The GOP’s Secret Weapon: The Traditional Family
Caitlin Flanagan, who is well known to fans of The Atlantic Monthly, takes a famous political catchphrase and turns it on the Democrats:
It’s the contempt, stupid.
The contempt Flanagan is talking about is the contempt for tradition that motivates far too many progressives:
…I have spent much of the past week on a forced march to the G.O.P. And the bayonet at my back isn’t in the hands of the Republicans; the Democrats are the bullyboys. Such lions of the left as Barbara Ehrenreich, the writers at Salon and much of the Upper West Side of Manhattan have made it abundantly clear to me that I ought to start packing my bags. I’m not leaving, but sometimes I wonder: When did I sign up to be the beaten wife of the Democratic Party?
Here’s why they’re after me: I have made a lifestyle choice that they can’t stand, and I’m not cowering in the closet because of it. I’m out, and I’m proud. I am a happy member of an exceedingly “traditional” family. I’m in charge of the house and the kids, my husband is in charge of the finances and the car maintenance, and we all go to church every Sunday. This month Little, Brown published a collection of my essays about family life called To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife. It’s written in the spirit of one of my great heroes, the late housewife writer and feminist Erma Bombeck. It’s not a book about social policy or alternative lifestyles or anything even vaguely political. It’s a book about how much I miss my mother, who died recently, and about the struggles I have had fighting breast cancer without my mom around to help me. It’s a book that pays tribute to the ’50s housewife instead of ridiculing her.
As far as I can tell, every reviewer and reporter who has encountered my book has assumed that I’m a conservative Republican. At the end of an interview on a national TV network, a reporter said, “Caitlin, I can’t let you go without asking you one question.” Here was her question: Was it really true that I’m a Democrat? Those reporters’ assumptions don’t tell you anything about me, nor do they tell you much about the reporters themselves: they made an honest mistake. What it tells you a whole lot about is the Democratic Party and the face it projects to the world. It’s a party that supports gay families, as I do, and has vast sympathy for many other kinds of alternative lifestyles. But we let the Republicans have complete ownership of the image of the traditional family. And that’s one reason we keep losing elections.
…The Democrats made a huge tactical error a few decades ago. In the middle of doing the great work of the ’60s–civil rights, women’s liberation, gay inclusion–we decided to stigmatize the white male. The union dues–paying, churchgoing, beer-drinking family man got nothing but ridicule and venom from us. So he dumped us. And he took the wife and kids with him.
And now here we are, living in a country with a political and economic agenda we deplore, losing election after election and wondering why.
I don’t totally buy that – the ‘union dues’ man is far more welcome in the Democratic Party than the Republican (I suspect that most conservatives share my contempt at the unions for what they’ve done to such former heavyweight U.S. industries as autos and airlines), nor do I think that the Democrats as a whole have such contempt for the traditional family (after all, most of them probably embody it).
What Caitlin is talking about is Hollywood, the activists, and the chattering classes:
It’s a small but very vocal minority, the Democratic pundits, who abhor what I represent because it doesn’t fit the stereotypical image of the modern woman who has escaped from domestic prison.
I’m suspicious of people who hold worldviews that place their own concerns at the center of the cosmos…is Flanagan projecting? I think so…nevertheless, there’s a bit of truth to the stereotype of the suburban soccer mom who’s liberal at heart but votes Republican because she loves her family and her lifestyle and sees it as increasingly under seige…
I agree with you about what for what unions have “done to such former heavyweight U.S. industries” as the auto industry, but I think with airlines the fault lies in bad management and structural problems with the business (being levered to the price of fuel and the economy, high fixed non-labor costs, commodity business which has to compete on rate) — even after the airlines went bankrupt and dissolved the labor contracts, they are still losing money hand over fist –
I hate to say it, but the best solution might be to nationalize the bankrupt airlines –
Well, you’re correct that the airlines have no shortage of problems – union wages and benefits have probably played a bigger role in the demise of Detroit, I’ll agree…
The airlines should charge for the service they provide. I can fly round trip from Boston to West Palm Beach for 10 – 15% less than I pay to fly to NYC and back on the Shuttle. The first flight is about 3 hours, the second, about 45 minutes. Sure, I may be paying a bit more for the convenience of going to the city on short notice and such, but that sort of disparity, especially when you consider the difference in quantity (cost) of fuel, is suspicious.
Back on topic though, there is a certain irony in the position of some that argues so strongly for diversity and for acceptance of differences while deriding and denouncing those that choose a traditional lifestyle. Makes one wonder (this one, anyway) about the real objectives and motivations…
The day that United went into the tank for their pilot’s union (during the summer of 2000) was the day that the airlines basically started their downward spiral. Yes, fuel prices have contributed to the problems, but after the United contract, the rest of the legacy carriers were held to the same standard during their contract negotiations, and all caved in promptly.
This is anecdotal, but my personal experience tells me there is more than a “bit” of truth in what Flanagan says. My mostly blue-collar relatives in West Virginia voted for Democrats, almost without exception, for decades. Now, most of them vote for Republicans–mostly due to the reasons Flanagan asserts. After decades of being treated with contempt for their faith, lack of “sophistication,” traditional family attitudes—basically for being white hillbillies—they stopped supporting Democrats in national elections. Don’t get me wrong, many of my relatives are college-educated and very successful people, but their accents and simple values would leave them open to the same type of scorn GWB receives for being a “hayseed.” Many of these people grew up in families where FDR was revered as a savior. For them to be voting consistently for Republicans indicates a fundamental change in their political perspective.
I agree that the Democratic leadership in this country does nothing to appeal to traditional family values voters. But I don’t feel they show contempt for traditional family values. Can someone give me an example of this? I really can’t think of a time when a politician on the right was attacked for being the sole provider for the family or when a politician on the left said all women must work. They’ve said all women should have the ability to work if they so desire, but don’t know what instances she might be talking about.
Could I claim that conservatives use abortion and gay marriage as a prop to prove they care about traditional family values because they are trying to outlaw non-traditional family values? To me, “traditional family values” doesn’t really mean much. It’s a buzz-phrase that is full of emptiness. In my view, the left is for allowing people to have whatever values they please with as little government intervention as possible. I know abortion is a very difficult issue there, but I think being labelled the “party of death” is a pretty good indication that the left’s arguments are thrown away out of hand without any thought given to the problem by many people. Likewise, there are many on the left that toss out the right’s position as well. As is often the case, some sort of middle ground will need to be explored and I think the left is clear about what they think that ought to be (making information available while making protection available as well which will probably lead to many more people having sex in high school than currently, but hopefully without many more pregnancies as they are more informed) and the right is pretty clear about what they think it ought to be (nobody has sex until marriage which will probably lead to many more people getting pregnant because they think “coitus interruptus” is not sex or oral sex is not sex or anal sex isn’t technically sex or some other way for the guy to convince the girl that it’s ok [or girl convincing the guy] or people will go ahead and have sex anyway because hormones work like that).
The gay marriage thing is just as tricky. But, to pretend there is no way to come together for an actual bi-partisan solution is just sickening to me. That sickness comes from both sides of the aisle too.
mikebdot, I think again that you have to draw a line between the activists and the rank-and-file…it is, certainly, out of line to label Democrats as the ‘party of death’…but then you read certain activists like Jane Hamesher and you’re in ‘if the shoe fits’ territory…
It’s not a “party” of death though. Jane Hamesher might be a woman of death, but you can’t extend it to the party. It’s just like Oliver Willis constantly claiming the republicans are the party of racists. It’s why I don’t go there anymore. Many others do this and it’s just plain lame.
An example where a mainstream liberal has shown they can’t stand a woman make the ‘lifestyle’ choice of being a stay at home mom would provide her argument some much needed evidence that democrats have turned their back on her.
People asking her “are you really a democrat” probably goes more to show that people that do interviews don’t usually read the books, or even skim through them. Interviewers are hardly ever actually prepared enough to ask good questions.
On this we agree – it’s not helpful to refer to the Democratic Party as the ‘party of death’ – it’s the sort of painting with a broad brush that I decry so often…
–I don’t totally buy that – the ‘union dues’ man is far more welcome in the Democratic Party than the Republican–
You are right. What Caitlin can’t bring herself to say is that it are WOMEN who are voting more conservative and it is the Dem Party and more specifically the Feminist Orgs that turned their back on traditional women roles — back when they were touting Clinton.
Fem Orgs. have/had no place and actually looked down their nose at women who forsake their degree or college altogether in lieu of a desire to be MOTHERS and decided they like not work and actually parent their children. This was a time when the Dem. party was constructing all these federal child-care facilities and the such, perpetuating the idea that parents had no choices or personal responsibility in their spending to stay home and care for the family — they just HAD to work and any women worth her salt would choose to work rather than care for her children and since it was expected, we had to make big efforts to alleviate the guilt associated with that choice.
BIG LIE once again. (PS I am a woman)
BTW I see the same thing happening with home-schooling. Of course, the party of “ideas” decides, after such dismal educating, they will take it in their on hands and EDUCATE their children. The left ridicules ( See Jane Hamsher and Ben Demench(sp) she was nice, don’t you think?) but (and of course Jane doesn’t realize) the left has their own contingent highjacking the hoemschool movement because they don’t like when the teacher complains when their undisciplined that knows no consequence child is horrid – so they Un-school.
All very hip, far-right inspired, tested and proven and suddenly — give it a lefty name and it is alright.
Expect in the next couple of years, for this group to start demanding subsidizing (oh, you mean like vouchers? yes) and expect Dems to be embracing so variation that benefits the teachers union — they;ll figure out a way — but make no mistake it will be vouchers, but lefty hijacked- Dem leaders will act like they just dreamed up this home style schooling that we all need to pay for.