Okay, this is a complicated question, and I hope I can get it straight. I was thinking recently (I don’t remember about what) as I tend to do from time to time, and I remembered something someone told me about the book Freakonomics. There’s a story in the book about a man who becomes a member of the Klu Klux Klan so that he can learn their jargon. He then goes periodically to the writer of, I believe, of Superman and gives the words he’s learned for them to put in the comic. What eventually happens is that children all around the country are using the Klu Klux Klan’s jargon so they’re constantly forced to change, which is difficult (I would say especially in the case of the KKK).
Well, I’m just curious as to whether this would be possible with a political party. Say, a liberal entered the republican party (I know technically all republicans aren’t conservative, but bear with me), would he be able to turn the party around?
I think I was thinking about the mid-60s when republicans became democrats and democrats became republicans.
Does this question make any damn sense? If someone could better explain myself for me, I would be gratious.
Yeah it makes sense. For the most part parties are made up of an ignorant mass. They don’t know what’s going on and blindly adhere to the party line. Then there are people we used to call “The Aristocracy” who’s families have wealth and holdings that are not limited to one country, who’s peer group is all people in similiar situations to themselves who really run the world. It tends to be from these groups that we get our presidents and such, they have a completely seperate perspective on things, where they are operating on the world stage, and the countries they control are powerstructures that add to their resource pool. So Political parties get hijacked all the time by these people who know what’s up, and have a better view of the big picture. As a consequence of their position in life, they oftentimes happen to be very good schmoozers, and are able to target what they say to whom, and are very good at making individuals feel good. A good politician is an actor on par with say Sidney Poitier or Brad Pitt. For the most part the bulk of people in a party have provincial concerns, and these top level actors know that if they help their constituents make ends meet, that they will have a strong foundation from which to work. However, the party at the top is quite different from the party at the bottom.
Some might ague that Pat Buchanan’s 2000 presidential bid as the reform party candidate would count as an example. If I recall, the Reform party was largely an economic/political reform movement, and shied away from social issues like gender/race relations, religion, etc. Buchanan’s ‘hijack’ of the party turned them around 360 degrees, with fairly disastrous results. Added to this was the taint of his takeover due to accusations of fraud involving primary ballots.
Of course, you could argue that it was a party based more on personality than policy, and Buchanan was no real change in that regard. If I recall, his strongest rival was a man whose personal platform rested on transcendental meditation.
They spun in place? I think you meant 180 degrees. Conversational mathmatics is fun.
This was the example I was thinking of, a party is what it’s members elect to do at any one time. Longstanding party principles are meaningless if the rank-and-file decide to change, or if the rank-and-file change.
What the OP is describing is an acknowledged political tactic known as “entryism”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism Something like a corporate takeover in the political field. Historically it has been used by socialist organizations of various kinds, e.g., Trotskyists infiltrating labor unions and more mainstream socialist parties with the intent of radicalizing them. Buchanan’s takeover of the Reform Party in 2000 is, indeed, considered an example of this.
The swapping of constituencies by the Democratic and Republican parties in can be traced to Nixon’s adoption of the “Southern Strategy” formulated by advisor Kevin Phillips, although the process can be seen to have begun much earlier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy Whether it is an example of entryism is debatable. It did not involve a cabal sneaking into either party’s leadership under false colors. The Pubs just decided, by gradual stages, to change their message to appeal to white conservative Southerners still nursing a grudge over integration, and that gradually evolved into a broader “culture war” politics.
The sort of deliberate hijacking of a group to acheive your goals is something that I have often heard rumors of with gun clubs. Anti-gun activists will infiltrate the club with the intent of causing mischief.
A typical gun club will have 500-1000 paying members. However, most of them are like me. They simply want to pay thier dues and have a place to shoot when they need it. They don’t actively go to every meeting and vote on every motion. So, a dedicated group of a couple dozen people could go to a meeting as members and simply vote to close down the club. Or cancel the insurance, or any other number of harmful things.
In the political sense, I think that there can be infiltrations and takeovers that are less cut and dried. The statement of Moveon.org that they had “bought and paid for” the democratic party is an instance of this.
There’s and article today in the Washington Post that touches on this, although it doesn’t mention moveon.org by name.
I disagree that Bush and Rove have ignored the swing voters and focused solely on the base of the party. I think their success with swing voters was clear in their victories in the past two elections. In any case, I agree fully with their analysis that the Democratic party has moved too far to the left and won’t start winning elections until it moves back. This is largely due to the hijacking of the party by a minority of far left activists. They aren’t doing this to try and be harmful to the party, but the result is exactly that.
I’d argue that the Democratic Party dumped the South and the conservative wing of the party. Conservative Democrats were no longer welcome in the Democratic Party, starting about 1968.
If you look at the backgrounds of our presidents in the 20th century-today, that’s mostly not true:
McKinley-Son of Ohio farmers
T. Roosevelt-Came from money
Taft-Father was former Sec. of War and Republican party leader
Wilson-son of a minister
Harding-His father was a smalltown doctor who also owned a weekly paper, his mother was a midwife
Coolidge-Father was a politician/officeholder in rural Vermont
Hoover-Father was a blacksmith who died when he was young…raised by his uncle, a doctor.
F. Roosevelt-Came from money
Truman-Father was a farmer
Eisenhower-Father owned a store, then became a mechanic
Kennedy-Came from money
Johnson-Son of a farmer
Nixon-Father owned a grocery store/gas station
Ford-His stepfather was a businessman, I don’t know what his father did.
Carter-Son of a farmer and a nurse
Reagan-Son of a shoe salesman
G.H.W. Bush-Came from money
Clinton-Father was a travelling salesman, stepfather owned a store
G. W. Bush-Came from money.
So, really, the only members of the “aristocracy” you mentioned would be the Roosevelts, Taft, Kennedy (and Kennedy’s father’s money was “new money”), and the Bushes. Every other man to be president from 1900 to now had middle class or lower middle class backgrounds.
I understand what you are saying but Presidents for various reasons come from all over. Reagan, Nixon & Clinton were not from wealthy powerful families. Carter’s family was not exactly blueblood either.
Bushes and Kennedies are political bluebloods. I believe Ford was also, but he is really the accidental President and probably shouldn’t count.
To the Op: it would be an interesting experiment and I would argue the religious right did hijack the Republican Party. I am a moderate republican. I feel like our only prominent speaker is Sen McCain. Bush and the other prominent leaders are all religious right and/or the wealth party.
One example of this was Howard Stern’s campaign for Governor of New York. In 1993, Stern announced he was seeking the nomination of the Libertarian party and encouraged his fans to register with the party. Many did, they outvoted the existing party members, and Stern got the nomination. Stern got a lot of publicity for his run for governor but withdrew from the race in 1994.
But this kind of thing isn’t going to happen with the Democrats or Republicans; they already have millions of members and no outside group is going to be able to bring in enough new people to radically change the direction of the party. It’s third parties that can be taken over by a single person and his followers, like Stern, Buchanon, Nader, Perot, or Ventura.
Point taken. Supposedly there is an interesting thing on genealogy.com that talks about the lineages of presidents and their connection to past presidents. For instance Barbara Bush was Barbara Pearce, related to Franklin Hyde Pearce.
In the case of people like Clinton, he was able to make his way into those circles. They don’t necessarily have to be born into them, but can have a prediliction toward them. In some cases like Reagan, I’d argue that he was probably more of a puppet. I think it can be argued that George HW Bush has been running this country since the Ford administration. You can trace Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney along with him. Those are the top levels of power, certainly you are correct, not all presidents come from that power. But I still maintain that at the top levels of power, it is aristocratic, and party affiliation has more to do with one’s personal connections than with an ethical affinity to that particular group.
Never said that he was. Look at the delegates inside the convention hall and the reforms that resulted in a pronounced shift to the Left. It was the death of the old Democratic Party. Many people thought that was a good thing, it made the party more liberal and progressive. It also disenfranchised a large part of the party’s base.
Specifically, she would be his fourth cousin four times removed. Geneological links like that are interesting, but I don’t know if they’re neccesarily relevent to proving your point. If you trace my genealogy, I’m President Bush’s 14th cousin. He and I had a common ancestor who came over on the Mayflower. But the thing is, millions of people can trace their ancestry to him. Some of those people, like the Bushes, or Winston Churchill, are or were famous. Most are just ordinary people without any sort of power or influence at all. I’m not saying that family is irrelevant. Obviously, if your parents are rich or influential, that can give you an edge when it comes to getting into good schools, or making connections that can help you. But that’s a far cry from saying there’s an aristocracy that controls everything. Look at my list again…it’s not just Clinton and Reagan who didn’t come from a distinguished background…it was most of the presidents. And if you look at the backgrounds of most House and Senate members, you’ll find the same thing.
Even looking at the two people you mentioned, Cheney and Rumsfeld, Cheney’s father worked for the Agriculture Department on soil conservation, and Rumsfeld’s father was a real estate salesman. Both Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are important and infuential people now, of course, but they’re both largely self made
As for G. H. W. Bush running the country since the Ford administration, I’d like to see your argument.
OK, Debaser, name me some of those far left activists and those wildncrazy far left policies the Dems currently advocate. I hope some of it involves hanging bourgeous capitalists with rope they sold to us!
I think an excellent case can be made that the neocons have hijacked the Republican Party. If you look at all of Bush’s neocon “advisors” like Paul Wolfowitz and Grover Norquist, you’ll see that they have great influence. But they never campaigned openly for their program – frex, invadind a Middle Eastern country to establish a US bastion in the Middle East was neocon policy well before 911. They just used it as an excuse for warmongering. Buy you never heard diddly about it until after 911.
I think you meant 180 degrees. Conversational mathmatics is fun.