November, 2024
Washington — Ich bin Politikwissenshaftler. For decades, I've been following political theory: right, left, progressive, conservative, socialist, libertarian, authoritarian, and everything in between. I've also been following voting behavior studies for decades, and participated in more than my share of campaigns.
Conclusion: although pundits, reporters, and consultants are preoccupied with ideologies, the great majority of voters are not, and if not oblivious to political theory, many are so confused by it that they often vote contrary to what they think is their placement on an ideological spectrum.
The problem here is not so much with the voters, but with the rickety frameworks of the ideologies themselves, which can collapse in a heap when confronted by realities facing voters. If a voter is concerned, for example, about the very real problem of too much of the federal budget going to interest on the debt, that could appear anywhere on the ideological spectrum. Is it a transfer of wealth to the lender class, and thus a concern of the left, or a plea for a balanced budget, often a talking point of the right?
So when political consultants and the pundit class advise "move left" or "move right" to win elections, what does that mean? It means they make money off their superficial erudition, but not much else.
What does this portend if Democrats want to compete for votes in rural America, which they desperately need to win elections up and down the ticket? It means they should ask rural voters what problems they want candidates to address, and act accordingly, ideological perceptions be damned.
Voters in rural areas suffer disproportionately from lack of good medical care and alarming numbers of deaths of despair. A solution? Rejuvenating the Cooperative Extension Service to use its agent system to provide nutrition help and disease prevention would likely be a much-welcomed Democratic initiative, if only it were offered.
Why hasn't it been? It does not fit neatly into ideological fairy-castles. Only the voters care.
The Democratic Party is doing much soul-searching after this month's election losses. May it find its soul in solutions to real problems, not in worthless exercises in ideological positioning.
