It looks like the most talked-about media piece of the day is David Frum’s take on Karl Rove’s White House tenure. Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, argues, relatively persuasively, that Rove crafted a White House political strategy that was predicated on helping Republicans, instead of helping the country. That’s true, of course, but anyone who’s been paying attention the last six years already knew that.
More importantly, Frum offers a variety of thoughts on the political landscape, all of which are wrong.
Rove’s detractors … often accuse him of practicing “wedge politics” and fomenting “polarization.” They never seem to understand that polarization and wedge politics are very different things, indeed direct opposites.
Wedge politics unites a large constituency on one side, while splitting the coalition on the other side. In the 1970s, crime was a wedge issue: pushing white urban Democrats away from their black and liberal New Deal allies. In this strict sense, the only wedge issue Mr. Rove deployed was immigration, and he deployed it against his own side, dividing business donors from the conservative voting base.
I don’t think so. For one thing, immigration was not a wedge issue for Rove; he wasn’t trying to drive supporters away from the GOP. For another, Rove has advocated actual wedge strategies several times, most notably with gay marriage in 2004. What’s more, Josh Marshall makes a compelling case that Rove & Co. actually managed to use counter-terrorism as a wedge, as well.
The Democrats are the party of the top and bottom of American society; the Republicans do best in the great American middle, which is losing ground.
Well, that’s just silly. If Dems are the party of the top, then I’m the next chairman of the Republican National Committee. As Paul Waldman explained, “The Republicans do best at the country clubs and corporate board rooms. It may be an old story, but it’s still true. The middle is contested, but ‘the top’ is still Republican territory, something that all the phony outrage at ‘limousine liberals’ in the world hasn’t changed.”
And, then Frum wrapped up with this gem:
I notice that much of the Democratic party, and especially its activist netroots, has decided that the way to beat Rove Republicanism is by emulating it. They are practicing the politics of polarization; they are elevating “framing” above policy; they have decided that winning the next election by any means is all that matters — and never mind what happens on the day after that.
Does Frum pay any attention to politics at all? Stop by any of the leading progressive blogs and you’ll see ample discussion of substance, policy, and legislation. In general, I think the netroots are practically obsessed with what happens “the day after” the election. Indeed, most the online discussion I’ve seen recently hasn’t elevated framing above policy, it’s done the opposite — how can Dems make strides on adding safeguards to warrantless surveillance programs? On restoring habeas? On affecting war policy? On investing in infrastructure?
If Frum wants to suggest Rove believed that “winning the next election by any means is all that matters,” I’d agree with him. But the netroots community? Sounds like projection to me.