{"id":703,"date":"2006-10-12T10:49:04","date_gmt":"2006-10-12T10:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2006\/10\/12\/give-the-rubes-some-credit\/"},"modified":"2006-10-12T10:49:04","modified_gmt":"2006-10-12T10:49:04","slug":"give-the-rubes-some-credit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2006\/10\/12\/give-the-rubes-some-credit\/","title":{"rendered":"Give the Rubes Some Credit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Drum<\/a> and Mark Kleiman<\/a> both pick up on the new book from Dennis Kuo saying that the “faith-based initiatives” program was a political scam<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The MSNBC piece contains a few colorful quotes about the shenanigans Kuo is reporting, which sound pretty bad. Kevin cites them, then asks:<\/p>\n

\n

Like I said a few days ago, are social conservatives ever going to catch on to the way they’re being conned by the Republican Party?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I agree that they’re being conned, but at the same time, what, exactly, does Kevin think they’re going to do about it?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is one of the central problems with the “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” thesis. The people we’re talking about aren’t cynical political operatives, they’re honest-to-God social conservatives. They’re in favor of socially conservative policies not because they see it as an opportunity to gain political power, but because they sincerely believe that they’re the right thing to do.<\/p>\n

I’m not talking about the leaders of the various evangelical groups, here, or major lobbyists, or other Washington players. I’m talking about the ground-level voters who go to the polls and support Republicans on “values” grounds. They’re not voting that way because they’re stupid, they’re voting that way because they really believe<\/strong> that abortion is wrong, that abstinence is the only appropriate birth control, that public prayer ought to be allowed.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, here– I don’t agree<\/strong> with them, and I think that many of the polciies they support are actively harmful. I don’t question the sincerity<\/strong> of their beliefs, though. They’re not voting for pro-life Republicans because it’s a great “wedge issue” to use against Democrats, but because they really and truly believe that abortion is morally wrong, and that it’s important to vote that way.<\/p>\n

Given that, where, exactly, do you think they’re going to go? Yeah, the Republicans are jerking them around, but are they going to vote for the Democrats? For a party that, as a matter of policy, actively opposes<\/strong> the policies they favor? (For sort of limp and spineless values of “actively oppose,” anyway…)<\/p>\n

Those “values voters” have a choice between a party that promises to support their position, but doesn’t follow through, and a party that promises to do the exact opposite of what they want. What do you think they’re going to do? Even if you think they’re clueless rubes for believeing what they do, this isn’t difficult math.<\/p>\n

I suppose there is a third option– they could just stay home. But then that puts liberals in the position of rooting for voter apathy and lower turnout, and, well, I’m just not fired up about that, either.<\/p>\n

Am I saying that Democrats need to start adopting socially conservative policies in order to attract these people? Well, given that I think most of those policies are disastrously wrong, that would be a dumb thing to advocate. I don’t think it would be a bad idea to start treating these voters with a little respect, rather than talking about them as if they were brainwashed morons, but that’s a different flamewar.<\/p>\n

But if you think they’re going to “catch on” and stop<\/strong> supporting conservative Republican candidates at every level, you’re just kidding yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin Drum and Mark Kleiman both pick up on the new book from Dennis Kuo saying that the “faith-based initiatives” program was a political scam. The MSNBC piece contains a few colorful quotes about the shenanigans Kuo is reporting, which sound pretty bad. Kevin cites them, then asks: Like I said a few days ago,… Continue reading Give the Rubes Some Credit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}