In spite of all the moaning and groaning rightwing faux populists make over "leftist elites" or "champagne socialists", the fact remains that conservatism is a very elite phenomena. Conservatives will try all sorts of machinations to broaden their base - appealing to a natural fear of change, appeals to the worst elements of human nature (prejudices against homosexuals, foreigners, or countercultural groups), association with piety, and an appeal to greed ("Do you want the gommit to steal your hard earned money?"). Despite all these attempts to make conservatism popular or at least populist, nothing works more for conservative parties, organizations, and movements than suppressing the vote.
Christian Right
The Christian Right is a movement predominantly (but not exclusively) in America that obscures real issues with religious rhetoric and a hyperactive sense of "providence" - they see (at least in their rhetoric) the hand of divine intervention everywhere. The American Christian Right began in the 1970s as a backlash to legalized abortion and mandatory desegregation in parochial schools1. The later issue, very crucial in the early days, has been dropped as the movement tries to wash its hands of racism, although issues concerning whether religious schools can legally insulate curious students from post-18th century biology and comprehensive sex education still galvanize the movement.
Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and Paul Weyrich built up much of the organizational structure of the movement. Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation and founder of the misleadingly named Free Congress Foundation, once said to a group of rightwing religious leaders:
"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."2
The Christian Right can be seen as conservatism in its most popular form - it appeals to the religious sensibilities of certain members of the working and middle classes, predominantly those from the rural sections of south-eastern states. Yet even these conservatives depend on one thing - poor turnout - to influence politics. The de facto cultural and political enfranchisement of minorities and mainstream workers threatens them more than anything - even if these groups tend to be religious and somewhat culturally conservative.
Ironically, many elite critics of grassroots politics like to imagine the Christian Right as the "rabble" which took over the Republican Party from the more respectable country clubbers. Indeed, in his condensations towards Nader, Eric Alterman3 has used the Christian Right as an example of how ordinary citizens can take over a major political party. The analogy is misleading, nonetheless because the empowerment of the Christian Right was influenced by chandelier conservatives like Justice Powel as a way to counteract leftwing populism with a less substantive countermovement4. The Christian Right - except for the occasional blue law and perhaps the sex industry - doesn't threaten business interests and can therefore be permitted rhetorical power over the Republican Party as the country club conservatives loot the treasury and sell off government in the background.
It’s staggering how anti-populist the Christian Right truly is seeing how they oppose voter turnout. The key device of the Christian Right has been named the "12.5% strategy"5. If only 50% of the electorate votes in congressional, senatorial, or presidential elections and about half that vote in primary elections, then 12.5% of the electorate can have profound influence over the course of an election. Higher civic participation dilutes the influence of the Christian rightists, which is why many (such as Paul Weyrich) support measures that effectively limit the vote. Civic virtue, in short, undermines the civically vicious Christian right.
Conservative Alberta
The Conservative Party of Canada and the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta6 continually celebrate the super-duper majority they seem to maintain in Alberta. Snide centrists from Ontario and select patches of eastern Canada may even view Alberta or (more egregiously) the entire West as full of politically backward and ignorant ultraconservatives. As appealing as this regional condescension might be, it misses an essential point: the mandate conservatives have in Alberta is very weak when you consider the low turnout.
In 2008, the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta (PCAA) won another landside victory in the provincial elections. Ed Stelmach became the Province’s next Premier and his party won 72 of the Provincial Legislature’s 83 seats7. The problem is only 41% of those who could vote did!8 Even with the popular vote of actual voters counted, the PCAA only garnered 53% of the popular vote (with the ultra-right “Wildrose Alliance” earning 7% of the actual popular vote). How a government with such a marginal majority can form a supermajority in the legislature works is thanks to structural features of the “Winner Take All” system in Canada which manufactures majorities.
Okay, support for the provincial conservatives isn’t as rock-solid as snide Ontarian centrists might think, but what about the Province’s adoration for federal Conservatives? For 2008, the case with the popular vote indicates the Conservatives won a strong majority of 64.62% of actual voters9. But an analysis of the election reveals historically low turnouts throughout the nation that year10. Only 52.9% of the Albertan electorate voted in the 2008 Federal election11, meaning that only 34% of the Albertan Federal electorate explicitly approved the Conservative Party of Canada through voting.
The strength of Albertan Conservatism appears to be civic disinterest. Any ideology based on such a condition is not secure in the hearts and minds of the people.
Sam Katz Mayoralty
In 2004 rightwing businessman Sam Katz won the Winnipeg Mayoral election – beating out centre-left contender Dan Vandal. Katz won with 43% of actual voters casting their ballets for him12. This clearly isn’t a supermajority. Furthermore, when one examines all eligible voters, it becomes readily apparent that only 25% of them explicitly endorsed his mayoralty13.
In 2006 Katz repeated his feat, winning 61.60% of total votes cast. This feat is still diminished when one realizes that the year had record low turnout – with only 23% of the total eligible electorate explicitly endorsing his mayoralty.14 Katz’s strongest showing was, in short, achieved when the least people chose to vote.
So, while one may consider Winnipeg rather conservative given its current mayor, when one looks at how much explicit consent has been given, we find Katz ruling on little enthusiasm. When one considers the low voter turnout and notices patterns of particularly poor turnout in poorer areas15, one must wonder whether a centrist small-l liberal like Glenn Murray is really the best thing the city can hope for. Surely, the effective enfranchisement of numerous groups – the young, the poor, aboriginals, recent immigrants, and the working class – that have showed up to the polls sparsely could truly revolutionize the municipal scene in Winnipeg.
Katz knows this – which explains his hostility to attempts by the Winnipeg Citizens’ Coalition to drive up municipal turnout. This drive – especially if aimed at members of the working poor of Winnipeg – would ruin his chances at re-election. Katz lambasts the work the Winnipeg Citizens’ Coalition as an “NDP driven” “leftwing plot” to “take over city hall”16. This shows the man’s true colours – that of a plutocrat trying to rule with the minority of the opulent rather than by the majority of the people17.
Conservatism as Rule by the Opulent Minority
The last few decades have been of increasingly conservative politics and corporate-centred international trade. “Centre-left” parties like the Liberals in Canada and the Labour Party in Britain have become watered down versions of the right to the point where it’s senseless to talk of them as “centre-left”18. Canada’s policies have shifted from one of counter-cyclical Keynesianism and concern for social welfare to one of concern solely with corporate welfare and securing foreign markets (which has lead to an increasingly militaristic foreign policy).
Protecting the rights of workers is eschewed while the right of corporations to monopolies (patents) is expanding – to our very genomes. Ours is an age of corporate globalization, not civic globalization.
One trend is clear throughout – voter turnouts have gone done and conservative policies have been implemented. Whether the adoption of corporate globalization has triggered the decline of voting or the inverse or some tertiary factor is responsible, one thing is clear: civic apathy isn’t hurting corporate conservatives.
Whether under the guise of a ultra-blue Liberal Party or plain old Conservatives, its clear the participation of the opulent to the exclusion of many others is the sign of a conservative era. Mass political action, otherwise known as democracy, is the antidote.
ENDNOTS
1. The racial politics of the Christian Right. Retrieved from The Comment Factory.
2. The New face of Jim Crow: Voter Suppression in America. People for the American Way.
Actual footage of the quote can be found HERE.
3. From interview footage in the documentary Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man.
4. The Powell Memo and the Teaching Machines of Rightwing Extremists. Truthout article
5. See http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2009/10/cable-news-who-cares.html
6. Yes, its Association rather than Party. http://www.albertapc.ab.ca/public/data/documents/2292_PC_Constitution.pdf
7. http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/2008-alberta-general-election#results
8.http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2008/03/05/edm-turnout.html
9. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/
10. http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/historical-turnout.html
11. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2008/10/15/voter-turnout.html
12. 99 015 (Sam Katz) + 55644 (Dan Vandal) + 34562 (Al Golden) + 23412 (MaryAnn Mihychuck) + 16497 (Garth Steek) + 1986 (Gordon Kirkby) + 801 (Shirley Tim-Rudolf) + 528 (Nelson Morrison) + 453 (Natalie Pollock) = 232 898
99 015÷232 898 ≈ 0.425 Numbers available here: http://www.winnipeg.ca/Clerks/pdfs/elections/2006election/E06Results.pdf.
13. 43*0.588 (the decimal representing the percentage of people voting – with 1 indicating total turnout) ≈ 25
14. .01*0.38 ≈23Numbers obtained from http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/features/winnipegvotes2006/.
15. 'A Very Hostile System in Which to Live': Aboriginal Electoral Participation in Winnipeg's Inner City. This study on Aboriginal participation in Winnipeg elections notes that, due to the general socioeconomic status of aboriginals (as members of the poor or working poor) they tend no to vote, along with other factors.
16. See http://www.unionbug.ca/home/11/176.
17. This mayoral race – ironically enough – Katz is trying to mobilize some (anti-NDP) voters against Judy Wasylycia-Leis. He’s using the typical rightwing strategy of “positive polarization” – demonizing the enemy over key issues to win. I hope that the Wasylycia-Leis campaign manages to register as many new voters from traditionally excluded areas to counter these moves.
Source: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/katz-mobilizes-to-get-out-vote-98489194.html.
18. One may even be sceptical of whether the Liberal Party of Canada was ever “centre-left”. Sure, Pierre Trudeau participated in some economic strategies (not all of that that well thought out) of a nationalistic flavour, but he was quite the exception. Most Liberals have only jeered left when forced to by a strong New Democratic presence in parliament. It may be more accurate to talk of the Liberals as being a dead centre party in the post-war period – practicing the reform liberalism various European parties had run and died on during the polarization between social democratic and conservative parties in Europe. Now, of course, the very blue Liberals ought to be viewed as a centre-right party.
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