Yeah. Primaries. As an electoral mechanism, they are supposed to be a solution to the corruption of party machinations, introduced in the "Progressive Era." Funny, also, how terms change. Modern day liberals now call themselves "progressives," because Republicans turned "liberal" into a dirty word back in the 1980s. Regardless, primaries were supposed to be a solution to corruption.
The result? Donald Trump. Blogs don't have laugh tracks, but this whole thing stopped being funny long ago anyway.
There is a common line of thought that blames primaries for polarization, but that's kind of wrong. The argument goes that candidates have to run in primaries before general elections, and primary electorates demand that candidates move to the extremes, so primaries create polarization. I'll write more about this at some point soon, for a variety of reasons, but it isn't quite right. Quick demonstration? We've had primaries for a long time, but we had a long period of depolarization in the mid-20th Century, along with primaries. See the problem? Yeah.
Besides, the problem with Trump isn't that he is an extremist. The problem is that he is a corrupt nitwit. That tends to be the case with someone who doesn't know anything about politics, and just got into it to stick it to those who told him he couldn't do it. In other words, true outsiders.
For all the self-righteous bloviating that politicians do to paint themselves as outsiders, and for all voters claim that they want outsiders, that generally isn't the case. Historically, outsiders tend to lose. In congressional elections, ceteris paribus, experience beats inexperience. Even in presidential elections, the last time prior to Trump that someone without elected experience made it to the White House, it was Eisenhower, who beat fucking Hitler. All Trump did was scam morons into signing up for "Trump University" and refuse to rent to black people. OK, that's not fair. He also sexually assaulted a lot of women, and did a lot of other racist stuff too. I apologize for understating the breadth of his C.V.
So, um... what's the deal? Is Trump a one-off?
That brings me to the conference I attended last month. Aside from my little photography exhibition, I did actually do some political science-y stuff. The best paper I saw was by Rachel Porter and Sarah Treul of UNC Chapel Hill. "Quality Candidates and Primary Elections." Unfortunately, I can't link to an ungated copy. Sorry. The gist, though, is as follows.
They did a truly awesome thing for social science. They gathered biographical data on primary election candidates in order to assess how qualified they were, going way back. Until a few election cycles ago, Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to select the qualified candidate over the unqualified candidate in a primary election. These days? Republican primary electorates, in open-seat races actually seem to prefer unqualified nitwits to people who might, you know, have a clue what they are doing. Republican primary voters are selecting for incompetence right now. In formal, academic jargon, they don't put it that way, but I'm translating here because this is unmutual territory.
If you want to know what happens when you give power to outsiders, just take a look at the executive branch right now. This is not about ideology. Again, I have to pick on Grossman & Hopkins here because this isn't about ideological purity, but this is central to the party asymmetry. It is about selecting for lack of qualification. There is something deeper going on here.
So, if you are in Ohio and getting sealed into your voting cubicles tomorrow, think about what you are doing.
Please. The rest of us have to live with the consequences.
Oh, and thank you to Porter and Truel for putting together the greatest data set ever. Once there is an ungated copy around, I'll link to it, but I couldn't find one this morning. I've been meaning to get a reference up to them for a while now. Very cool paper.
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