A Working Class Hero Is Something to Be

by Eric Martin

Kevin Drum, as is his wont, applies an equanimous eye to the newly released Grand New Party by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam.  However, in the middle of a solid review, Drum squints a bit too hard in the effort to give credit to the authors' ideas:

...Douthat and Salam argue [that] maintenance of traditional social values has more economic value to the working class than it does to the college-educated middle class. In the well-off suburbs, divorce is rare, crime is low, and kids mostly don’t have children out of wedlock. What’s more, when those things do happen, the better-off classes have the resources to deal with them. To the upper middle class, then, the constellation of issues revolving around the breakdown of the traditional family seems a distant concern.

But what about working class communities? Liberals tend to poke fun at the fact that the very communities that complain most about divorce and crime and single parenthood are the same ones that have the highest divorce rate, the most crime, and the greatest incidence of single parenthood. Hypocrites! If they’re so worried about this stuff, why not lead by example?

But as Douthat and Salam point out, doesn’t it make sense that the people who are most often face-to-face with these problems are also the ones who are most concerned about them? Put that way, of course it does. What’s more, things like divorce, single-parent families, and teen pregnancy incur costs that are harder to deal with the poorer you are, so to a large extent, when working class whites vote for socially conservative Republicans they’re also voting their economic self-interest.

Drum, Douthat and Salam get this wrong on multiple levels.  Liberals, to use the broad generalization already in play, do not criticize as hypocrites those that support the conservative "family values" agenda simply because the so-called Red States tend to show higher incidence of the supposed immoral or broken-family phenomena.  Nor is there a liberal call for the Red Staters to lead by example, necessarily (though self-righteous/opportunistic judgmentalism on, say, aldutery is worthy of criticism when the speaker is an alduterer - especially when this is used as a political weapon). 

Few deny that "family values" issues should be important to working class families, nor is the economic impact disregarded or ignored.  Quite the opposite.  It is precisely because liberals appreciate how important these issues are to working families that we put aside moralistic preening in favor of constructing pragmatic, evidence-based solutions. 

The real liberal critique is that the conservative policies designed to address these "family values" issues are often ineffectual if not outright counterproductive.  For example, the conservative stance against family planning, contraception, AIDS education and comprehensive sex education (abstinence only!) exacerbates problems associated with teen pregnancies, out of wedlock births, unwanted pregnancies and STDs.  By highlighting the disparaties in the rates of these social ills in Red States vs. Blue States, liberals are making an argument about the comparative efficacy of the two approaches.  Or at the very least, showing that the current approach in the Red States isn't working.

So, no, this is not true:

"[W]hen working class whites vote for socially conservative Republicans they’re also voting their economic self-interest."

They may be voting their economic insecurity, but not self-interest.

Comments

[Phil]

Guys, you're all missing the most important thing here, which is that the trailer for Watchmen leaked today, and if you behave, I'll give you a working link.

[Gary Hussein Farber]

Google is my friend.

Tomorrow: Dark Knight.

And WALL-E is great!

[DaveC]

Hypothetical situation: some jobless guy with plenty of time on his hands compares one of our young ruffian perverts that is serving and protecting our country to a 9 year old for having an opinion. Thats wrong. For one thing, 9 year olds don't surf the net for pron and post the metal music. Although the interloper should probably enlighten hisself by reading a book about how great the Detroit is doing nowadays because of the gummint programs, and possibly a book about Iraq so he can inform himself.

OK, who do I buy into more? Reluctantly I would have to throw in with the punk kid who I wouldn't shake hands with for fear of the germs.

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint.

(Hesiod)

[Gary Farber]

"Hypothetical situation: some jobless guy with plenty of time on his hands compares one of our young ruffian perverts that is serving and protecting our country to a 9 year old for having an opinion."

Non-hypothetical: learn to read -- I compared myself to a 9 year old. Idiot.

I also don't have all that much time on my hands, and whether or not I have a job is neither something you can know nor something that is any of your business.

[DaveC]

Who here wants to argue against the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts? Who here wants to stand up against medical aid for the poor and elderly?

That goshdarned LT Nixon. He hate poor people! and the coloreds! Because he says that many government programs didn't work out so well.

[DaveC]

Hey I have a great idea! Lets have a discussion group where everybody ostracizes any newbie who deigns to disagree! That will be great!

[DaveC]

If you are lucky, then some day you will be able to prevent idiots this guy from ever uttering or printing a word. (Because we all know how he is so stupid and racist.) Three trials at once, though? I think that is a bit much.

[Gary Hussein Farber]

"He hate poor people! and the coloreds!"

I sincerely doubt that.

"Because he says that many government programs didn't work out so well."

No, he said that the Great Society programs were"terrible domestic programs." Fine: which ones, and why?

Is there something preventing one of you from responding substantively?

"Lets have a discussion group where everybody ostracizes any newbie who deigns to disagree!"

Seems like a bad idea. Also a non-sequitur, unless you can point to someone ostracizing someone, and who that person is. Certainly Lt. Nixon isn't any kind of newbie here, and certainly asking him a substantive question isn't ostracizing him.

Are these examples of your on-topic, reasonable, comments, DaveC, that should make us think you're now a reasonable person, who should be taken seriously, and treated nicely?

Because I'd like to think you're capable of doing a better job at that. Help me, and yourself, out here, by doing that.

[Gary Hussein Farber]

"If you are lucky, then some day you will be able to prevent idiots this guy from ever uttering or printing a word."

Yes, that liberal fascism, which consists of asking people questions, sure is oppressive. Help, help, come see the repression inherent in the ObWi system!

Persecution complex much?

And before you claim you're just talking about poor little Mark Steyn, I'll point out that you wrote "If you are lucky, then some day you will be able."

You're addressing people here, and as usual, claiming that that's what we want to do.

DaveC: why is it you are incapable of responding on substance, and why is it you object to people being asked to respond on substance, and why is it you so like to come making these lying slurs about people here? Especially late at night.

Would an AA sponsor help? Or are you just naturally this unpleasant and unimpressive?

[DaveC]

Where do you get the idea that the Great Society programs were either "disastrously high federal government spending" or "on terrible domestic programs"?

I'm guessing from Daniel Patrick Moynihan:

Moynihan found data at the Labor Department that showed that even as fewer people were unemployed, more people were joining the welfare rolls — these recipients were families with children, but only one parent (almost invariably the mother). The laws at that time permitted such families to receive welfare payments in certain parts of the United States.

Moynihan's report[2] was seen by people on the left as "blaming the victim",[3] a slogan coined by William Ryan.[4] He was also seen as propagating the views of racists,[5] because much of the press coverage of his reports focused on the discussion of children being born out of wedlock. Despite Moynihan's warnings, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program had the "Man out of the house rule." Critics said that the nation was paying poor women to throw their husbands out of the house. Moynihan supported Richard Nixon's idea of a Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI). Daniel Patrick Moynihan had significant discussions concerning a Basic Income Guarantee with Russell B. Long and Louis O. Kelso.

After the 1994 Republican sweep of Congress, Moynihan agreed that something had to be done about the welfare system possibly encouraging women to raise their children without fathers: "The Republicans are saying we have a helluva problem, and we do."

I'd venture a guess that LT Nixon is referring to the change from children having two parents in the house in the past as opposed to the current prevalence of kids growing up in single parent homes. This is probably the most destructive side effect of the Great Society programs. Single parenting supported by taxpayers is both more expensive and leads to worse results, so why encourage it?

[hilzoy]

DaveC: Gary did not compare LTNixon to a nine year old. He did not accuse him of being racist. He did not accuse him of hating the elderly.

Also, I note, not for the first time, that if we ostracized any newbie who had a contrary opinion, you would not still be commenting here. Heck, even if we were a lot more tolerant than that -- if we set the limits where ostracism kicked in at something like, oh, to pick an example at random, accusing me of hating the troops a month or two after Andy was killed -- you would not still be commenting here.

As it is, you are, and while people have challenged you, I do not think they have been consistently unkind. They certainly have ever directed at you the kind of misreading and real venom that you often direct at others.

[Gary Farber]

"Man out of the house rule."

I couldn't agree more that that was a terrible thing. And I have plenty of other criticisms of various "welfare" programs.

I'm not sure where you're quoting from, but let's look more closely at the "man out of the house rule":

A regulation that was formerly applied in certain jurisdictions that denied poor families welfare payments in the event that a man resided under the same roof with them.

Under the man-in-the-house rule, a child who otherwise qualified for welfare benefits was denied those benefits if the child's mother was living with, or having relations with, any single or married able-bodied male. The man was considered a substitute father, even if the man was not supporting the child.

Before 1968 administrative agencies in many states created and enforced the man-in-the-house rule. In 1968 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the regulation as being contrary to the legislative goals of the Aid to Families of Dependent Children (AFDC) program. The AFDC program, established by the Social Security Act of 1935 (49 Stat. 620, as amended [42 U.S.C.A. § 301 et seq.]), provides benefits to the children of impoverished parents.

In King v. Smith, 392 U.S. 309, 88 S. Ct. 2128, 20 L. Ed. 2d 1118 (1968), the U.S. Supreme Court entertained a challenge to the man-in-the-house rule brought by the four children of Mrs. Sylvester Smith, a widow. These children were denied benefits by Dallas County, Alabama, welfare authorities based on their knowledge that a man named Williams was visiting Smith on weekends and had sexual relations with her.

The children of Smith filed a class action suit in federal court on behalf of other children in Alabama who were denied benefits under Alabama's "substitute father" regulation. This regulation considered a man a substitute father if (1) he lived in the home with the mother; (2) he visited the home frequently for the purpose of living with the mother; or (3) he cohabited with the mother elsewhere (King, citing Alabama Manual for Administration of Public Assistance, pt. I, ch. II, § VI). Testimony in the case revealed that there was some confusion among the authorities over how to interpret the regulation. One official testified that the regulation applied only if the parties had sex at least once a week, another official testified that sex every three months was sufficient, and still another placed the frequency at once every six months.

According to the High Court, Congress did not intend that the AFDC program require children "to look for their food to a man who is not in the least obliged to support them." The Court maintained that when Congress used the term parent in the Social Security Act, it was referring to "an individual who owed to the child a state-imposed legal duty of support." Ultimately, the Court struck down the man-in-the-house rule by holding that under the AFDC provisions in the Social Security Act, "destitute children who are legally fatherless cannot be flatly denied federally funded assistance on the transparent fiction that they have a substitute father."

Ah, I see you're quoting Wikipedia.

"Moynihan supported Richard Nixon's idea of a Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI)."

As do I. So you're for that, then? How about you, Lt. Nixon?

"I'd venture a guess that LT Nixon is referring to the change from children having two parents in the house in the past as opposed to the current prevalence of kids growing up in single parent homes. This is probably the most destructive side effect of the Great Society programs."

So we're in agreement that the long-dead "man out of the house" rule was a dreadful thing. Which was a rule created by various states and locales, not by Congress. So much for it being part of the Great Society, since, oh, well, it wasn't. Oopsie.

I gave a list of some of the more prominent Great Society programs. Even if we attribute the man-out-of-the-house rule to AFDC, if you like, I'm rather curious to read your explanation as to what it has to do with the environmental programs, with Medicaid and Medicare, with the civil rights laws, with the consumer protection laws, with dropping the poverty rate from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, with dropping the poverty rate for African-Americans from 55 percent in 1960 to 27 percent in 1968," and so on: can you explain, please, how the Great Society programs I've listed, and all the other Great Society programs, caused "the current prevalence of kids growing up in single parent homes"? Cite?

Then we're back again to: by all means, please do explain how all these programs, or which of these programs, were "terrible domestic programs"? Or would you disclaim that claim?

It's nice if we're all supporting a guaranteed annual income, though. I look forward to conservatives getting back to supporting Milton Friedman. Want to join me?

[hilzoy]

From my last comment: "They certainly have ever directed at you" -- 'ever' should be 'never'.

The point being: DaveC: fine, be yourself, whatever; but it's a bit much to be lectured on our intolerance, given the rather startling array of things we have tolerated thus far, some of which have been well over any line I'm familiar with.

[Jesurgislac]

DaveC: 'd venture a guess that LT Nixon is referring to the change from children having two parents in the house in the past as opposed to the current prevalence of kids growing up in single parent homes.

Presuming this is your opinion of "Great Society" programs - well, DaveC, you have more than slightly missed the point: the change is from children being warehoused in orphanages/care homes, to children being cared for by their mother. Children who once would have grown up parentless, even though one or even both of their biological parents were living, now have families.

Single parenting supported by taxpayers is both more expensive and leads to worse results, so why encourage it?

While single parents are routinely traduced and reviled by smug little people in snug little homes, they do a far better job than the child-warehouses did. It's just a fact, DaveC: though from your lofty moral height you may feel free to look down women bringing up children on their own, and sneer at their ability to do so, and feel that they don't deserve any help from "taxpayers" because of the terrible job they do, well: the reason single parents exist is because we no longer as a society consider it acceptable to deprive children of their mothers just because their mother doesn't have a husband.

It's true that children brought up in low-income families are more likely to have serious problems than children brought up in wealthy families. But the "social conservative" solution of further depriving such families of social resources and support, is no solution at all.

[Dan S.]

"Everyone would think that Head Start should have some long term impact on education (I certainly would), but it turns out that it doesn't. (To take a relatively non controversial example.)"

One aspect of this is that Head Start wasn't intended simply as a narrowly academic program, but one aimed at helping poor kids get out of poverty through better nutrition, health care, socialization, family support, and education. All the same, educational achievement is going to be a big part of that, so . . . .

What always strikes me is what this common observation always seems to leave out (at least in my limited experience). Given that Head Start does apparently have a significant (and positive) short-term effect on education, what does this say about the environment the children return to after this relatively brief intervention that these gains fail to be sustained?

[Dan S.]

"To the degree that this is true, I think it argues against the "social conservatism is better for working folks economically" idea. Working folks (I think) often have deeper social networks of family and community than wealthier folks. They often bring resources to the table that money can't buy when faced with divorce, single parenthood, unwanted pregnancy, etc."

- good point . . . I'm too sleepy to say anything interesting (you don't want to know how long it took me to type out my Head Start comment above) - but I think what Muder would say is that it's precisely this strength that is being undermined both by modern capitalism and progressive social values, by (for example) ideas that commitments, relationships and values - though very, very real - are also something that individuals negotiate (given socioeconomic realities and opportunities), not fixed and inherited obligations within a closely-knit kin network. But I'm doing a poor job of summarizing - it's a fascinating essay . . .I've never been entirely sure about how accurate, but definitely interesting . . .

[Republican Richard Hussein Grayson for Congress AZ-04]

If you read one book this year, you should read Grand New Party. As a candidate for Congress (running in the AZ-04 Sept. 2 GOP primary), I think this book is a must for every Republican and lots of Democrats. Future generations will live under Son of Sam’s Club Republicanism.

[Republican Richard Hussein Grayson for Congress AZ-04]

If you read one book this year, you should read Grand New Party. As a candidate for Congress (running in the AZ-04 Sept. 2 GOP primary), I think this book is a must for every Republican and lots of Democrats. Future generations will live under Son of Sam’s Club Republicanism.

[russell]

I'd venture a guess that LT Nixon is referring to the change from children having two parents in the house in the past as opposed to the current prevalence of kids growing up in single parent homes.

You could be right. Here's an idea -- let's ask LTNixon what he meant!

Wait -- Gary already did that!

Moynihan supported Richard Nixon's idea of a Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI).

Sounds fine to me.

Thanks -

[Mike Schilling]

In the well-off suburbs, divorce is rare

It is? Seriously? I know that I live in a suburb, so I must not be as well off as I thought I was. Damn it.

[Gary Farber]

Moynihan supported Richard Nixon's idea of a Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI).

Sounds fine to me.

I wrote: "Then we're back again to: by all means, please do explain how all these programs, or which of these programs, were "terrible domestic programs"? Or would you disclaim that claim?"

As usual, Drive-By DaveC disappears from conversation, uninterested in any continuing discussion of substance, or in any resolution of any question.

So much for earning those "why won't you be nice to me?" credits.

But I have faith that, whether late tonight, tomorrow night, or another night, DaveC will again be nursing a grievance at someone in his personal life, and feeling too cowardly to engage in actual discussion with that person, will get to drinking, and will come and unload his drive-by smears on people here again.

But, hey: maybe he'll surprise me, and this will be the week he quits doing that forever. That would be nice. For everyone.

[Jenavir]

Yeah because the number one pro-abortion institute is the least biased source for anything.

Crap. Total crap. Guttmacher is a research institute; if it is "pro-abortion," that is because reality has a well-known liberal bias. Its reputation for scientific accuracy is unimpeachable.

Simply calling the institute "pro-abortion" is not an argument. If you can find an actual flaw in their studies showing the results of comprehensive sex ed, then by all means point it out.

[Sebastian]

Simply calling the HHS report biased is not an argument either, yet rather than finding an actual flaw in their studies, that is all the argument we get.

Funny how that looks like a great argument on one side but not the other.

[TJ]

I breezed through this article and found nothing but typically shallow thinking from a liberal perspective.

Dude, do you know anything about Social Research? Do you know that difference between causation and correlation?

This same level of thinking is being applied to the economy right now...let's spend more becuase the economy is bad. WTF? Gauge the inability of government to produce ANYTHING, then tell me that we need to give them MORE money. Silly...just silly.