Democrats and the Protest Culture

From 1956 to 1980 Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress for 24 consecutive years. It was a period of unprecedented prosperity shared broadly across all income demographics. Then in the 1981, like flipping a switch, the Republicans took over. Since 1981 the Republican Party has controlled both houses of Congress 14 years (1995–2006, 2013 to 2018) the Democrats 2 (1993–94 and 2009–2010). Republicans have controlled despite the fact political scientists tell us there are consistently more registered Democrats than Republicans.

It has baffled me for years — what has allowed the minority party to dominate public policy for nearly 40 years?

It is not economic policy. From 1956 to 1980 when Democrats controlled Congress growth in GDP per year was much higher than it has been since 1981, and still we managed to pay the National debt down from 116% of GDP to 30% of GDP during those years. Since 1981 GDP growth under Republican policy dominance has been exceeded by growth in the National debt.

But perhaps it can be explained as a byproduct of the Vietnam war protests that, as the years went by without stopping the war, became more strident and willing to tolerate violence and destruction of property.

When I was discharged from the Army in 1969 I attended a few anti-war marches. I was pretty dubious by that time about the wisdom of the Vietnam war. But at the same time I was interacting with friends and relatives and saw first hand the impact of the war protests on their political behavior. I learned from being in the midst of protests that it is like herding cats, folks participate for lots of reasons. Many were idealistic - committed to the anti-war cause. Others were there for social reasons, or simply because it was something exciting happening. Others had personal ideological anger issues and found in protest marches a way to vent. So in a protest involving hundreds, or thousands of people, there were periodically some whose anger boiled over into destructive behavior. The destructive episodes would usually be the lead story in media coverage.

The antiwar movement confrontational tactics, coupled with really bad police response at the Democratic Convention in 1968, contributed to the election of Richard Nixon, who ran in large part on a law and order platform. In 1970 Ronald Reagan used the same formula to become Governor of California, his stepping stone to his later Presidency. Reagan was elected in 1970 by appealing to public dismay at the chaotic and often violent anti-war protest. In 1972, despite Nixon’s promise in 1968 to end the war that still ground on, he was re-elected when the Democrats nominated George McGovern, a favorite of the anti-war movement. McGovern got crushed in the most lopsided Presidential election in modern history.

Subsequent history demonstrates that the anti-war protestors were right. The Vietnam war was an exercise in arrogantly trying to dictate political events in a culture half a world away. But the protestors belief their efforts shortened the war has no support from what actually happened. It was a 20 years after the first protests started, and 11 years after the war protests became a constant fixture in public events as the US escalated its military presences in Vietnam, before the war finally ended in 1975. The length the war went on in the face of constant protest, coupled with subsequent events, suggest that the antiwar protests of the 1960’s and early 1970’s may have prolonged the war by motivating people to vote against perceived lawlessness.

Consider: In 2003 we invaded Iraq. Another arrogant attempt to dictate political events (and protect our access to cheap oil) half a world away. The anti-war movement tried to mobilize opposition to the war. The public yawned and turned away. There were no big demonstrations with war protestors angrily destroying property on the nightly news, or police beating up protestors. Nothing happened to support politicians campaigning on “law and order” so in a few years the public had concluded invading Iraq was a mistake and as a country we started looking for a way out.

There was, of course, a big difference between Vietnam and Iraq. The Vietnam war protests were driven by young folks who did not want to get drafted and go to war for both moral reasons and self preservation. Richard Nixon eventually recognized drafting regular folks to fight wars undermined his ability to engage in big power politics, so he abolished the draft. As a result the Iraq war was fought by volunteers, mostly folks for whom military service was an economic stepladder into the middle class, muting the public concern about returning body bags.

If the war protests had been consistently peaceful and controlled in the 1960’s might the public have concluded on their own Vietnam was a mistake within a few years? Might we have diverted from the path that led to Republicans dominating public policy for the last 40 years? All we can do is speculate.

But we can test the notion that confrontation hinders a protest movements goals by looking at high profile recent protest movements that were characterized by confrontational tactics.

In September of 2011 the Occupy Wall Street protests began. The protests were focused primarily on the income inequality that had accelerated during the Republican political domination from 1980 to that point. The Occupy movement worked hard at being non-violent, although there were many confrontations with police that generated headlines, some injuries and a few criminal prosecutions.

Has Occupy produced a reduction in income inequality in the 9 years since it was founded? No, income inequality has continued to increase.

High income inequality correlates very precisely with low tax rates on high income that have been championed by Republicans since Ronald Reagan. The correlation suggests the best course to reducing income inequality would have been to reverse the decades long trend in Congress to tax high income taxpayers at low marginal rates. But in election of November of 2010 Republicans took over the House, preventing any change in tax rates of the wealthiest taxpayers. The founding of Occupy in 2011 did not change the course in policy as Republicans continued to control the House. The election of November 2014 gave Republicans control of the Senate to compliment their control of the House and once again tax cuts for the wealthy taxpayers became the primary policy goal of Congress.

In the meantime a shooting of a black man in Ferguson Missouri sparked another movement that continues to this day, the Black Lives Matter movement. On August 9, 2014 an 18 year old black man was shot by a white policeman. The shooting followed other widely publicized killings of unarmed black men across the country. Protests erupted in Ferguson and then across the country. Protests occurred in 170 cities across the country in November and December of 2014. Many of the protests were confrontational and accompanied with property destruction and theft.

Video’s of police bad conduct that the new cell phone technology spread across the internet documented that the Black Lives Matter movement unquestionably occupied the high moral ground. But did the protests lead to greater political awareness and mobilize a political response to prevent such future incidents? President Obama did authorize $75 million dollars to outfit police officers with body cameras — a beneficial change for long term police-community relations.

But in terms of creating a near term beneficial political environment in Washington the movement seems to have had a negative effect. As noted above in November of 2014, after a year of headlines about Occupy and weeks of headlines about Black Lives Matter protests Republicans, using the “law and order” political playbook, took control of the US Senate to compliment their control of the House, limiting Barack Obama’s ability to accomplish further change.

The next election, the Presidential election of November of 2016, saw low voter turnout for a Presidential election in many states. However, in Missouri, ground zero in the Ferguson events, the turnout was unusually high, around 70%. In the 2016 election in Missouri Hillary Clinton got the lowest vote percentage (just under 38%) for a Democrat since 1972. Donald Trump got 56.4% on his way to ascending to the Presidency, with a Republican Congress to work with.

Contrary to the Occupy Wall Street goal of addressing income inequality, President Trump and Congress further cut taxes on the wealthy, exacerbating income inequality.

Contrary to the Black Life Matters goal of addressing racial tensions and dangers of being black in public Donald Trump has openly catered to white racial politics and has been sympathetic to white nationalists.

Right now the two big movements of the last decade that sparked and supported confrontational tactics have seen their goals get further out of reach. The voting data suggests the confrontational tactics both movements have tolerated apparently motivated more votes from folks concerned about law and order than votes from folks concerned about social justice.

This suggests a tough choice for any movement rooted in the fairness and civil rights. Do you become an outlet for people to act out anger and frustration? Or do you avoid any activity that could provide ammunition to politicians who see an opportunity to advance their career using a law and order platform — and thereby make it politically possible to make near term changes in public policy.

History suggests it is really hard to do both.