Outside the Beltway

Politics as Team Sports

Texas Choosin’ Edition.

James Joyner
11

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This morning’s episode of The Daily, “The Republican Strategy to Salvage the Midterms,” references this ad* running in the Texas Senate race:

I’ve often decried the extent to which American politics has become a team sport, with policy positions and personal character secondary to which side “wins” or “loses.” A disgraced Senate candidate’s ex-wife, who divorced him “on biblical grounds,” urging people to vote for him on the basis that, otherwise, the other team will win, is the perfect exemplar of that.

Still: she’s not wrong. To the extent a voter supports President Trump and/or the Republican agenda, a vote for even a moderate Democrat undermines their preferred outcome. “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch” is a cynical, short-term approach to foreign policy. It may well make sense in domestic politics.

This was less true before the extreme partisan sorting of the last three decades. I’m certainly old enough to remember when Southern Democrats routinely worked with Ronald Reagan. Now, though, it means handing Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs from Tim Scott to Elizabeth Warren and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions from a conservative (Bill Cassidy was defeated in the primary, so won’t be back) to Bernie Sanders. That’s not insignificant.

To be sure, some of us made this move in past elections. Hell, Alabama voters elected Democrat Doug Jones rather than vote for a sex predator. But rooting for the other team is a hard thing to do. And the stakes are higher in politics than in sports.

*Frustratingly, this is the only version I could easily find of the ad itself. YouTube is cluttered with people commenting on the ad; you’d think the ad itself would be the first result, but it’s nowhere to be found.

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11 responses to “Politics as Team Sports”

  1. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    Talarico’s response on a CNN town hall last night felt pitch-perfect to me. He first noted the setup of the room: one side vs. the other. He then went through a whole list of challenges–aging parents, medical/school/credit card debt, the price of food and gas, etc.–that everyone is dealing with, and said we need solutions, not more of this my team/your team nonsense.

    It’s astonishing to me that a candidate as obviously flawed as Paxton is even anywhere near winning. It’s a stain on the democratic process.

    1
    1. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
      Steven L. Taylor

      It continues to demonstrate that while candidate quality is a variable in elections, it is far from the most important one.

  2. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    I’ve never understood the desire to align your identity with a political party. If you live in a Republican area, register as a Republican. If it’s Democratic, then register with that party. I’ve lived in both areas, although the last time I lived in a Republican area was at the dawn of my voting life and I wasted it by registering as an Independent. What a waste of a primary vote!

    My experience has been that at the local level party affiliation is just a formality. Here in Baltimore the Dem primary sees candidates running on pro-business, good government, tough-on-crime, political activist, and a slew of other messages. Anyone who wins the primary is the Dem nominee, so they are free to promote any type of government philosophy.

    I wonder if all red or all blue areas are provide more diverse choices than more purple ones.

    Just to be clear, I think the Republican Party is a shell of its former self, morally bankrupt and corrupt. But if I lived in an area where a Republican was going to be elected, I would vote in the primary for the least-bad candidate that had a chance.

    1. James Joyner Avatar
      James Joyner

      @MarkedMan In a one-party state, voting in that party’s primary is indeed the prudent course of action.

      I fully understand holding your nose and voting for a flawed candidate who supports your agenda vice a better one who will fight it. That’s really what parties are for. What frustrates me is people who will “root for the laundry” even when the party flips to the other side of the issue.

      1. MarkedMan Avatar
        MarkedMan

        I guess I’m past the “people doing the non-optimal thing is frustrating” stage. I would think that a majority of citizens, and an even larger majority of voters, just pick a team and stick with it no matter what. That’s what happens, and there’s no point shouting into the wind.

        The other thing I’ve gotten over is the need for a President to project as a leader above all else. I don’t see it, and thought Al Gore was infinitely preferable to George W Bush, or that virtually anyone was better than Ronald Reagan, but I recognize that many many people felt those two Republicans “presented leadership”. And many support Trump because he projects as tough and take charge.

        I’ll concede that I might be undervaluing these characteristics, because while executive competence might be vastly preferable during ordinary times, the ability to rally people might be worth more during real crises.

    2. Michael Cain Avatar
      Michael Cain

      Colorado voter registration is now just over half unaffiliated, then Democrats at 25% and Republicans at 22%. Of course, we have open primaries so the unaffiliated voters can choose their primary. We’re also vote by mail, which leads to the situation where registered Republicans get a Republican primary ballot, registered Democrats a Democratic ballot, and unaffiliated voters get both (but can only vote one). The return envelopes identify unaffiliated voters, and those have to go through an extra step of processing. A modest percentage of unaffiliated voters return both ballots. Those are examined by the election judges. If only one was marked, that one will be counted and the other (blank) ballot voided. If both are marked, neither is counted. If neither is marked, both are voided. I worked part of this year’s primary as an election judge in extraction, where those decisions are made, and it’s a pain in the ass.

      To anticipate the question of why do mail balloting given complications like this, a good part of the decision to give up in-person precinct voting was based on ever-increasing difficulties finding sufficient venues, and staffing them, particularly in light of ballots (like this year’s general election ballot) that may include >60 races that have to be marked.

  3. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    I confess that if the shoe were on the other foot–a philandering Democratic candidate’s ex telling Dems to vote for the guy because the Repubs were worse–it would make absolute sense to me. Hell, I’d still choose Graham Platner over Susan Collins. We’re fighting for this country’s survival as a democracy. And on top of even that, Trump himself is both a philanderer and rapist, including child rapist. Collins isn’t, but she’s provided cover for the Trump Admin’s abuse every step of the way, so voting for her is voting to enable that abuse.

    None of that is politics-as-teams-sports, it’s a rational choice for the lesser of two evils.

    Of course, I realize that many Republicans would say something that at least sounds superficially similar on their side–Paxton may be bad, but he’s better than the socialist trans illegals threatening our country’s existence.

    What’s the difference? The difference is that my assessment is accurate, and theirs isn’t.

    I get why this answer leads to eye-rolls in people who assume by default that if each side is making equally egregious accusations against the other, then it all must be petty squabbling. Once you take that attitude, the evidence hardly matters–why bother to adjudicate the issue when you’re automatically the adult in the room?

    1
  4. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    Quite thoughts:

    1. I agree that Angela Paxton is making a rational request here. I noted a similar situation for Georgia Republicans and Herschel Walker four years ago.

    2. Partisan ID is the most important variable in terms of understanding electoral outcomes.

    3. The main problem for US politics, in my view, is that we only have two teams to choose from.

    2
  5. Charley in Cleveland Avatar
    Charley in Cleveland

    What a sad situation it is when a corrupt, unfit candidate for the Senate is actually less corrupt and unfit than the President who has endorsed him. The Trump presidencies have broken all the rules about what will or won’t be deemed disqualifying behavior by a candidate. Dems should be alarmed when a significant portion of the electorate believes they are worse for the country than the party that has allowed Trump to screw up the national and world economies, undermine the alliances that have stabilized the world since 1945, and climb into bed with communist dictators. The best the R’s can do in Texas is to focus on culture war bullshit.

  6. gVOR08 Avatar
    gVOR08

    I’ve commented that in a rational world Trump’s approval would be south of 20%. I think the main reason it isn’t is that in order to recognize Trump’s true nature they would have to accept that we lefties and libturds were right all along, and that is something they cannot do. Team sport.

  7. Modulo Myself Avatar
    Modulo Myself

    With the current GOP, partisanship and team sports all seem like a dodge. It’s just as damning to hold your nose while voting for a dozen terrible candidates in order to protect our kids from radical Islam and gender ideology as it is to really support a dozen terrible candidates. And we can’t have Democrats in charge of banking; after all, we have to make sure the Trump administration will never get investigated for insider trading.

    The entire party is just a world spirit of bigoted and ignorant nonsense with the ultimate demand to never be held accountable. All we are really saying is that Republicans, no matter how you cut it, are inferior, and that’s the lure.

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