How Can Liberals Win ?

I pointed out in a previous posting that Liberals tend to be fragmented into unconnected minority groups. On the other hand, Conservatives almost by definition are the largest natural subgroup of a community, either the majority or clearly the largest minority. That is because Conservatives want to preserve the current structure of society, which they perceive as beneficial to themselves. If they wanted to change it, then they would be Liberals. If the majority or the largest minority (when there is no majority group) wanted to change things, they would. So if things are not changing dramatically, then Conservatives are clearly dominant.

So how can Liberals ever win, if they are always just a bunch of disparate minority groups in a community? One way is to become the majority or the largest and dominant minority. One way this can happen is for the Conservative majority “leadership” to thoroughly overplay their hand, become incompetent, corrupt, and oppressive, driving some of their own to become Liberals and driving the Liberals into a combined group, forgetting their differences and focusing on the issue of the failed Conservative “leadership.” This is called a revolution.

Examples are the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and of course the American Revolution. Revolutions are singular notable historical events because they do not occur very often.

A handicap for Liberals is that Revolutions are precipitated by incompetence among Conservatives. That is, it is not Liberals who start revolutions but Conservatives. Nevertheless, idealistic Liberals are forever attempting to foment a revolution, wasting away their lives in bohemian coffee houses and such, arguing what they would do when they are in charge. When the young Benito Mussolini and one of his mistresses were walking down a tree-lined avenue one night after attending a rousing socialist meeting, Mussolini remarked, “These are the trees on which we will hang the pigs.” And his mistress laughingly replied, “And where are the trees on which we will be hanged?” Actually, they were about ten miles away.

Actually, sometimes Liberals are in the majority or nearly so, but not in control. The reason is that they are divided. By the Anna Karenina Principle (defined by Jarod Diamond) all the unhappy people who want to change society are unhappy for different reasons. Liberals are divided among various different interest groups, many of which are rivals. “Divide and Conquer” works for the Conservatives but rarely for Liberals.

The only way for Liberals to win is for them to unite. If the Conservatives decline to be sufficiently incompetent, corrupt, or oppressive to drive them to the unity of a revolution, then the Liberals must form a coalition. They must unite under one banner in order to take control. This means compromise. Different rival unhappy ethnic groups need to bury their animosities and take up the causes of their competitors. The unhappy poor and unemployed need to throw support behind ambitious rich Liberals who must condescend to embrace the masses for the sake of a rapid political advancement. Unhappy conservative minority regionalists must take up the cause of people they despise so long as they are in another province. This is not easy. It doesn’t happen often. That’s why they usually have to wait for a revolution or near revolution.

American Conservatives are pretty homogeneous. There are several kinds, but most belong to several kinds. There are Religious Conservatives, Social Conservatives, Fiscal Conservatives, and Intellectual Conservatives. Most Religious Conservatives are also all of the rest. Most Social Conservatives are Fiscal Conservatives. Most Fiscal Conservatives are at least sympathetic to Social Conservatives. Some non-Religious Conservatives do not like their religious comrades, but it is not a breaking point.

American Liberals on the other hand are pretty heterogeneous. Jewish and Muslim, Italian and Irish, Polish and Hispanic, Feminists and Blacks, the Unemployed and Labor Unions, preservationalist Environmentalists and alternative energy Environmentalists, animal rights activists and multiculturalists, atheists and religious ethnic minorities, and so on. They are not only different but rivals or competitors, or downright do not like each other. But to win, they must put aside these differences, bite their tongues, pretend to be friends, and shout the common party lines.

This is all pretty tenuous.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the existing Democrat Party coalition of the 70 years following the American Civil War, enlarged by a mini-revolution brought on by the Great Depression, and sprang Liberals into a dominant position. The existing coalition was a union of Southern Segregationalists, Northeastern Labor Unions, Western Farmers, Immigrant and Ethnic Communities, and so on. This coalition ruled the Presidency for 20 years and the Congress for longer.

In the late 1960’s the Democrat Party tore itself apart and in the next few years put itself back together again as a different animal. A new coalition was formed that long kept dominance of Congress but had a much harder time with the Presidency.