression that Van Jones and ACORN were, um, pretty freakin’ big deals on the Right.
To portray those stories are purely Beck-driven, and not pet causes of the Right, is grossly dishonest, or at least grossly inaccurate. Now, whether they eclipsed the public option is a separate question (and almost certainly an inherently subjective one). But it is certainly false to believe that someone who thinks the Right was obsessed with Van Jones and ACORN must necessarily have been making “the lazy liberal assumption that Beck = the Right, and thus…whatever Beck is talking about is what the Right must be talking about.”
I’m not saying the ACORN and Van Jones were “purely Beck-driven.” I referred to Beck because he was without a doubt the biggest mouthpiece for those stories. They were certainly talked about elsewhere on the Right, with obvious glee, but my sense is not nearly as much as on Beck’s show. Whether that makes those stories a “pet cause” of an “obsessed” Right (who else would you expect to talk about them?) is likewise an inherently subjective question. But it is certainly not false to believe that someone who thinks the Right was “obsessed” with ACORN and Van Jones to the exclusion of the public option — which is what Nate Silver said — is making the lazy liberal assumption I mentioned.
Silver didn’t say “to the exclusion of,” or any words similar to that. He said the Right was “distracted” by those issues, whereas the Left was “focused [like] a laser” on the public option. His premise, obviously, is that a 100% focus on a given topic is more effective even than, say, a 75% focus, and thus the Right’s message was somewhat muddled by the “distractions,” even though those distractions did not totally overwhelm, or result in the “exclusion” of, the public option from the Right’s discourse.
Fair enough, he didn’t say “to the exclusion of,” but Silver’s premise that ACORN, Van Jones, Rush and the Rams, etc. are distracting from the Right’s message in any appreciable way by taking up air time that could’ve otherwise been spent talking about the public option is still not very insightful. When partisan A says partisan B is “distracted” by an issue that is clearly harmful to partisan A’s side, what partisan A usually means is that he wishes partisan B would stop talking about it. To the extent there is gaining momentum for the public option, it’s far more likely it has to do with things like “favorable” CBO reports, the latest Democrat PR iteration (“competitive option” is the term du jour), incessant attacks on the insurance industry, etc. than the Right talking about stories that are embarrassing to Democrats.
I’ve never seen any evidence that Nate Silver does anything other than call ’em like he sees ’em. So I find it highly unlikely that what he really “means is that he wishes partisan B would stop talking about it.” It’s far more likely that he believes what he’s saying is true — i.e., that he means what he says. Maybe he’s wrong, but I don’t know why you feel the need to call him a dishonest partisan who is trying to concern-troll his way into convincing the Right to stop talking about issues that “embarrass” the Left, rather than arguing that his honestly held position about these “distractions” is simply incorrect.
This is particularly so because his position is very much in line with the received conventional wisdom of political types that our national discourse, or any given subset of it, can only really handle a finite number of topics (that number often being defined as 1) at any given time, and thus “distractions,” even small ones, are usually bad. Again: this position may be wrong (among those who thinks it’s wrong, actually, is President Obama), but it’s quite conventional and common, and thus it’s not at all difficult to believe that Silver ACTUALLY believes it, or some version of it, and is applying that CW to the health care debate. To wit: all other things being equal, the side that has more of a “laser-like” focus, as opposed to a flashlight-like focus (still focused, but not quite as much so), will generally prevail.
In any case, the reason I quoted this passage isn’t so much because of what it says about the health care debate specifically, but because I think the broader observation — that conservatives are now more likely than liberals to have “amorphous, omnibus critiques of the government” — is true, and interesting. Granted, the fact that Democrats now control “the government” has a lot to do with this. But so does the rise of figures like Ron Paul and his ilk, and the adoption of at least partially Paul-ish criticisms by increasingly mainstream voices. The “tea party” movement is very much more a broad-based critique of our political system and leadership than anything we saw from mainstream conservatives during, say, the Clinton era. It’s more similar, as Silver says, to the broad-based, multi-topic lefty protest movements of recent decades than to anything I remember from the Right. Most of the Right’s “amorphous, omnibus critiques” in recent decades have been of social and cultural issues, not issues with the government per se. Not anymore.
I find it more surprising that Nate Silver DIDN’T mention what the Right probably trumpeted the most about: Obama flying to Copenhagen and the IOC snubbing Chicago anyway, and his receiving of the Cracker Jack, er, Nobel Peace Prize. Granted, those weren’t precisely partisan in the way that Van Jones and ACORN were, but that in a way validates Joe Mama’s point in #1.
That said, I think Silver is (as he usually is) right in the broader sense. As I’ve told those angry right-wingers I sometimes hang out with, in real-life and online: going to eleven on everything blurs the focus on the really important things and makes you look freakin’ crazy. They think that “the left” won after going balls-to-the-wall against Bush for eight years, but they’re mistaken; Obama won despite the “angry left,” not because of it. So shouting “OMG HE WENT ON A DATE WITH HIS WIFE!” and “OMG HE’S FLYING TO COPENHAGEN TO PITCH AN AMERICAN CITY FOR THE OLYMPICS!” and “OMG HE’S MAKING AN ADDRESS TO SCHOOLKIDS! HE’S INDOCTRINADING OUR CHILDERN!!!” allowed themselves to be marginalized in a way that simply saying “The ‘public option’ is a really bad idea” over and over again wouldn’t have.
I disagree a bit with Silver re: Republican strategies here. He’s right that the Republicans focus better than the Dems, but he’s wrong to infer that the tea partiers are unfocused. Republican focus is usually about finding the single appealing angle to push their message, while ignoring larger complexities. A recent example is the Neoconservative Imperial project to impose democracy by force. Sold, successfully, via an appeal to America’s awesome military power.
No one discussed the minor issue that the Afghan peasant, though overwhelmingly outgunned by the US, had one huge advantage: he cared a lot more about the political outcome in Afghanistan, and so he was inevitably willing to wait longer than the Americans, potentially wait forever.
The tea partiers are focused. They hate government spending, period. Sure you can peel back the layers to find that most support the dole, or that most have fond memories of Reagan, he of the $750 B stimulus in recessionary 1981 – to say nothing of his high-deficit Presidency. Republicans don’t peel back said layers, and the tea partiers don’t either. Its just not their time. Yet.
More than anything though, why blame the success of the public option on failure of the opposition? Might not positive things have occured to help it? Silver notes two: one, the jobs picture has not improved and shows no signs of improving – fear of joblessness should make the public option generally more attractive, for obvious reasons.
Second, noted by Silver but basically glossed over, has been the commitment not to impose Medicare rates. This is a hugely smart move by the Democrats, as it comes alongside a PR move that says that public option will increase competition, noting how specific big health companies control the marketplace in so many states. Breaking up cartels is a winner message with the American people. Saying the public option won’t impose Medicare rates, which is a good faith message (at least) that the public option will compete away cartel power, should win a lot of support from the public.
I’m sure Silver does call ‘em like he sees ‘em, but he obviously sees ’em from a certain “perspective” (e.g., the tea party protesters are “immature”). Surely you don’t dispute this. I find it very likely that Silver finds the ACORN and Van Jones stories annoying and undesirable, and it’s entirely possible that that informs his insights. Does that make him dishonest? Not any more than your average pundit who, say, gives “advice” to the other side, although Silver doesn’t appear to be giving advice here, but the point still stands — when someone who doesn’t have your side’s interests at heart says you’re being distracted by something, be skeptical of what they say, particularly when the correctness of what they say is easily refuted.
Jazz makes a good point re unemployment being a potential driver of momentum for the public option. In fact, I think that may be the biggest factor of all here, and not CBO reports, Democrat PR, demonization of the insurance industry, and least of all the clamoring about Van Jones and ACORN.
Of course Silver has a perspective — a reasonable, moderate center-left one — but your accusation goes beyond that. You’re saying he is distorting the truth in order to advance an agenda. That is dishonest. There’s no getting around the fact that your earlier comment accuses him of dishonesty. If you think that’s what the “average pundit” does, then the average pundit is dishonest.
Meanwhile, Silver is not calling the tea party protesters “immature,” individually, in the sense of being a bunch of crybabies or whatever, as you claim. Silver is saying the movement is “at this stage somewhat immature” — meaning, in its nascent stages as a movement. That connotation is so 100% obvious from its context that it’s clear your own “perspective” is blinding you. Especially when Silver proceeds to compare the tea party movement’s “immaturity” to “where liberals were at in 2002/03.” How the hell can you read this comment as betraying an ideological bias against the tea partiers? He’s comparing them to the frakkin’ LEFT! He’s analyzing non-ideological traits of the movement, in a non-ideological way. He’s not saying “they’re a bunch of idiotic right-wing crybabies”; he’s saying “their movement is in an early, ‘immature’ phase, much like other nascent movements, of whatever ideology.” This is not debatable; it’s obviously what he’s saying. Your reading is flatly incorrect.
Maybe the “non-ideological” thing is why you’re incapable of understanding him: to you, everything is ideological. Not so for Silver, which is a big part of the reason I like him so much. While he has a perspective, he is actually capable of taking off his liberal-tinted glasses and seeing the world as it is. There are numerous posts on his blog proving this, as he analyzes things in a way that describe the world as he thinks it is, not necessarily as liberals want it to be. Again: you can think he’s wrong, that’s fine. But wrong is one thing; this litany of accusations of partisan dishonesty, ideological blindness, etc., is another. Your comments say more about you than about Nate Silver. It would be like if I accused Peggy Noonan of dishonest, blind hackery, notwithstanding her clear track record of calling things as she sees ’em, criticizing conservatives and praising liberals (when she thinks they deserve it), describing the world in a way that her “side” might not want to hear (when she thinks it’s warranted), etc. If I ignored all this, and lumped Noonan in with unbending conservative hacks whose opinions can’t be trusted because of their “perspective” (say, Bill Kristol), I’d be making a fool of myself. You’re doing the same with Silver.
(And, lest you think my use of Noonan and Kristol is based on their respective opinions of Sarah Palin, I’ll go ahead and throw Camille Paglia into the Noonan/Silver category, and Maureen Dowd into the Kristol category. The point isn’t whether I agree with them; the point is whether their analysis is consistently honest and insightful, or consistently hackish and agenda-driven.)
Hmm, I suppose I did read too much into Silver’s “immature” comment. I admittedly just skimmed his post, and in so doing just attributed to “immature” its most common meaning without looking more carefully at the context. I certainly don’t agree that comparing tea partiers to liberals in 2002/03 somehow precludes an ideological bias against tea partiers — unfavorable comparisons to the other side’s low points (which 2002-03 certainly was for the Left) are done all the time — but I agree that that isn’t what Silver is doing here. I think he’s wrong, but not pushing an agenda.
As for your quip that everything is ideological to me, while I’m clearly right-of-center, I’ve commented on your blog long enough for you to know better than that, Brendan.
You’re right; I retract the comment about everything being ideological to you. While you’re certainly a frequent participant in ideological comment-wars, that’s not a fair statement. Sorry.
This Joe Mama/Brendan conversation is obviously none of my business, but on the topic of Joe Mama’s post-partisan bona fides, I recalled a conversation last fall, at the height of the election mania, where Joe Mama agreed that Daily Kos had become quite the guilty pleasure. I was the guy (the RINO) that floated that meme.
This made me recall my own guilty pleasure interest in Daily Kos back then, at which point I realized I probably haven’t visited that site once since the election. Is there anyone else similarly situated? I have in mind that in the Obama era, Kos is terribly uninteresting.
Wouldn’t that be ironic – work all your life to achieve a certain political outcome, only to see the realization of your dream destroy your business model.
I don’t think I’ve visited Daily Kos since the election.
Of course, I don’t think I’ve visited Kos before the election, either. But hey, at least I’m consistent.
Oddly enough as a lefty I’ve never really understood the appeal of Daily Kos. Occasionally there’s a well thought out or well researched article, but that’s the exception rather than the norm and I’ll generally come across a link to it.
Other than that I generally see it as not very well thought out blabbering.
Perhaps that’s why a righty would like it, it’s self reinforcing. 🙂
Actually, speaking of which, for a long time I listened to right wing talk radio in Philly (I heard Glenn Beck long before his CNN days). It was sort of a sick fascination, I suppose.
One of the reasons I suspect this has happened has to do with the leadership of the parties. Basically, the Republicans have lost their enforcer. Back in the days of the Bush White House, like him or hate him, Karl Rove kept everyone going in one direction. Did Bush have a policy goal? Rove worked extremely hard to accomplish said goal. Tom DeLay had a similar role in the House at this time – again, a figure who would fight to make sure that the Republican party was pointed in one direction, working to accomplish the same thing. (As an aside, Newt Gingrich served in this role as well in the past.) For a while, the Dems had nobody to combat this, and were blown out of the water.
As the Bush years waned, Rove lost influence, and DeLay was arrested and left the House. As this happened, the GOP lost its message controllers. Now, the many disparate voices didn’t have anybody to tell certain ones of them to SHUT UP, because you aren’t important, or you will make us look bad. Meanwhile, the Democrats have had those figures for a while now. First, Howard Dean as head of the DNC, who really helped in this regard. He was joined by Rahm Emmanuel. And of course, Obama hired Emmanuel to be his guy in this respect, his Rove so to speak. (As an aside, one wonders if missing Emmanuel in the House is hurting health reform – the Dems don’t have a message control guy in Congress at the moment, just one operating from the White House, and as Bush proved, it is much easier when you have somebody in the Congress for this task.)
So the Dems don’t have enough of these guys. But the GOP doesn’t have anybody. They just have Rush Limbaugh, who can rile up the base, but doesn’t have the connections to do that and also keep the GOP moving in a single direction. Thus, his priorities are pretty high, but they aren’t GOP policy.