Tipping points.
Encouraging piece by Christina Larson in the latest Washington Monthly on "the emerging environmental majority". Good title since it seems to follow along the lines of the Judis-Texeira "reallignment" theory anticipating a center-left era to succeed the current rightwing one. Larson's main point is that the post-70s split between traditional sportsmen-conservationists and New Politics "greens" is ending, and that the GOP is going to have an increasingly difficult time over the next years balancing the demands of its outdoorsmen/rural life-interest lobby groups against those of its energy-industry paymasters, possibly pushing fisher-hunter conservationists toward the Democratic camp. Most deliciously, Larson suggests the "tipping point" might come over that most latte of issues, global warming.
Larson convinces me that environmental policy could well improve -- indeed, already has given the anecdotes in the article -- under the pressure of Republican-leaning gunsport groups like Trout Unlimited teaming up with Democratic-leaniing enviros like the Earthworks or the Sierra Club. Carl Pope certainly comes off well in his efforts to de-rarify environmentalism and stress its traditional connection with hunting. But as evidence of a possible political as opposed to policy reallignment, the article's evidence strikes me as pretty thin gruel. Larson cites Bush's declining results among rural and gun-owning households between 2000 and 2004. But outside the east and the south, in the parts of the country where the most probable reallignment would occur, Bush's share of the popular vote among gun-owning households fell only 2% in the west and 3% in the midwest -- hardly the stuff or backlash or reallignment. Among rural voters (including small town voters), Bush's vote share fell 2% in the midwest and actually rose in the western states.
That's not to say that conservation-populist governors like Brian Schweitzer or state-level Democratic electoral breakthroughs like the ones in Colorado and Montana don't fit nicely into Larson's theory. But, if the theory holds, I'm not entirely sure what will prevent western Republicans from simply distancing themselves from the corporate national party in the same way southern and western regional Democrats already distance themselves from the urban "elitist" national Democratic party with a fair amount of success. Surely the conservationist-corporate conflict of interest in the GOP ranks pales next to the theocon-conservatarian conflict of interest, which has been humming along nicely the past 25 years. US political coalitions are mighty durable things.
Not to be unduly negative; if sportsmen and green groups unite to force Republican senators like Conrad Burns and Jeff Bingaman to defend what's left of the American wilderness and demand things like a real energy policy, that's a definite plus. If more people come to accept that environmentalism (like most boogieman liberal causes) is already a totally centrist issue in US politics, that's a good thing too. Whether its a long run pancea for the Democrats though is, to me, more questionable.
Larson convinces me that environmental policy could well improve -- indeed, already has given the anecdotes in the article -- under the pressure of Republican-leaning gunsport groups like Trout Unlimited teaming up with Democratic-leaniing enviros like the Earthworks or the Sierra Club. Carl Pope certainly comes off well in his efforts to de-rarify environmentalism and stress its traditional connection with hunting. But as evidence of a possible political as opposed to policy reallignment, the article's evidence strikes me as pretty thin gruel. Larson cites Bush's declining results among rural and gun-owning households between 2000 and 2004. But outside the east and the south, in the parts of the country where the most probable reallignment would occur, Bush's share of the popular vote among gun-owning households fell only 2% in the west and 3% in the midwest -- hardly the stuff or backlash or reallignment. Among rural voters (including small town voters), Bush's vote share fell 2% in the midwest and actually rose in the western states.
That's not to say that conservation-populist governors like Brian Schweitzer or state-level Democratic electoral breakthroughs like the ones in Colorado and Montana don't fit nicely into Larson's theory. But, if the theory holds, I'm not entirely sure what will prevent western Republicans from simply distancing themselves from the corporate national party in the same way southern and western regional Democrats already distance themselves from the urban "elitist" national Democratic party with a fair amount of success. Surely the conservationist-corporate conflict of interest in the GOP ranks pales next to the theocon-conservatarian conflict of interest, which has been humming along nicely the past 25 years. US political coalitions are mighty durable things.
Not to be unduly negative; if sportsmen and green groups unite to force Republican senators like Conrad Burns and Jeff Bingaman to defend what's left of the American wilderness and demand things like a real energy policy, that's a definite plus. If more people come to accept that environmentalism (like most boogieman liberal causes) is already a totally centrist issue in US politics, that's a good thing too. Whether its a long run pancea for the Democrats though is, to me, more questionable.
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