Martin Gurri Watch

Jim Newell writes,

The Democratic Party establishment has beclowned itself and is finished.

I think of the lawmakers, the consultants, the operatives, and—yes—the center-left media, and how everything said over the past few years leading up to this night was [baloney sandwich].

Once again, Martin Gurri’s Revolt of the Public seems to be the best guide to events. It seems as though the Democratic Party is ripe for the sort of anti-establishment revolt that hit the Republicans this year.

Speaking of Gurri, prior to the election, he wrote,

In somewhat slower motion than the Republicans, the Democratic Party is unbundling into dozens of political war bands, each focused with monomaniacal intensity on a particular cause – feminism, the environment, anti-capitalism, pro-immigration, racial or sexual grievance. This process, scarcely veiled by the gravitational attraction of President Obama and Clinton herself, will become obvious to the most casual observer the moment the Democrats lose the White House.

That moment has come, and we’ll see how the prediction plays out.

31 thoughts on “Martin Gurri Watch

  1. I think it’s very difficult to have a bunch of rich people and a bunch of poor people in a major political party at the same time.

    Democrats were immune from this problem for the last 30 years or so, but the prominence of Silicon Valley has caused their internal dynamics to look a lot more like Republicans, but the cracks in the coalition were hidden by the majorities they gained in office due to the Bush backlash.

    However, I really don’t think this election means the Democrats are dead. I think it means that it’s really hard for a political party not to irritate the hell out of the public when it’s going through a Great Stagnation accompanied by a 24/7 media cycle.

    We’ve had almost no economic growth since 2000, and we’ve seen both parties completely cycle themselves in and out of political power during this time with great acrimony.

    Despite the rise of Republicans in office, I don’t detect any grassroots support for their trademark issues (if they even have any anymore). I fully expect them to beat the drum for the people who got them into office, and for this to greatly piss off the other 50% of the electorate.

    Repealing Obamacare and cutting taxes isn’t going to bring in a new era.

    • My basic reason why I think the Democrats lost the WWC SO much was Trump’s ability to convince them that immigrants and trade deals that have hurt their prospects. (Just listen to this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WfvdNAoxGc ) And realize Obama did OK with these voters in 2012 because of the Auto Bailout 2009 and his opponent was Mitt Romney who laid off a of workers during his business career. So I believe this less cultural than economical.

      So how you going to argue against this economic populism against free trade? Please use steel markets as the example.

      • If your request for the steel markets example is directed towards me, I’m not sure what it is you want me to articulate with the example.

        If you can ask me in different words I’m happy to try.

        I agree that the voter swing wasn’t entirely cultural, since the states that swung for Trump all previously voted for Obama. I also think that most voters are populists in their heart of hearts, and this instinct comes out more easily in times of low growth since distributional decisions are usually zero sum.

        That’s why I think we’ve seen the pendulum swing full circle twice this decade. People are generally dissatisfied and anxious about their future, and it’s easy to get angry at whoever’s in charge when your paycheck doesn’t get any bigger and every decision seems like it helps ‘the other guys’ more than you.

        MSM + great stagnation makes this a natural political dynamic IMO.

      • Had the great recession not happened, it would be much harder to convince people that free trade and the recently negative immigrant flows are their problem.

        • It probably doesn’t help that for the last decade Democrats have had this chant that:

          We are the richest country on Earth so we can afford (insert non sequitur)

          And then if you believe a country can have a border you are a racist.

          That it’s UnAmerican to wonder if piping ISIS terrorists posing as Syrian Refugees is actually UnAmerican.

          There has been an extreme arrogance to every argument on The Left for well over a decade. You aren’t allowed to have an opinion on science, because The Left will tell you what your scientific consensus is. Everything else where you differ with The Left you a sexist or a racist and not allowed to hold differing opinions.

          • They don’t care if they are right on issues because on a long enough timeline they will have enough brown people to win elections by default no matter how outrageous they are. Anyone who doesn’t see this is asleep at the wheel.

          • That was what they thought.

            Remember very recently when Republicans were never going to win again because of demographics?

            Well, the Senate, The House, the Presidency and The Supreme Court missed the memo.

          • Actually, voting is pretty in line with strategist demographic projections. 2016 and 2020 remain competitive if the R candidate is strong and the Ds are weak. After that it becomes increasingly impossible.

            Trump won as many whites as Reagan. Why did he lose the popular vote and barely scrape by in the electoral college? Quit patting yourself on the back, put your actuary hat on, and project what things will be like in a generation.

          • Haha, I haven’t even begun to pat myself on the back!

            Trump reformed the Republican party on LGBT with one sentence and Peter Thiel. Making “brown people” Republicans will be just a little harder.

          • @asdf –

            I think you’re basically right, but the demographic dominance of the left lies on the assumption that the existing coalitions they have between urban whites, blacks, hispanics and LGBT can exist the same way it does now after they become the new majority.

            I think that might be possible, but I’m not entirely sure it is.

          • Despite being the most pro-LGBT person in history, likely supporting gay marriage before Hillary Clinton herself, LBGT groups are going to the mat protesting Trump. None of them voted for him and they are accusing him of being the next Hitler.

            Understand that the members of the Democratic coalition don’t need to see eye to eye on everything to vote as a bloc. Blacks can get Section 8, Hispanics can get Obamacare, and gays can get AIDS meds added to government mandated formularies. All of them can get affirmative action or use cultural power to persecute and intimidate people.

            As long is there is a white person left to bully or loot there is enough to go around for all the wolves to share. It’s not about ideas or consistency, its about power.

  2. Unfortunately, we have seen the antiestablishment impulse in the Democrat party and it’s Bernie.

      • Bernie had a catch 22.

        Had Bernie played it safer, then he might not have been differentiated enough from Hillary.

        By playing it more radical, he scared the establishment too much.

        Maybe what Bernie needed was more competitors in the primary to split the vote like Trump had. Maybe one of those contenders could have been a more centrist populist.

        • Bernie was a 70 year old low charisma white nerd from Vermont with no resources at his back and the opposition of most of the mainspring press. He still got 45% of the primary vote.

          They will be back with a Brown Bernie with more charisma and better resources soon enough.

          • By calling Sanders a “nerd,” I think you overrate him intellectually.

            If Lee Harvey Oswald had not made certain wrong turns in 1963, and were still with us today, I think he and Bernie (only 2 or 3 years younger) would have a lot in common.

  3. “The Democratic Party **establishment** [oligarchy] has beclowned [?] itself and is finished.”

    Here follows a repost of my comment here yesterday (sorry I don’t know how to link to it, so I reprint):
    Another perspective (interpretative framework) on the election, in the following response to the one conservative writer at the Boston Globe today:
    Mr. Jacoby:
    Given your academic exposures you may be familiar with the “Iron Law of Oligarchy.” If not, you might “Google” that phrase.

    The attachment of “Political Parties,” above, is to an English translation of Robert Michel’s work of that name which established the term and outlined its operation. (way back in 1911 !).

    Understanding that law’s relevance to developments of American Political Parties can provide a different perspective from yours that “Nov. 8 marked a stunning victory for the Republican Party -.” This difference of perspective is not “partisan,” and, at this juncture, may more markedly disclose what has occurred in the Democrat Party structure.

    Both parties have become oligarchies (in their power structures).
    The Oligarchy (popularly “the Establishment”) of the Republicans was first fractured (but not fragmented) by the 2009 Tea Party movement, which not only diverted conservative voters (and public) from the oligarchs, but actually displaced many of them completely; probably due to the regional, less centralized nature of the Republican Party Oligarchy. That fracture opened a wedge (as the conservative “establishment” or oligarchy lost cohesion – still not recovered).

    Meanwhile back at the Democrat ranch, the trends, sensed by Senator Underwood in “Drifting Sand of Party Politics,” took form in the art of James A Farley, as a party of coalitions of constituencies, with predominant but dispersed oligarchies (originally city “machines” and Southern regional interests). As the varieties of particular interests grew (and constituency building with it), the constant adding on of constituencies apparently led to the need for centralization of the oligarchical powers, and that party became dominated (in its recent end) by a centralized oligarchy whose internal relationships (for position and power)
    detached them from sufficient relationships with the memberships of original constituencies (who have now turned elsewhere to have democratic effects).

    The highly centralized Democrat Party oligarchy is now adrift, having been somewhat fragmented by the fragmentation of what were its constituencies – many of the members of which have now “invaded” the territories of the Republican Party oligarchies, and taken over that party’s capacities to direct the course of politically determined actions.

    This may be a corollary to, or have a corollary in, Pareto’s “Rise and Fall of Elites.”

    • Richard,

      Assuming you know how to link urls in general, you can link you comment the same way on Kling’s site clicking on the time stamp next to your name- that opens your comment specifically within the thread.

        • Richard,

          Thanks for taking the time to comment. We lose when our elders don’t speak up and give us their inherited wisdom.

          Cheers

          • That’s kind; but age does not give wisdom; usually accumulated information at best.
            Information is not knowledge.
            Knowledge is not wisdom.
            Wisdom is not understanding.

  4. One thing I told my friends is that the spectacle of Trump is diverting attention away from the similar mess in the Democratic Party. There are too many incompatible constituencies.

    One example that indicates what may cause problems in the future is when proposition 8 (gay marriage ban) passed in California in 2008. African-Americans put that one over the top. All the talk of “haters” dried up when the demographic data became available.

    I keep paying attention to an analysis of the numbers from this election. As far as I can tell, this whole revolt of the white working class story seems to be nonsense if you’re looking at the numbers and not trying to weave a narrative. Even though a good number of Michael Moore’s crowd switched this time, they did not take Trump over the edge to win.

    This story might just be that Clinton could not motivate the minority vote and Trump gained some of the minority vote.

    • Not one minority group has yet to vote 50%+ for the GOP. In the long run you don’t make that up on volume.

  5. Yes there was an establishment backlash but the Democratic establishment is very adaptive. Merely being out of power a few years will make them non establishment. A majority isn’t enough for them, but a majority is a good place to start. I almost look forward to the forthcoming Republican follies when the populists discover how little will change and look for something new or give up looking at all. In the meantime, the less that happens the better.

  6. I’ll believe that the Democratic coalition might unravel when I see it actually happen. The “anti-establishment” left is largely funded by the establishment itself (e.g. Soros), and establishment Dem candidates (who masquerade as “centrists”) invariably bow to the demands of the supposedly anti-establishment activists except for their most extreme, confiscatory economic demands that would noticeably hurt the affluent funders and white middle class voters essential to the whole operation. In return, all the main constituency groups – minorities, public employees, educated ideologues, single women – remain loyal. This does not mean they always win, but the coalition has endured for decades. A real split is not likely to happen because it would be a godsend to the Republicans (who now seem doomed in the long-run, their broad but shallow victory last week notwithstanding) and everybody on the Left knows it.

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