The Trouble With Unity

http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=05&year=2011&base_name=the_trouble_with_unity

The Trouble With Unity

Paul Waldman | May 19, 2011 | TAPPED


If there's one thing Democrats envy about Republicans above all else, it would have to be the Republicans' ability to be unified. This occurs in large ways and small, from congressional votes to language; once a new moniker for something is coined ("death tax," "Obamacare," etc.), everybody on their side uses it. The Democratic party is more ideologically diverse and more unruly, and it just can't muster the same degree of organizational coherence and message discipline.

Ordinarily, that gives the Republicans a small but meaningful advantage in whatever debate we're having at a particular moment. But that unanimity has its down side, as they're now finding out. When Paul Ryan released his budget, he decided, whether out of conviction, or staking out a bargaining position, or as a means of shifting the debate, that he was going to go whole-hog. Not only was his budget going to slash social programs and cut taxes for the wealthy, but it would propose privatizing Medicare, turning it from an insurance program into a voucher program. Ryan surely knew that Democrats would criticize it, but he nevertheless decided that the political cost was worth pushing this longtime conservative goal.

And here's where the unity problem comes in. Ryan is the GOP's new star. His budget immediately became the Republican budget. The party's natural preference for unity kicked in. All but four Republicans in the House voted for it, some no doubt reluctantly, because their leadership told them that they had to. No Republican thinking of running for president opposed it. And when Newt Gingrich criticized the Ryan Medicare plan, it was almost as though the party had to punish him. Had he said, before the Ryan plan existed, "I don't think we should turn Medicare into a voucher program; there are other reforms I'd prefer," it wouldn't have been a problem. But once the Ryan plan became the Republican plan, no heresy could be tolerated. So now, Newt is being savaged by those on his own side. But what they're defending is an incredibly unpopular plan, one that is going to haunt them from now to the 2012 election. There isn't going to be a Republican running for any office anywhere who won't find him or herself on the defensive for supporting the destruction of Medicare.

This doesn't happen because of some conspiracy; it isn't as though an edict is delivered from the RNC. That's both the strength and weakness of the system: it locks in an idea or a policy position as holy writ with incredible speed, and responsibility for policing transgressions is distributed throughout the conservative movement, from politicians to talk show hosts to activists to a guy shaking Newt's hand in a hotel lobby. But when that system locks in on a politically unpopular position -- as has happened now -- it can pull the party down with a momentum nobody has the power to stop.

The GOP jumped the shark on this one because Ryan's plan goes way too far for the public -- even for moderate conservatives. But in a larger sense, their unified commitment to "conservative" principles has been successful.

If Democrats were more unified on GOOD policies -- and fought for them in a unified way because we actually believed in something -- that would be a good thing.

shitty policy. See what happened to Newt for going against the grain; will anyone else dare? I imagine they too would become pariahs.

You can always count on Republicans to go too far with anything.

But my point is that strong unity is not a problem in itself.....IMO if the Democrats were as unified and committed to truly libera/progressive l principles as the GOP is to conservatism, the party and the country would be a lot better off.

works against us in that respect. 'Herding cats' comes to mind... But it seems this time the rethugs have boxed themselves into a corner of their own making. Should be interesting to see what they do in this position.

The GOP has brought together its own form of big tent where their own unholy mix of corporate establishment oligarchs, mainstream moderate conservatives, Ron Paul libertarians, teabaggers, social and religious fundamentalists and other assorted members of their motley crew.

The contradictions among them are so great under their own tent that hopefully the GOP unity will implode and will become more like herding wildcats.

That cat herd won WW2, established Social Security and Medicare, passed the Civil Rights Act, and so forth. All that while being a herd of cats? More like a pride of lions if you ask me.
I think the 'herding cats' and 'big tent' phrases that ar.e over used and lacking in specificity

Republicans essentially have the Christine O'Donnell effect where their voters are perfectly willing to primary out a much better candidate in favor of an ideological purist. Democrats generally won't do this, especially not to an incumbent. Thus Republicans will vote more in lockstep but it doesn't mean there is unity. It means that their rank and file are scared into voting that way by their constituents.

unity, it's bad policy. Hypothetically, if Rush Limbaugh came out tomorrow and said SS is good for the economy, then every Republican would be in favor of it and public opinion would be on their side.

Our party's weakness is the inability to effectively communicate and the lack of political will to stand by our convictions.

Someone above mentioned herding cats. Well, herding cats is easy, all you need to do is lay out few saucers of milk. The problem with our party is that they can't seem to find the milk.

Democrats will NOT unify around shitty policies. If you want Democratic unity you must have Democratic policies. Do you think republicans would rally behind a republican president that included 'every Democratic idea' into his policies? I think not.