After his loss in 2012, Mitt Romney was not the only Republican to blame voters’ desire for “free stuff.” Not only was he completely wrong about this, he was also about as far from Ronald Reagan’s confidence in the American people as any Republican politician can get.
And this isn’t just an abstract idea. It’s shown itself concretely in many recent elections. By and large, people don’t just vote for free stuff.
Ask the Republicans who were clobbered in the 2006 election whether they were right in thinking they could save themselves by bringing enough earmarks back to their districts. By the same token, ask yourself how many voters you have heard complain about the end of earmarks since the Republican conference stopped using them in 2011. Ask Hillary Clinton, who against all odds lost the 2016 election. Debt-free college was, by far, her most memorable policy-related promise in a campaign nearly bereft of policy discussion. President Trump’s most memorable was to build a wall, something from which most people who don’t own cement companies have little to gain from that directly.
In spite of the many reasons that existed for people of all ideological stripes not to vote for Trump, he shockingly defeated her throughout the poorer quarters of the industrial Midwest. And most of the votes were cast by people who don’t own cement companies.
The assumption that people will just vote for “free stuff” like moths to the flame is false. Voters don’t seem to care about this one way or another.
Yes, the special interests want free stuff — that’s what they’re there for. Corporations want free stuff — that’s why they hire so many lobbyists. But everyday voters base their decision on other factors. They vote their lifestyles. They vote for whomever they think will preserve their dignity. They want someone who will guarantee the conditions to thrive independently. Their overarching goal is to be self-sufficient. That’s why their preference for one party or another shifts based on events. If they voted just based on one party’s consistent promise to provide them a bit more at taxpayers’ expense, then five of the last eight elections would have turned out very differently.
Yet this misconception about “free stuff,” which people on both sides seem to share, dies hard.
This general idea seems relevant now that President Trump has both offered a budget containing severe cuts to discretionary spending and thrown himself squarely behind a healthcare law which, we are told again and again, will hurt his supporters most. (Kind of funny how the “forgotten man” is less forgotten when there’s an opportunity to explain to him what his best interests are, isn’t it?)
The Left seems to be hoping and expecting that all of this will come as a shock to the voters who elected Trump, and result in a massive midterm backlash. In fact, they’re nearly slobbering at the prospect.
And it might well happen exactly as they say. The loss-aversion instinct is a powerful one. There’s a big difference between public skepticism of those who promise the moon, and the potential public reaction to having the moon taken away.
But based on recent evidence, and for the reasons given above, I wouldn’t necessarily bet on people suddenly realizing “their interest” was betrayed because a government benefit disappears. That’s especially true for, say, EPA budget cuts, which most people wouldn’t even notice. It’s perhaps slightly less obvious for the partial repeal of Obamacare, which millions of people will notice when it goes into effect.
But I remain skeptical in all cases. I hear the echoes of the 2014 election, when so many liberal commentators convinced themselves that Obamacare’s relatively successful enrollment of about 100,000 people in Kentucky (a very small percentage of Kentucky’s population) would translate itself into the end of Mitch McConnell’s political career. Not only did McConnell win his race by 16 points, but his party’s no-hope longshot nominee shockingly won the state’s governorship a year later.
Even if Congress were to cooperate in the Trump’s OMB’s attempt to abolish umpteen federal agencies (doubtful), and even if many people find themselves in the unenviable position of having to pay for their insurance again, I continue to believe that Trump’s presidency is going to be judged in the midterm based on how the economy is performing about a year from today. And to be more accurate, add to that prediction an appropriate handicap, given the historical tendency of presidents to lose at least a bit of ground in Congress during the midterm year.
The reaction to Trump won’t be based on the fact that Big Bird became a free agent, or that anybody else’s gravy train got derailed. It will be based on the fact that he hasn’t made America great again.
