The Advocate

Why the Left Still Doesn’t Get It: Confessions of a CUNY Conservative

William Adler

The day after the election: gloom and doom, eerie silence, nothing but the sounds of cursing, weeping, and hyperventilating echoing through the halls of the Graduate Center. In the Political Science student lounge, a normally bustling Wednesday afternoon gives way to the aura of a mausoleum. Only one person, apparently, isn’t sunk in the general depression affecting everyone else: little old me, a wandering conservative lost in the leftist halls of CUNY. So, speaking to my liberal (progressive? I can’t keep track of the terminology) friends, I’d like to offer a little insight into why the Democratic Party, and the Left in general, lost on November 2nd.

By far the overriding issue of this election was not the state of the economy, not Social Security, not Medicare, not health insurance. For some odd reason this tends to amaze the Left, who assume that people should vote their economic interests: i.e., for Democrats and not those oil-loving, tax-cutting, corporate welfare-giving Republicans. But they don’t, or at least a significant number of people don’t. It’s the classic question of the Left: What’s the matter with Kansas? Why do middle-class people vote for those who favor the rich? To a conservative, even having to ask this question shows the neo-Marxist time warp in which so much of the Left is stuck, because the answer is blindingly simple: the mythical, unified proletariat doesn’t exist. Many well-meaning middle-class folks actually think that their interests are best served by the Republican
Party, by giving tax cuts to businesses, and by having a relatively lassiez-faire government. But even putting aside the fact that average people have legitimate reasons for disagreeing with the Left on economic issues, the big issue of this election was moral values, and that is the main thing the Left does not understand.

It’s hard for liberals to accept that the biggest divide in American politics today centers around the so-called “values” issues. The more religious you are, and the more often you attend church, the more likely it is you’ll vote Republican; and the more secular you are, the more likely you’ll vote Democratic. CNN exit polls yielded the following results: 61% of those who attend a religious service weekly voted for Bush, while only 39% voted for Kerry. Those who said moral values were their most important issue constituted 22% of the electorate. Of these voters 80% voted for Bush while only 18% voted for Kerry.

This year’s number one values issue was gay marriage: eleven states voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Like it or not, disagree if you like, but this is a real issue, and it can’t be dismissed by simply deriding people as idiots for buying a deceptive anti-gay campaign run by evil genius Karl Rove. And there is more going on here than simple homophobia (though it certainly does exist). Most Americans, even those in the so-called “red” states, are relatively liberal when it comes to equal rights for gays and lesbians in the context of adoption, inheritance and visitation rights. In other words, they generally think civil unions are just fine, as do President Bush and Dick Cheney, apparently, both of whom stated during the campaign that they thought unions were a reasonable solution. But marriage is an institution that has been in place for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and people are not ready to change it overnight. Ironically, the Massachusetts Supreme Court may have handed Bush the election on a platter when it declared that the US Constitution required gay marriage, propelling it onto the national agenda.

Which takes me to another point: the condescension the Left feels for the average American. Liberals talk a good game about caring for people in general, helping them with social programs and redistribution of wealth, but then turn around and disdain actual real-life people. For example, take this quote reported by The Daily News from a New Yorker on the Thursday after the election: “Kerry’s an obvious choice if you actually have a heart and a brain.” I guarantee that one way the Left can permanently consign itself to irrelevance is by telling Bush voters that they are stupid and uncaring. (From my perspective, feel free to continue doing that!) It’s not only politically inept, but false. The Michael Moore-mentality of the Left that portrays Republican voters as stupid and hard-hearted doesn’t square with the facts: conservatives realize that the vast majority of the country is traditional and religious, while the Left calls these deeply-held beliefs nothing more than fairy tales. In other words, religion is not simply the “opiate of the masses.” To put it another way, read David Brooks from a November 6th editorial:

“If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university-town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?”

My liberal friends don’t seem to get this. I see discussions of a “counter-Enlightenment” or “Jesusland” glibly tossed about by those who rarely leave the confines of Manhattan, yet somehow think they can judge the rest of the country from their comfy ivory towers. Pardon me if this sounds like a typical right-wing rant against the liberal mindset, but it’s difficult to explain the middle-American mindset to those who would prefer that middle America simply not exist. To put it: most Americans are religious, so stop whining and deal with it. The Left won’t win again until it learns to speak to middle-America without condescension. Kerry didn’t strike average people as sincere when he discussed his faith or his values, or when he went goose-hunting in camouflage because it sounded like what it was: a grudging acceptance that, to win their votes, he had to temporarily play at their values. If you don’t like religion, feel free to try and change people’s minds, but don’t dismiss them as stupid simply because they disagree with you.

William Adler is a student in the PhD Program in Political Science