That was an interesting article, and I think Webb understands quite well what he’s talking about. The main thing I get from it is the Democratic Party can woo the Scots-Irish as long as you don’t fuck with their guns. Number one dealbreaker is gun control, the rest is negotiable. I’m afraid we liberals will have to concede that gun control is a dead issue in America. We have to accept that, like Afghanistan, the USA is just going to be a country where the citizenry is bristling with firearms, and get used to it.
I say this as someone who deeply loathes guns and everything to do with them. The point at which Robert Anton Wilson lost me is when he proposed the Guns ‘n’ Drugs Party – which is like Libertarianism minus the bad economics. I was turned off by the guns part.
But if the Democrats would have a shot at wooing back the Scots-Irish type of voters by dropping gun control, I think they have to either take this deal or wither away. I hate to admit it, I held my nose when I voted for Webb, but I’m afraid he’s right. Andy Jackson was an evil bastard, but he forged the Democratic Party in the first place with Scots-Irish po-white southern highlanders as its core. Maybe the Dems shouldn’t forget their origins.
I say this as the great-granddaughter of Irish Catholic immigrants from Ulster to Pennsylvania and Ohio. Some of my Irish-born ancestors who fought in the American Revolution were the first Catholic settlers west of the Alleghenies. Growing up Catholic in northern Ohio was a different world from what Webb describes, but it’s time to put the Protestant Reformation behind us already, heck, I’m not even Christian any more, so what does that old stuff matter?
Seems like that article was written, aimed exactly at me, except I live in the Southwest, rather than the Northeast:
I’m of scots name and decent, and when it came to Democrats, the support for gun control has always been the big deal breaker for me. (though even Democrats 'round these parts know better than to push that issue).
A Democratic party that wasn’t pushing gun control? That’s something I would donate not only my votes to, but time and money as well.
Gun control is a large part of why Democrats lose this group. If they get rid of that position, however, they risk alienating urban liberals. It just depends on if the trade-off is worth it. I think it probably is. After all, urban liberals aren’t going vote Republican if the Democrats don’t support gun control. They’ll grumble and bitch, but there are a variety of other issues that they agree with the Democrats on, and they’ll vote accordingly. More rural folks (and the Scotch-Irish make up a number of these people) are willing to look at politicians who are Democrats, but most absolutely will not vote for a gun control candidate. There are other issue at play, but if you take that off the table, then you at least have a much better chance of reaching them.
“… he sees, in almost Manichaean terms, as a class conflict between the Scots-Irish and America’s “paternalistic Ivy League-centered, media-connected, politically correct power centers.” He even excuses resistance to the “Northern-dominated” Civil Rights movement.”
That plays in Virginia, especially against an opponent that looks like a son of privilege. But it is very different from the ethos of the Democratic party nationally.
I’ve heard many a white dude say flat out that they won’t vote Democrat because of guns and taxes, period. Democrats have a chance, right now, to prove to these folks that they’re not going to screw with their guns or raise taxes (IOW, cut spending). I’m willing to trade those issues off in order to have more Democrats in power.
If they come flat out saying “we won’t mess with gun laws or raise taxes” and keep that promise, not only will they be able to retain power for a good while, they’ll be able to accomplish other, more important things. Plus, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I’d say that gun laws should, to some extent, be determined locally. That way, high-crime urban areas can control guns in their areas and rural areas can leave them be.
While this might sound to liberals like warmed-over Republicanism, it’s really just pragmatism. The political climate is now turning into a race to the center, and they need to make sure they get there first.
As a libertarian, if the Democrats did that, I’d be tempted to vote with them a lot more than I do today. A lot of libertarian voters like the Democratic views on social issues, but their support for hiking taxes and taking away guns keeps them voting GOP. Get rid of those two issues, and you have a party that will reign a long time.
When did the Democratic Party last threaten to take away all the guns? Are we supposed to do away with existing gun control laws? I know gun owners & collectors. Many of them hunt. But they are not one-issue voters.
About 1/4 of my ancestors were Scots-Irish (Scotch-Irish, as my grandmother used to say). The others were your basic bog-trotters & came over more recently. (Isn’t it true that “Scotch-Irish” was invented to distinguish the earlier Irish immigrants from the Popish masses?) Ancestry is interesting, but how many people are really that stuck in the past? Are Webb’s Scots-Irish still stuck in the hollers, brewing up moonshine & shooting possums?
It’s good that Webb won, but I’m not enamoured of his ideas. Kay Bailey Hutchison won handily here, but I was glad to vote for Barbara Ann Radnofsky. Of course, Webb would probably consider her part of “America’s intellectual elite.” (She’s Jewish.)
I’ve wondered that a few times myself. All my life I’ve heard that the Democrats are sneaking up to our doors to rob us of our guns. They’ve passed exactly one gun control law in my lifetime, and it did not prevent a single law-abiding person from owning guns. Beyond that, the claim seems to rest on local gun-control laws in urban areas, whihc are generally supported by both parties for the obvious and indisputable reason that they prevent crime.
Maybe we’re supposed to provide subsidies to the gun industry so that AK-47’s are available for five bucks. That’s about the only way that either party could become more pro-gun.
I think Webb was painting with a pretty broad brush. The picture, viewed from a distance, ends up looking like a redneck.
I’m 3/4 Scotch-Irish, 1/4 Irish Catholic. Some of the stuff he says sounds right, but I’m a professional, vote Democratic, and don’t have the slightest problem with gun control (not that the Dems have actually done anything significant in that regard). I have no intention of fighting, or having any of my children fight, in one of this country’s dumb-ass wars. I don’t own a gun, or a pickup truck, and the last country song I heard that I could stomach was by the Dixie Chicks.
If the Dems want to kowtow to the redneck vote (and I don’t think this is a bad idea at all), fine, but shoving the label Scotch-Irish (or Scots-Irish, if you want to be all correct and British about it) on them is a crock. I know a lot of people in northeast Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania who fit the description Webb offered to a tee. They happen to be Catholics and Orthodox of eastern European decent, though.
(Skipping your parting hyperbole for the nonsense that it is):
No, ITR, you’ve never proven anything regarding gun control, except in your own mind. But you don’t have to take just my word for it; FWIW, the CDC also disagrees with you as well.
Notice how they hedged their bets: saying essentially that, “while we’ve spent a lot of time and money finding nothing, if we only spend more time and money then we might find something!”
I had never made a connection between Celtic descent and guns, but I’m of Scottish heritage and own guns, so who knows?
Here in Montana, the new Democratic senator who just replaced Conrad Burns actually sent out single-issue campaign flyers talking about his support for our right to hunt, showing him wielding firearms and posing with antlered animals.
He won by 1,700 votes. Had he been in favor of gun control, he wouldn’t have had a chance.
I agree that Democrats could get a lot further with conservatives – even rural southern conservatives – if they would let go of a lot of the gun control rhetoric. It’s true that real Democratic intentions with regard to guns to get ridiculously exaggerated by the right and actual legislation even more so but if the left were to drop it as an issue it would be easier to get through some of the reflexive defensiveness for many on the right.
By that same token, the right really should drop all the gay bashing and tell the Jesus hustlers like Dobson to take a hike. Think of all the acrimony which would disappear if those respective sides made those moves. You might actually be able to have a conversation about fiscal politics rather than getting bogged down in all the social bullshit.
You’d still have abortion but that’s probably insoluble.
This is more of less equivalent to dismissing (for example) a complaint about Republican anti-gay positions by asking “When did the Republicans threaten to round up all the gays into concentration camps?”
A restriction can be well short of total confiscation but still anathema to voters concerned about civil liberties.
Which ones?
The ones that say “If you’re a convicted felon, you can’t own guns”? Of course not (with the caveat that case-by-case exceptions should be made for non-violent crimes).
The ones that say “You can’t own guns with X, Y, and Z scary-looking (but functionally insignificant) features”? Damn straight.
Webb’s analysis is generally correct, though maybe a bit simplistic. The Scotch-Irish culture (or Ulster Protestant culture, if you prefer) does dominate much of the country. (Though there were and are many other ethnic groups who contributed to the mix, I think it’s correct to say that Scotch-Irish cultural features mostly overwhelmed the rest.)
And by the way, most people who are culturally descended from this group don’t even realize it; and only a relative few would self-identify as “Scotch-Irish.” We’re really talking about a persistent cultural echo more than a cohesive ethnic group.
And I certainly agree with Webb that, to win over this group, Democrats need to focus their emphasis on economic issues. Economic populism is the way to go. We Democrats have to get people to look past the so-called “social issues” (gun control, abortion, gay rights) to see where their economic interests lie. Democrats have to focus on Republican economic and tax policies, and make it clear how those policies are harming the middle class.
From the article:
That’s the dream, and has been the dream for progressives since the days of the Populist Party. Alas, conservatives have always been adept at dividing working class and middle class people along racial lines.
True in general, but not in all cases. Proposition H was endorced by the SF Democratic Party. That’s not “take away all your guns”, but it’s certainly pretty draconian. I wonder how Pelosi voted on that proposition.
SteveMB answered admirably. I can only add that, since Clintonian Democrats never met a gun control law they didn’t like, no matter how nonsensical it was, the threat was real (if unspoken) that, left to their own devices, we would have England-style gun control as soon as they could swing the votes to pass the legislation.
As far as existing gun control laws are concerned, I’m reasonably content (as long as we’re talking Federal-level laws, here). Some state and municipal laws I wouldn’t mind seeing rolled back, like D.C.'s and Chicago’s ban on handguns.
But, since I live in neither of those localities, I’m also content to let the locals decide for themselves what’s appropriate where they live.
All I ask in return is that they accord me the same consideration.
