Neil Howe: 'Civil War Is More Likely Than People Think'

[pbrower2a]

(07-23-2017, 01:06 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

Source: http://rpubs.com/ianrmcdonald/293069

My comment in another political chat line:

In the 1960s the Democrats had some right-wing Dixiecrat pols I might not discuss the House for personalities, but the Senate has some memorable figures. The Republicans had Charles Percy and John Chaffee -- and the Democrats had John Stennis and Strom Thurmond. There were relatively-liberal Republicans, and they would show that they could accept the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They might have been pro-business, but they had no use for a cause associated with terrorism.

So there were "Rockefeller Republicans"... but by 2017 most of those (or those whose demographics suggest that they would have been such in the 1960s) are now Democrats. But at the same time, white Democrats in the South have given up on their old antipathy for Big Business, They consider the industrial jobs an improvement over tenant farming or other ill-paying activities of the old agrarian South. They may still be racists, but the Republican Party has a big-enough tent for those.

As late as the mid-1960s the Democrats had a bimodal distribution of Representatives with a peak around -.032  and another, smaller peak near zero. By 1995 the Democrats had a distribution with a single peak around  -.037 with a distribution resembling a bell curve. By 2013 the single peak for Democrats was around -.040, likely the result of the hammering of somewhat-conservative Democrats in the Tea Party election of 2010.

Meanwhile the Republican Party went from having a peak of about  0.22 in 1963 to about 0.45 around 1997 (but it was a bell curve). By 2013 the Republican Party had a three-humped curve resembling the profile of an atoll-lined sinking island with a large peak around 0.8 and lesser peaks at 0.55 and at 0.92. The scary point is what people might believe if they are at the range of 1,00 on either side. Marxists on the Left? Genocidal fascists on the Right?

Now here's a cause for much political distress: if one was in the range of -0.05 to about 0.30, the center-right, you had no representation like you. Democrats may be closer to the center, but they do not have the center. A President like Barack Obama might need to triangulate to the center after his Party gets clobbered in the 2010 Tea Party election. Donald Trump so far suggests that he can completely neglect people to the left of about 0.45 and must appeal to people close to 1.00. And who are around that level?

Donald Trump may act as if people to the left of about -.030 are now politically irrelevant, but there might be people on the far-right end of the Republican distribution who would like the Left eliminated from political life. Shut down the opposition, make it permanently irrelevant, or eliminate it? That could be the debate should the Republicans consolidate even more power in 2018 and 2020.  And that would be an ugly America.

I am surprised that this got no comment. So what happened to the politicians of the Center?

What were they? I am guessing that they were the sorts elected to do good for their districts. Get some federal funds for roads. Keep the farm subsidies flowing in rural areas.  Avoid saying things offensive to more than about 20% of the people in the district. Get along with other members of Congress so that you can get something done. Be able to explain any vote to constituents, and not only to lobbyists.

Gerrymandering ensures that most districts can support either a politician suitable to an R+30 district or a politician suitable to a D+20 district. So such are the politicians that we get, and with the majority-of-a-majority politics that Lee Atwater initiated and Karl Rogue refined, we can end up with a 51-49 split of power and, if the 51% is adequately ruthless, entrench itself and marginalize everyone else. One election that gives that side of the political spectrum that level of power is enough to entrench that unsustainable clique forever because it will then reshape the electoral practices to fit its agenda.  

How long can this last before we get torture chambers and labor camps? When one part of the electorate has the means and will to subjugate a minority  and no conscience, then that is what happens.

Maybe we can avoid a Hitler -- but we can easily get a Franco or a Milosevic.