Opportunists vs. Ideologues

Way too many opportunists at all levels of government

This is the time of the election calendar where we hear both parties weighing what views to change in order to go for the mostly non-existent middle. We already saw Trump move to the middle on abortion, and there has been talk of VP Harris moving to the middle on certain issues as well. With Trump, it is clear he has no ideological footing whatsoever since he was a pro-choice Democrat before running for president. Kamala has mostly been quiet and vague on policy, avoiding in-depth policy interviews, which is why I would argue she does not appear to be much of an ideologue either. That being said, she is the clear choice when put against the opportunist of all opportunists, Donald Trump. The alt right in the U.S. and abroad are vague on policy for a reason. Another good example of an opportunist would be Kyrsten Sinema, who somehow went from being a Green Party candidate to being a “centrist” (center right to right in reality) Dem. This does not mean that one cannot change their views, but I seriously doubt that transformation had anything to do with a changing ideology.

Why do we put up with partisans that are so quick to change their views so obviously for electoral gain? Why does the media seem to encourage it? I would much prefer to have a candidate who knows where they stand as opposed to the opportunistic chameleon types that we have grown accustomed to. I also believe this type of opportunistic change by both major parties does damage to the country. Look at triangulation brought to us by neo liberal Bill Clinton. While that may have been necessary to win in the ‘90’s, when there was a large group of moderate swing voters, that move did long-term damage to both the Democratic Party and the country, if you agree with me that both major parties are too far right on economics. Whenever describing ideological leanings of someone, I have to point out that, “yeah, x candidate is center left in America, but that would be center right globally.”

I started writing here because of my fandom of Nate Silver’s election model, which is now here on Substack, but a frequent complaint I have of him and so many others is how they view independent swing voters. They all seem to assume that these independent swing voters are moderate. Maybe this is caused by the polling where they ask voters to list their ideology? If so, I do not know why anyone would take that type of polling seriously, when a lot of non-moderates identify as moderates. A lot, if not a majority, of voters like to see themselves as moderate; however, when you poll issue-by-issue, it becomes clear that many self-identified moderates are not moderate at all. In fact, if you take the current group of swing voters/independents, you will find that there is not very much in common with their demographics or ideologies. They fall all over the political spectrum on various issues, some to both extremes on various issues. The one common thread that seems to exist is that they are anti-status quo, anti-institution, apolitical, and low information (on politics at least…think of an engineer you know who knows very little about politics). This group is why I am so pessimistic on Democrats chances this year, as it is difficult to run an anti-status quo campaign as the incumbent party; however, let us save that topic for a future post.

As a poli sci major who has been actively involved in my local political scene since 2004, I would say that I have a strong grasp on the ideological leanings of elected officials at all levels of government. My mentor, Congressman Cohen, became my favorite local politician back in 2002 because of his independent views strongly rooted in liberal to left ideology. He took strong stances on issues from cannabis reform to LGBTQ rights, which we both agreed with at a time when polling had each at only around 30% support nationally. From an electoral standpoint, I could understand the argument for avoiding issues that are unpopular at the time, but an ideologue, as opposed to an opportunist, sticks by what they believe. The appropriate way for an ideologue to deal with a situation like this is to keep the stance you believe in, while not focusing on it as much. You can still be strategic without abandoning your principles for electoral gain.

I would argue that a majority of the elected officials, though definitely not all, would very much so fall into the opportunistic category. For them, it is all about personal advancement. What can they run for, and what jobs and opportunities can that open up for them? Part of it is human nature, part of it is the way we are raised in a more capitalistic and selfish society, but most of it is due to a lack of ideological standing. The media and the public are very much to blame for letting this slide. Look at the messaging that is suggested by campaign consultants and way more common than not with political campaigns. Vague messaging is the popular norm, and we as a society are so dim for accepting it that way. “Safer neighborhoods” “Clean streets” “lower taxes” and other simple slogans like this are so often touted without any explanation whatsoever on what a candidate would actually do if elected. The main reason I ran for city council in 2015 was because I could not stand an unqualified son of an oligarch running only on his family having money, but the other reason was because the Dems running in the crowded non-partisan race had no platform until I posted mine. Why even run for office if you do not have a goal or an ideology? If I cannot go to your campaign website and identify your ideology, I become very suspicious of your candidacy. Just saying you are a Democrat or hitting on very obvious partisan issues is not enough to make me support someone. Campaign consultants frequently advise candidates to keep messaging simple since you risk losing voters every time you go into detail. Voters should not tolerate vague and/or non-existent platforms, but we do to an extent that such behavior is encouraged instead of discouraged as it should be.

Is this article meant to say that ideologues are always great, and opportunists are always bad? Of course not. Hitler was an ideologue, and so was Stalin. The people behind Trump, though not Trump himself, are ideologues as well. Ideologues, as my examples suggest, can be the absolute worst depending on the ideology. On the same note, an opportunist can and have taken paths that both benefitted themselves and did the public good. Yes, an opportunist can actually be a do-gooder when their path/ability to climb the ladder also happens to coincide with good policy choices. An example of this would be “moderate” (in the way we misuse the term now) Democrats finally realizing that, in this anti-status quo/anti-institutional environment, populism works. That is why we see a push to the left in messaging, which is great considering that was one of the ways Obama was able to excite and inspire the base in 2008, even if he ultimately governed as a moderate to protect his legacy. In the age of polarization, which likely started way earlier but began truly showing itself around 2010 and led to a political realignment of the parties in 2016, exciting the base has become way more important than persuasion.

There used to be this huge group of moderate swing voters, which would go back and forth between the two parties, but that is no longer the case. With polarization, each party is so far from the other that anyone who truly is more towards the middle ideologically sticks with their typical party of choice because the other party is way too far from where they stand. That is why there is no need for moving to the middle, though Trump’s move to the middle on abortion was a notable exception considering that conservatives cannot even win in deep red Kansas on that issue. Opportunistic partisans on both sides are increasingly showing that they realize the game in campaigns is now all about turning out your base.

But what about the swing voters that do still exist (5-10% of the population as opposed to a third of it)? Again, they are the anti-status quo, anti-institution, apolitical, and low information type. To garner their support, you need to be the most anti-status quo, and, for both swing voters and non-swing voters, you need to offer policies that they would actually feel in their daily lives. With economic recovery after economic recovery benefiting the wealthy more than anyone else, it is easy to see why more populist economic policies are becoming mainstream. That is why we see Trump and Harris talking about removing taxes on tips, and we even recently saw Harris support price controls on groceries; this would have been unimaginable in the ‘80s/’90s. When will populist economic policies become less popular as they used to be in the ‘80s and ‘90s? When we have a strong enough economy that benefits a strong majority of the population enough to make them selfishly conservative on economics again; once people perceive that they have something, they typically do not want to share it.

How do we get rid of a system that seems to carry more opportunists than ideologues into elected office? More parties. Unfortunately, we only have two major parties, when there is a four-quadrant political spectrum (econ left vs. right and authoritarian vs. libertarian). This is why inter party battles like progressives vs. “moderates” and alt/new right vs. traditional right are so important. More parties would create more ideologically defined candidates. They would not be able to simply move on one issue or another at their convention because, in a multi-party system, that would likely put them in a different political party. That does not mean that a 4 to 5-party system would consist of unmovable positions, but it would make it way more difficult for the opportunists in the political world to shift into whatever form they believe will help them climb the ladder the fastest. While I do not see us moving to a multi-party system any time soon, I do hope that, when millennials and Gen Z become the majority of the voting electorate between 2028-2032, we can see a more concrete push in that direction. In the meantime, I hope to see continued pushes for ranked choice voting and other tools that are useful for dealing with our archaic and antiquated two party system. My advice? Research your candidates, and make sure that they have a real reason to run and ideas about what they would actually do once in office.