Tribal America
and the 2012 Elections
Dr. Glenn Layne
Two weeks ago, I was not alone among conservative voters to
be stunned and disappointed by the results of the presidential election. Back in the summer, I had become concerned by
voter patterns were no longer being moved by issues and interests, but by a growing
cultural divide in the country. How else
to explain that an objectively failed president still led in the polls? By objectively failed, consider the high
levels of unemployment and the decline of US prestige and power abroad. It was roughly the same combination that sunk
Jimmy Carter in 1980.
The October 3 debate in Denver, where Romney won by any
measure, recast the election. Romney
seemed to be slowly moving into the lead.
Rasmussen and Gallup had him ahead.
Michael Barone predicted a decisive win for Romney. Reports on Election Day seemed to bear out
their predictions.
Then evening came and the bottom dropped out. What happened?
What happened was this: while many of Obama 2008 voters didn’t
show up, enough did. And Romney only got
the same number of votes as McCain did in 2008.
Obama won by 3%--the smallest reelection of a president in American
history.
What I suspect happened was that my concern about the
cultural divide being the driving factor in the election was true. There are two tribal coalitions in
America. John Edwards was right—there are
two Americas. But he was entirely wrong
about who makes up the two Americas.
Let’s call the two tribal coalitions Old America and New
America. Old America is mostly white, middle class, and
church-going. They believe that America
is a fundamentally just country. They
recognize the nation’s imperfections but point out that we have a tremendous
capacity for self-corrections.
Old America is a tribal
coalition, not really a tribe. Old
America consists of Protestant evangelicals, observant Catholics and Orthodox
Jews. Old America consists of tribes that
think first of the national debt (they coalesced as the “Tea Party” starting in
2009), while others are more moved by “traditional family values” and still
others by national defense. Old America
organizations include the Chamber of Commerce and the NRA.
When Old America bumps up against government, their first
reaction is, “I’ll call you when I need you.
And don’t wait by the phone.”
Then tend to see government action in the form of regulation and
spending as mostly intrusive and foolish.
New America is also a tribal coalition. It consists of union households, the very
poor, Blacks, Hispanics, the religiously indifferent, gays and liberal intellectuals
and marijuana advocates. While there is overlap, this is actually a
more diverse—and fragile—coalition. But
what they have in common is this: they believe that either their own
opportunities or those of the “downtrodden” have in the past been blocked or stolen
by the Old America tribe. New America
organizations include Move On, most unions and (ironically) AARP. New America sees government as a tool to
alter conditions in their favor; they don’t want government to leave them alone—they
want government to save them from Old America.
This tribal distinction is behind the reality that an Old
American looks at a New American voter and wonder if he’s lost his mind. And the New American voter looks at the Old
American voter and wonders the same thing.
This tribalism is a key element in the deadlocked partisanship that pervades
Washington and the states. Whatever tribe
you’re in, you convinced that the other tribe simply crazy, or evil, or both.
Old America is inherently more positive than New
America. Old America’s appeal is to
restore freedom. New America’s complaint
is that Old America consists of bigots, thieves and heartless capitalists. President Obama nailed it when he quipped, “Voting
is the best revenge.” And Mitt Romney’s reply, “Vote for love of country”
perfectly captured Old America’s ethos.
For Old America, it’s always 1776 in Philadelphia; for New
America, it’s always 1965 in Selma.
For conservatives like me, we underestimated the ferocity of
New America voters in 2012. We thought
the formulas of 1980, 1984, 1988 and 2004 were still valid. We were wrong.
The reason we were wrong was because we thought enough swing
voters would weight Obama in the balance and find him wanting. We though enough would see him as the failed
and feckless mess we saw him as.
Instead, they saw the embodiment of themselves and they saw Mitt Romney
as the embodiment of what they thought of as wrong with Old America. They didn’t vote for a solution to problems;
they voted for their tribal leader.
Barack Obama is still Chauncey Gardiner to them. They saw what they wanted to see: a black
man, an intellectual, a man with roots in the third world, a minority and some
who understood their struggles and would “fight” for them.
And Mitt Romney was everything their despised. A rich white guy with a strange religion;
someone who reminded them of their dad, telling them to go get a job, or perhaps
even their boss—maybe the one who had to let them go.
What does this mean going forward? Republicans have to face up to a sober fact:
since 1988, we have only outvoted the other side once (2004). The primary driver is no longer issues; it’s
culture.
In 2008 and 2012, the democrats had an extraordinary
opportunity in that had a candidate to run who is the perfect embodiment of New
America. In effect, he became a cult
leader for the tribe. The two good
pieces of new going forward is that the Messiah isn’t on the ballot in
2016. It will be hard to conjure up the
perfect storm that swept and unaccomplished junior senator to the presidency in
his first term. The other piece of good
news for 2016—but bad for the country—is that he will have four years to extend
his disastrous policies, and there is point at which the tribe wearies and has
had enough. We were several million
voters closer to that point in 2012; that steam should be fully dissipated in
four years. And who will they nominate?
Andrew Cuomo? Does anyone think he’ll
have such a tribal appeal?
On a retail level, we on the right need to study the
get-out-the-vote apparatus of the left and then find ten ways to improve
it. (If I were RNC chair, I’d be
commissioning those studies right now.) But
GOTV is nothing compared to the candidates we run and the process we
follow. Limit the number of presidential
primary debates, and do not let the mainstream media run them. We should only have say 10 debates, and we
should have people from friendly media (talk radio, Fox, Breitbart, etc.) ask
the questions. No more nonsense, irrelevant
gotcha questions from George Stephanopoulos on contraception. We don’t want to poison the well for the
general public and give the left fodder to come back to haunt us in the fall.
We need to sew up something on immigration reform. Personally, I think the principles embodied
in Evangelical Immigration Table, which brought together leaders as
conservation as Richard Land and as liberal as Jim Wallis is a good starting
place.
The GOP needs to send its candidates to school, and
thoroughly educate them on this tribal divide.
And we need to run candidates that at least have a shot of bridging the
tribal divide: people like Mia Love, and Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal and, yes,
Marco Rubio.
Moving culture is hard work.
But it can be done. We just have
to be committed to it. As 2012 was not
1980, so 2016 will not be 2008. “Yes we
can”—do it right.
