Top lesson of Republican midterm sweep: the culture war is over and liberals won

 

Republicans swept midterms. Now they will have to keep their members in line to not be swept out in 2016.

No doubt Democrats are bemoaning the Republican sweep of the midterms. But liberals should take heart as the elections revealed the central new fact of American political life: the culture wars are over, and progressives have won.

Republicans were elected due to a confluence of factors, not the least of which was that their candidates spent 2014 hiding their positions on issues like gay marriage, abortion, immigration, the minimum wage, and drug legalization – where Americans now clearly agree with Democrats even when they don’t vote Democratic:

1. Colorado and deeply conservative North Dakota rejected Republican ballot measures for anti-abortion “personhood” amendments defining life as beginning at conception despite electing anti-abortion Republican politicians to Congress.
2. D.C. and Oregon legalized marijuana, and won 57% majority support for legalization in Florida (though falling short of the 60% needed to amend Florida’s constitution to make legalization law).
3. Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois, Nebraska, and South Dakota elected Republican senators, governors, and representatives who oppose minimum wage increases while at the same time passing ballot measures that will increase the minimum wage in those states.
4. National exit polls showed majority support for illegal immigration amnesty (58%) and for the pro-choice position on abortion (53%).

Last year, Democrats looked poised last year to consolidate their 2012 gains by capitalizing on voter agreement with the liberal platform, especially after Ted Cruz led Republicans into an ill-advised government shutdown which damaged the Republican brand. Indeed, midterm exit polls showed Republicans are overall still slightly more unpopular than the President, even while voters across the land elected Republicans. How can this be?

The turning point was last November’s failed launch of the Obamacare health insurance exchanges, and the concurrent brouhaha over President Obama’s “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” false promise. These crises created competence and credibility gaps from which Obama never recovered, gaps that increased with public anxiety over Obama’s…

• …slowness in addressing concerns about domestic surveillance…
• …feckless responses to war and unrest in Gaza and Syria, to the rise of ISIS in Iraq, and to Russian aggression in Ukraine…
• …failure to cut through media noise and Republican fearmongering to reassure Americans about Ebola...
• …indifference towards racial strife and nationwide instances of excessive use of force against blacks…
• …lip service towards ballooning student debt, rising income inequality, and stagnating wages…
• …refusal to tout economic successes and explain how Republican obstruction has stymied even better results.

The malaise dragged down Obama’s popularity, energizing the right wing opposition, demoralized and de-motivated Democratic voters, and left Democratic candidates exposed and on the defensive. Add to this an electoral landscape of red and purple states favorable to Republicans – and a set of bland, gaffe-prone Democratic candidates like Alison Grimes (Kentucky), Bruce Braley (Iowa), and Mark Udall (Colorado) who made the politically silly decision to run dull campaigns on small-ball issues like contraception – and the midterms became a perfect storm against the President’s party.

Nonetheless, Republican Joni Ernst only bested Braley in Iowa by downplaying her support for personhood laws, reframing her obvious support for criminalizing abortion as a mere symbolic affirmation of life. Ditto Republican Cory Gardner in Colorado, who dodged Udall’s attempts to define him as an extremist by talking up student loan reform and rescinding support for a personhood measure he sponsored. Mitch McConnell spent much of 2014 trying to reassure voters in Kentucky – where Obamacare has successfully insured millions – that despite his support for repeal of the Affordable Care Act he would take measure to protect Kentucky’s Obamacare exchange. Grimes inexplicably refused to call McConnell on this contradiction allowing the cynical strategy to work: a New York Times report showed many voters admitting joy over their Obamacare health insurance but still supporting Republicans.

Elsewhere, Democratic politicians were unable to scare up votes with the usual wedge issues; that is, the liberal victory on once-divisive cultural issues is so complete that many Democratic voters simply don’t believe voting Republican is any real threat to their social priorities. In Mississippi, for example, Republican Thad Cochran had to turn to black voters – promising quid pro quo protection of voting and civil rights – to beat back a stiff Tea Party challenge. In Colorado, the progressive editorial board of the Denver Post criticized Gardner’s opposition to abortion and marriage equality then endorsed him anyway, saying. In calling out Udall’s abortion scaremongering as “obnoxious” the Post was acknowledging the new normal: legalized abortion isn’t going anywhere, and not even a Republican majority can change that. Democrats all over tried to gin up votes with the “war on women” meme that worked in 2012, but exit polls showed Republicans kept their gap with women voters small relative to the gap Democrats now have with men, where Republicans ran up huge margins to victory.

Along with clumsy candidates and poor electoral terrain, the Democratic Party’s collective failure to accept their culture war victory and continued insistence on slicing the electorate into special interest led to a big night for Republicans, though conservative schaudenfruede may be short lived. Last night may have proved that Republicans can only win big by pretending to be Democrats, but Ted Cruz has already pledged to introduce an amendment allowing individual states to ban gay marriage. The hungry conservative base will expect Republicans to act on this and issues like restricting abortion access now that Republicans are in control. Republicans who ran away from culture controversies to win in blue and purple states in 2014 may struggle to retain support from both their base and the blue and purple state voters who just gave them a vote of confidence. Potential right wing affronts to the dignity and humanity of gays, women, and other protected classes will betray and infuriate those voters, increasing chances for a Democratic comeback in 2016.

But until that happens, the message to Democratic politicians is clear: “Abortion and gay marriage are over, and they’re over because you’ve won.” Far from being saddened over the midterms, Democrats can cautiously move forward from narrow identity politics to crafting a comprehensive domestic agenda rooted in economic populism, one that will resonate with voters of every gender, race, orientation, class and creed.

Hillary Clinton, especially, should take note.