The 2+2 Forum Archives: The main reason for poker players to root for Democrats tonight (long)

There are a lot of reasons for poker players to hope for substantial Democratic gains tonight. A split or Democratic 110th Congress is more likely to pass study or tax-and-regulate legislation, and less likely to pass further restrictions along the lines of the UIGEA. Democrats would come to control committees that have authority for drafting and enforcing the UIGEA regulations. And Democratic victories might even make foreign companies like NETELLER more inclined to "stay the course" and remain open to US business.

However, the main reason to root for the Democrats -- and vote for the Democrats -- is a little bit more subtle than all of that.

This election can be described as a referendum on all sorts of things. It's certainly in some measure a referendum on President Bush, the Iraq War, and the leadership of the 109th Congress. However, more profoundly than any of that, it's a referendum on the direction of the Republican Party.

Republicans have captured an ever-increasing fraction of the white evangelical vote, and particularly the Southern white evangelical vote, since at least the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These voters played an important part in the electoral majorities that Reagan captured in 1980 and 1984. However, it's only in relatively recent times that white evangelicals have come to dominate the policy of the Republican Party, and by extension, the country.

White Evangelical Protestants represent a relatively small fraction of the electorate; somewhere between 20-25% according to most surveys. Yet, they exhibit a disproportionate influence on the direction of the country. President Bush is a white evangelical (as was President Clinton, by the way). Majority Leader Frist, while perhaps not technically an evangelical, kowtows to them in his policy-making. It's because of their allegiance to white evangelicals that the Republicans brought us the Terry Schiavo incident, the ban on stem-cell research, the various attempts at gay marriage amendments, and the UIGEA. It's perhaps the reason they brought us the Iraq War.

The GOP leadership of the past twelve years is not your father's Republican Party. It's not even your older brother's Republican Party. "Morning in America" Republicans of the Reagan years, which can be characterized by their advocacy of limited government, fiscal conservatism, social values that lean libertarian, and strong-but-prudent defense policy, have been shuttered to the side of their party. These mainline Republicans are likely to be allies of online poker; witness the opposition to the UIGEA from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other (mainline) Republican-leaning organizations. But they have largely been disenfranchised.

How has the evangelical minority come to take power over the Republican party? That's a question for sociologists and political scientists to explore. It certainly involves some element of disorganization on the part of the Democrats, some brilliant Machiavellian politics on the part of leaders like Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove, and perhaps the fortuity of events like the disputed Florida vote in the 2000 Elections, and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. However, the main reason is that the country has yet to tell the evangelical Republicans otherwise. They have yet to tell them that they won't stand for the tyranny of the minority.

Tonight is the chance to change all of that. If something like regulated US internet gambling is to take place, we first need a paradigm shift. Not a paradigm shift in the composition of the electorate itself. Americans are, at best, ambivalent about efforts to ban internet gambling. Religious participation in the country is decreasing. Tolerance for gambling is increasing. The underlying demographics are favorable. But we need a paradigm shift in the alignment between the electorate and the country's policy. That's what tonight's election is all about.

This is why you should break out the champagne if Bush, Frist, Kyl and their buddies are
repudiated tonight.

-Nate

Recommended reading:

American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips.

Whistling Past Dixie, Thomas Schaller

Edited by Nate tha' Great (11/07/06 12:59 PM)

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