It's a common cliche that Republicans are the Daddy-party whereas
Democrats are the Mommy-party. That means that Republicans are believed
to be tough towards America's foreign enemies and good at keeping the
United States safe, whereas the Democrats are regarded as compassionate
because of their support for social programs for the vulnerable. A
belief that the Republicans are the Daddy-party especially helped the
G.O.P. soon after 9/11.
How did Republicans come to be known as
the Daddy-party, even as Republicans characterized the Democrats as
wimpy and soft in their foreign policy? In my latest reading of The Conscience of a Liberal,
Paul Krugman tackles that question, but I'll also bring into the
discussion things that Krugman said earlier in the book. According to
Krugman, we can see in Ronald Reagan's 1964 speech a conservative view
that the U.S. needs to be tough on Communism and that the Democratic
foreign policy is weak. Moreover, Richard Nixon in 1972 defeated George
McGovern, and there are many who hold that the "national security
advantage" for Republicans goes back to that (page 184).
But
Krugman does not buy that, for he argues that Nixon's defeat of
McGovern did not radically shape the electorate's view of Democrats as a
whole. Although McGovern lost in 1972, Democrats gained seats
in the Senate and "suffered only modest losses in the House" (page
184). Krugman cites a 1979 poll by the Republican National
Committee in which 29 percent of respondents said that Republicans would
do better at "maintaining military security" (the poll's words), 28
percent said that the Democrats would, and 21 percent said both.
Moreover, whereas the U.S. military today is regarded as an institution
that consists largely of Republicans, that was not always the case,
for, in 1976, "a plurality of military leaders identified themselves as
independents, while a third identified themselves as Republicans" (page
186).
So what happened? According to Krugman, there were a
variety of factors. First of all, in the 1980's, when the memories of
the horrors of the Vietnam War were not as fresh they were in the
1970's, the sentiment that the U.S. lost the war because of weak
civilian leadership gained popularity, as did the image of liberals
"disrespecting the troops" (page 185)----an image that Krugman says
lacks the support of evidence. Krugman cites the first Rambo movie in 1982, and the subsequent Rambo movies, as indicators of this trend. My
impression from what Krugman says is that the U.S. in the 1980's was
trying to get back its self-esteem after losing the Vietnam War (and yet
enough time had passed that Americans had foggy memories about what
actually occurred during the War), and so the tough-on-communism stance
of conservatives resonated with a number of Americans at that time.
Second,
regarding why the military became more Republican, there were different
reasons, according to Krugman: military leaders were particularly
susceptible to the notion that the U.S. lost Vietnam due to weak
civilian leadership, Jimmy Carter was presiding over the "post-Vietnam
shrinkage of the military" whereas Ronald Reagan increased government
military spending (page 186), and a number of ROTC programs were closing
in the northeast even as their number increased in the South, which had
become a Republican stronghold. And Krugman speculates that the
military was alienated from the sexual revolution, since the military
frowned on permissiveness.
There may be something to Krugman's
analysis. In any case, I do enjoy this book because of this sort of
analysis. Even though a lot of his book contains your typical liberal
narratives, there are times when Krugman is quite three-dimensional in
his evaluation of history and politics.