About-Face: The Republican Wave
posted by Gerard Magliocca
This is a long post that discusses some substantive issues and offers some thoughts about academic writing. So I’ll put much, though not all, of this below the fold.
So I’ve been drafting an article on “The Obama Generation and the Supreme Court.” (I posted the Abstract here in July). The premise of that paper was that the 2008 election was an electoral realignment, and I was then going to assess the likelihood that the Court would strike down the individual health insurance mandate. I knew that the GOP would win seats this fall, but I figured that the victory would be within historical norms for a first midterm.
Er . . . now I’m thinking that I was wrong. The Republican wave is looking big–really big. Of course, things could change in the next two months. One thing, though, is clear. If the Democrats lose both houses of Congress after going into the election with such large majorities, then calling 2008 a realignment would be absurd. (You might say that this is the academic version of “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”).
Suppose November is a train wreck for Democrats. That opens up another possibility that I’ve posted about. Perhaps the President is the second coming of William Jennings Bryan. In other words, his chief achievement will be the backlash that he generates. Granted, that thought is fresh in my mind because I have a book coming out about that period, but you could make the case on other grounds. That too, though, runs into a problem. It assumes that the GOP will win in 2012. If not, then that analogy doesn’t work either.
My conclusion: Put this Article on ice for now.
People sometimes ask me if there are any tricks to being a productive scholar. One is that you have to “know when to fold ‘em.” If an idea is not working, then you have to let it go. Wasting time on something that will yield nothing publishable is a huge problem. On the other hand, you should never discard anything that you’ve written. After all, you may solve the problem at some point. (In my case, maybe the Dems will outperform the current polls.) Or there may be parts of a draft that can be used in subsequent papers–cannibalizing your own stuff is perfectly OK.
Besides, you can always turn to something else that you want to write. In my case, I’m going to write an article about The Gold Clause Cases. After looking over my various posts on that issue (especially with respect to Perry v. Norman), I see that I have enough material for a dynamite article. I’ll post about that tomorrow or Friday.
September 1, 2010 at 8:47 am
Posted in: Law School (Scholarship)
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Responses (7)
Orin Kerr - September 1, 2010 at 11:07 am
I think this the inherent problem with writing a law review article based on a prediction about the future — here, a prediction that the election of 2008 will in the future become seen as a realignment.
Gerard Magliocca - September 1, 2010 at 11:20 am
Orin,
I would describe what you’re talking about as a risk rather than a problem. But if the risk is too great . . .
After all, many articles contain predictions — stated or unstated — but authors just don’t think of them that way because their degree of confidence in those predictions is high.
Bruce Boyden - September 1, 2010 at 12:11 pm
The current situation seems more 1850 to me than 1932 or 1896. I.e., broad dissatisfaction with both parties.
Ken Rhodes - September 1, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Bruce: ” I.e., broad dissatisfaction with both parties.”
You betcha, Bruce. Like the French Revolution, maybe. “Off with their heads!”
Michael Teter - September 1, 2010 at 7:52 pm
My conclusion is slightly different than yours: write two articles, presuming two different outcomes this November. That’s the best way to seem prescient, no? Yes? See, I knew you would say that.
Gerard Magliocca - September 1, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Two articles? Um, I do sleep sometimes, you know.
Brett Bellmore - September 2, 2010 at 5:38 am
I think Bruce is essentially right. What’s happening at the moment is not that the Republican party is becoming absolutely more popular. Rather, the Democratic party is, at the moment, declining in popularity more than the Republican. It’s a race to zero, and the Democrats are in the lead for this stretch. If the Republicans take control of Congress next year, I will be somewhat surprised if they don’t do something to retake that lead. The party leadership do not appear to have learned any lessons, and the Tea party aren’t going to be able to replace much of that leadership in just one electoral cycle.
Polls show trust in government to be down around 26%. That’s democratic illegitimacy territory, folks.
This is merely obscured by the way our two party system is set up, especially with modern campaign laws, precluding either of the entrenched parties from being displaced by a third party. And the tendency to measure the popularity of each party relative to the other.
If the downward spiral continues unabated, I’m expecting some kind of revolution sooner or later. That’s one of the reasons my retirement plans involve moving to another country, and I try to keep a substantial part of my savings abroad.
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