American
Carnage takes the reader from the 2008 primaries until the end of 2018,
going in depth into the changes in the Republican party over that decade. The “civil
war” begins as a battle between the Tea Party and the Republican establishment,
with the revolution that occurred initially appearing to be based on outrage in
the Republican base over profligate spending by republicans including the bank bailout
and the Iraq War. In 2010, Republicans all over the country faced primary challenges
from far-right candidates who had extremely libertarian ideologies. However,
not all was as it appeared. While many initially saw that this was an anti-spending
revolution, why did it not come earlier? Why did it not affect the Bush
presidency? In reality, as observed Eric Cantor when quoted in the book, “I’m
not so sure the people who were voting for us as Republicans were, on the
whole, as ideological as we thought they were.” It seems to me that it was not
based on one issue, as Alberta writes of 2016 that immigration was ranked last in
importance among other issues such as government spending, the economy and
terrorism. That said, Republican voters were not thinking the same was as the
elites about the economy. While party elites focused on free trade, the base wanted
protectionism. I think this can be understood as Republican voters wanting
somebody to be a wrecking ball in Washington, and that explains both 2010 and
2016.
A tremendously
important trend that has been occurring at least since the Carter presidency is
the movement of blue-collar workers and rural workers to the Republican party
and college graduate suburbanites to the Democratic party. This is not a
reflection of economic interests. Rather, it is a reflection of the economic
partition of the country that has been in force for over 50 years, the result
of the 1960’s, the Vietnam War, the death of Elvis, and the Watergate scandal.
Since then, the separation and polarization of the culture has been driven
further by a conscious decision among Democratic and Republican party leaders
to embrace the social issues pushed by their party bases and by the Democrats
abandoning the economic values of the New Deal. Democrats had completely capitulated
by 1996, when Democratic President Bill Clinton declared that “the era of big
government is over.” The movement of blue-collar workers to the Republicans
continued. As Democrats adopted social stances and issues they did not support
while abandoning their economic interests, they moved to Republicans, who had
never supported their economic interests, but would stoke division within the
working class by fomenting racism and opposing social equality for all groups. But
mainly, working class whites just stopped voting. Since Democrats were more
focused on social issues that didn’t apply to them and Republicans gave no
support to their economic needs, they just voted less. Those who did vote,
however, turned out for Trump and Republicans in way bigger percentages than
ever since they were on that side of the “culture war.” But the apathy is an even
bigger phenomenon.
Another very important dynamic I
noticed that came up in the book was the effect of the incumbency advantage in
the House. There are lots of reasons that politics is the way it is, but one
that seems very strong from a readthrough of American Carnage is that because 9
in 10 House seats are safe in a general election, House members fear primary
threats more than general election threats, forcing them to become more
extreme. This is a major problem in the political system since it makes
compromise very difficult in the House, compounded by the fact that they face
election every two years. Since House Republicans face no general election
threat, they will of course stick with Trump, since he is popular among their
base and they don’t need to win any new votes.
Obama
made some key mistakes early on in his term when dealing with the Republicans
and I think that they are useful to know. I have wondered for a long time why
the Obama presidency went off the rails so soon and American Carnage does
some explaining from the Republican perspective. Right off the bat, Obama
failed to split the legislative arm of the Republican party, which is key to
any Democratic president. In politics, you don’t want to face a united block
against you. It is good to divide your enemies and conquer them while uniting
your own people and leading them. However, in negotiations for the stimulus, Obama
told congressional Republican leaders Cantor and Kyl, “Elections have
consequences, and I won.” Boehner and Cantor, the Republican leaders, made a
huge deal of that to their caucus. They also made a huge deal out of how the
stimulus bill was loaded with pet projects and not any major infrastructure
investments. As a result, the bill would pass without a single Republican vote.
That is a policy success but a political failure because it creates unity among
your opponents. From at least the Republican perspective (the book focuses only
on Republicans and doesn’t provide the Democratic perspective) the Obama
administration did not foster any bipartisanship. Boehner said that, “That was
the beginning of the end for Obama [speaking of his first week in office]. If
he had reached across the aisle in a meaningful way, he would have found a lot
of Republicans willing to work with him—whether Eric [Cantor] and I liked it or
not. He could have annihilated us for a generation.” The same thing occurred with
Obamacare according to Alberta (the author). He gives an account from Tennessee
senator Bob Corker explaining that it was very difficult to keep all the
Republicans in line but that at the end Obama had to pass it without a single
Republican vote. Now I think what’s interesting is that Republicans have
obviously not learned this lesson. Mitch McConnel, the Senate Majority leader
even said his own version of the Obama quote, “Elections have consequences.”
Are Republicans making a mistake in the Trump administration by not reaching
across the aisle? Or are they bullshitting when they blame Obama for not doing
so? Only time will tell which strategy is better. In the Obama and Trump administrations
both chose the policy gains over political gains and that has probably led to more
partisanship, and therefore less policy gains in the long term. It will be
interesting to see if anyone tries for real bipartisanship in the future; since
one can divide their enemies by doing so, it would seem like the smart thing to
do.
By 2010, civil war had broken out
among Republicans with the Tea Party movement and had weakened the party
establishment significantly (guys like Boehner, Cantor, McConnel, Ryan). This I
what created the opening for Trump to come in and win the nomination. It is a
pretty classic situation- two people or groups fight each other, and then,
weakened, a third comes in and beats them both. Trump was stronger because he
had no baggage from previous experience in politics, he worked very hard on a
personal level even if he didn’t have much staff or ground game, and because
all of his scandals only helped him because the media would give him millions
if not billions in free advertising and because the Republican base loved
seeing someone who was unapologetic and tough (and Trump never made a sincere
apology). On the topic of Trump’s work ethic, I think there are good lessons to
learn about waking up early and getting the day going. Look at this excerpt:
What Trump also did was out-hustle
Cruz. The senator was a demon on the campaign trail, frequently making five or
six stops on a bus each day, shaking hundreds of hands and taking more
questions—from voters and reporters—than any other candidate. But those long
days often turned into late nights. To wind down his brain, Cruz would ask a
staffer to go buy a bottle of pinot noir and host the traveling team in his
hotel suite, sipping wine and debriefing on the day’s activities. This meant,
at the instruction of Cruz himself, no campaign events before ten in the
morning and, sometimes, no morning events at all.
By contrast, Trump (who does not
drink) was always up before six, and typically dictating the day’s news cycle
with his Twitter feed. He met a fraction of the voters Cruz did, but knew,
somehow, that it didn’t matter. For a first-time candidate with no real
consultants guiding him, Trump’s instincts as a campaigner were phenomenal. And
for a septuagenarian who would subsist on fast food and as many as twelve Diet
Cokes a day, Trump’s stamina was almost supernatural. He was game to go
anywhere, engage anyone, and stay on offense at all hours of the day—an
insurgency-style campaign that proved impossible to keep up with.
In conclusion, American Carnage
is a really good book, much better than I expected it to be, and I would
recommend it to anyone who follows politics closely or liked the book Game
Change. The book is all about power and influence and how the key plyers in
the Republican party made their moves in the last decade. It also makes one
reflect on how our politics have gotten to where they are today. I feel like neither
political party is truly supporting working-class people in America and I like
this quote from the book by Elissa Slotkin, a new Democratic Congresswoman from
Michigan:
“In Michigan, I know a lot of
people who voted for Barack Obama and then voted for Donald Trump. And they
tell me, ‘You know, my life hasn’t gotten better from Bill Clinton, George
Bush, Barack Obama. I’m like a stage-four cancer patient, and Donald Trump is
my experimental chemo,” Slotkin says. “We need to hear that as Democrats. A lot
of people felt like, last cycle, that Donald Trump was the only one talking
about the issues that dominate their lives: their job, how much money they
make. . . . If we can’t address those things, we’re not going to win. We don’t
deserve the Midwest vote if we can’t talk about those things.”
The economy is a key issue for people and most folks are not
interested in ideological solutions that pledge fealty to some dead economist.
Our governance needs to be pragmatic in supporting prosperity for all Americans
regardless of their race, where they live, or who their parents are.
Miscellaneous Facts:
- When Congressman Joe Wilson screamed, “You lie!” at Obama’s 2010 State of the Union, he was lectured to by Boehner, but his fundraising exploded the next day.
- John Boehner assured Alberta that Roger Ailes (the CEO of Fox News) really did believe that Obama was a Muslim born in Kenya. Apparently, Ailes had safe rooms in his house and combat-trained security personnel.
- This is not a fact, but the absolute worst quote of the book is this: “I loved watching Michael Jordan play basketball, because he could do things with the basketball that were not teachable. Marco Rubio is the Michael Jordan of politics.” LOL. I cannot get over how dumb that is to say. That is Whit Ayres, two weeks before Rubio announced for president. Did not age well.
- With less than a week before the Florida primary, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio almost teamed up on a Cruz-Rubio ticket.
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