The Commitment to the Ideological Fight

Mitt Romney understands that elections are won on ideological terrain, and that digital culture is furthering this tendency.

With the selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney has opted for the ideological fight. Thus he joins those who believe that mobilizing voters around ideas, however simple and crude, is a decisive trick for the electoral battle. And he moves away from the myth that elections are won with moderation in a delicate spaced called the center.

The Tea Party, with the conformity of the established Republican power, has become the party’s banner, being the only ones able to generate rousing, viral slogans. Mitt Romney has decided to get closer to this group in search of an uninhibited campaign, mounting the classic fight between friend and foe: us (saviors of the United States and its individualistic values) against them (traitors that turn the country toward collectivism). Paul Ryan represents this spirit of battle more than anyone. And he is expected to relentlessly mobilize the bases to combat for the entire country.

Some sectors of the Republican Party have expressed concern about a decision that radicalizes the figure of Mitt Romney and distances him from the moderate electorate. With the prominence of the radical right, voters disappointed by Obama could resist crossing the electoral border. Some commentators have even said that with the support of Ryan, the Republicans have already lost the elections. Nevertheless, ideologue William Kristol, referring to said neo-conservatism, has ridiculed the fears of the Republican apparatus. His argument is that every time the leaders of the party have fallen into panic or apprehension because of the audacity of their leaders’ projects — like with Reagan in the ‘80s, with Gingrich in 1994, or with the tea party in 2010 — the right has been great. And when the strong men of the party have felt confident and pleased with their strategies — like Bush Sr. at the end of 1991 and Bush Jr. at the start of 2005 — the Republicans have left in disaster.

In reality, what Kristol is saying — and what Romney is banking on — is that the ideological fight is essential to win political battles. The end of ideologies is a hoax; ideological position continues to be the primary criterion for voters. And to win elections, the first thing you need is full support of your own voters; this is only possible by uniting them around ideas and against an opponent identified as the enemy. If you are able to rally your traditional electorate, it could happen that the center falls away from you. But without securing the full mobilization of your supporters, the center is worthless, no matter how moderate the discourse is.

Really, I think that Romney and Kristol are right. The candidate has chosen the only option that could provide him victory: the head-on confrontation between two ideas in the United States. He will probably lose, but this is the only route that gives him the chance of winning, especially taking into account that the situation in the United States is not the same as that in Europe, because the dimension of the crisis is different. In Europe, the austerity administration reduces to ashes he who governs, without distinction of party. Obama is worn-out but not burned; he has lost charisma because the change he proposed has hardly happened, but he still has a political margin.

In advanced democracies the notion has been established that ideological differences are less important, that elections are won by attrition, that political projects are not that important and finally, that what matters is the administration. This discourse is a trap, one that has been extremely useful for the consolidation of the conservative hegemony. The right discredits the public, proclaims the infeasibility of the welfare state, promotes massive deregulation and recovers the old moral tone of religious roots. At the same time, they say that ideologies have died, that is to say, that there is no alternative than to oust a left-winger without a word. The right knows that it is ideology that wins elections.

Just a few examples: The right returned to power in Spain when José María Aznar understood that he would only govern if he won the ideological battle. And in spite of the tremendously worn-down Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), he did not win in 1993, and he won by only a hair in 1996. Only in 2000 did he leap to an absolute majority, because it was his first legislature to have the right finally tip over and become the ideological majority in Spain.

Nicolas Sarkozy arrived to the French presidency thanks to a campaign that he himself has explained as an ideological confrontation that tried to blow up the bases of left thinking and even the republican culture and create a new France. But once in power, he quickly became prisoner of the eternal France, the one that he himself had served for many years without complaint.

Obama understood this problem. His victory was founded on an ideological offense without precedence, in the form of reconciling the American nation, fractured by the Pentecostal military, financial and religious complexes that supported Bush Jr. After elected, he also remained trapped in the web of power, but ideology gave him the victory; now he is burdened by frustration.

This recognition of the importance of ideology is in tune with digital culture. In the digital universe the basis of success is in so-called communities — being able to rally a very large number of people around a project (cultural, political, social) that is capable of critical mass and beyond, and to still have everyone feel fully involved. Everything on the Internet is prone to the ephemeral, communities as well. Because of this, to consolidate a community requires elements that differentiate members while giving them a feeling of belonging. This need for group identity can activate countless people and undoubtedly has an affirming effect that can radicalize ideas, especially where the short, simple and ambiguous message abounds. We see it in the press, which is increasingly more inclined towards the friend-enemy model.

There are conditions for a return to the ideological confrontation. The right has had it clear all along. The last ideological battle of the European left was the famous Third Way of Tony Blair, which ended up tending not toward the future, but toward the right. Whoever has the ideological hegemony is guaranteed the political hegemony.

A curious paradox of the Internet: It jumps borders, gives new powers to the autonomy of the individual, promotes exploration and skepticism, but at the same time, we are overwhelmed by hyper-memory and recovery (through the cloud or infinite library), and rebuild community spaces equipped with strong symbolic references. The Internet favors ideological confrontation, but for the debate to be truly democratic — an exercise in transparency, persuasion and respect — ideas and projects are required, not just populist clubbing. For now, the spotlight is on the noisy conservative, the emblem of the Tea Party. In Spain, the [conservative] People’s Party (PP) has managed without complexes; Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón and José Ignacio Wert serve as the masterminds, with their religious alliance and the value of nationalism always a given. It is the left’s turn to stop being lazy, lose its complexes and enter into a political battle that, as Romney has understood, grows increasingly ideological.