Conservative parties dominating Anglo-Saxon countries

[dismal]

Umm no, as always the low voter turnout in the midterm favored republicans.

And every time republicans like to pretend it portends a rejection of the democrats by voters, and every time they are flabbergasted when they lose two years later.

Low turnout and gerrymandering favor the republicans. In constests where there are high turnouts and no possible gerrymandering, they are at a disadvantage, these days.

The three congressional elections since 2008 (2010, 2012, 2014) have been:

Republicans + 63 seats
Democrats + 8 seats
Republicans + 13 seats

You position is this is explainable by "ZMFIOG it was teh midterms!!!~!"?

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Canada isn't a typical case. You see, the Conservative Party was wiped off the face of the Earth in 1993, going from a majority party to having about 5 seats and a lemonade stand in Parliament. The Liberals had control for a long time... too long. And things that happen when a party has power for too long started happening. The people smacked their butts, and now the NDP is the leading liberal party now.

The long Liberal run had a lot to do with the right-leaning parties splitting themselves up between the Reform Party and the Progressive Conservatives, and later the Alliance and the PCs. Altogether, the conservative parties held a sizeable share of the popular vote, which became evident when the right merged into the current Conservative Party. The Liberals did eventually lose a chunk of seats to the NDP in 2011, but part of the NDP surge was owing to the Bloc losing popularity in Quebec. NDP tends to surge periodically in various parts of the country, then fizzle a bit. The Liberal Party also wasn't viewed as having strong leadership in the last two elections compared to Harper on the unified right, and Layton who was a household name on the left (more so than Dion or Ignatieff). Trudeau... I don't know how he'll fare. Whether he wants to be in his father's shadow or not, his name is almost certainly part of what gives him brand power. I can't tell if his approach will appeal strongly to centrists, or if it will just be too conservative for the left and too liberal for the right, losing on both fronts. Time will tell.

I'm really not sure what to expect in the next election. Unless vote reform miraculously happens prior to this autumn, it could play out in odd ways across the various ridings. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Conservative minority government.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

In Canada, the conservatives rule mostly because of vote splitting between the parties on the left. The Conservative government knows this, so they don't push too hard on their conservative ideology, because they fear the left uniting against them. It kinda works in a strange sort of way.

 

[SimpleDon]

Conservatives' slogans and platitudes

Because the economies of most nations crashed in 2008, and people still haven't recovered their confidence.

At the time many people took the fear this created and argued the answer was bigger government, more regulation and spendy Keynesianism.

The bitter clingers still do.

Thank you dismal for providing us with an example that illustrates a large part of the problem. Conservatives have reduced the problems that we have today into easily to remember, but demonstrably wrong slogans.They are lies that have been repeated so often that dismal believes that merely reciting them refutes the points that have been made so far.

... bigger government

This always refers to the federal government in the US. However, thirty five years into being governed by the principles of movement conservatism the federal government is about the same size in terms of percentage of GDP as it has always been and smaller in terms of personnel, as you would expect because of increased productivity.

The governments that have seen unprecedented growth are the state and local governments. Especially the middle management tiers of these, the states, the townships, the countries, the parishes are the least responsive, least transparent, least efficient and most corrupt levels of government. And yet these are the levels of government that conservatives champion and grow. It doesn't take a complete cynic to conclude that what conservatives want isn't smaller government, they want ineffective government.

... more regulation

Conservatives preach the evils of government regulation and yet more freedom restricting regulation is always their solution for social problems. New laws producing more criminals to fill ever increasing numbers of prisons are their solutions for everything from drug addiction, to illegal immigration, the so-called scourge of homosexuality, the unacceptably large numbers of abortions, and arguably most of the range of the problems created by poverty.

In fact the only regulations that they consistently attack are those that try to impose externalities on businesses, the costs of reducing pollution, of workplace safety, etc. and those that try to limit malfeasance in business, especially in the financial markets. It was the deregulation and the failure to regulate the financial markets that lead directly to the financial crisis and to the recession of 2008.

... and spendy Keynesianism.

Unfortunately for this conservative mantra Keynesian economics isn't just an alternative option to free market economics. It is an attempt to explain the economy that we have today, not some fantasy economics that we should have like the self-regulating free market.

Keynesian economics does a good job of explaining the economy that we have, the economy that has evolved over thousands of years, that has incorporated all of the lessons that the market has provided and has taken into account all of the collective decisions that the market has made.

Inevitably, as always happens, the reality of Keynesian economics which is the reality of today's economy, conflict with conservatives' long held beliefs. Reality is never kind to conservatives.

What Keynes illuminated about the economy was devastating to movement conservatism's sponsors, the very wealthy. Keynes and those who came after him realized that the modern industrial economy was moving from the supply side limited agrarian economy of the 19th century to a more demand limited one. That capital was the limited amount of land in the agricultural economy but in the modern economy capital is just money. And money is not a limited resource, more money can be created to fulfill any demand for it from the productive economy. More machines can always be manufactured and purchased, new factories can always be built. That what now limits the economy is the amount of labor available and the amount of demand coming largely from the wages that are paid to the workers.

This seriously diminishes the importance of capital and capitalists. But the wealthy capitalists were in the unique position of being able to influence the academic economics that is taught and which determines the economic policies of the nation. They fund the schools of economics and the research that it produces.

They went back in the history of academic economics and resurrected the neoclassical economics of Marshall, et al, the economics that Keynes had throughly debunked. They combined it with the absolute minimum amount of Keynesian economics that they couldn't avoid.

The result was Samuelson's neoclassical synthesis economics, today's mainstream economics. It accepts that the economy has to be controlled to avoid dramatic instability in the economy. But this control can only use 3/4 of Keynesian controls. In monetary policy the government can raise or can lower interest rates to modulate the economy, two of the four Keynesian controls. But in fiscal policy we can only lower taxes to stimulate the economy. We can't as Keynes said that we must do, raise taxes to dampen an overheated economy.

They did this not because neoclassical economics explains the economy that we have today, neoclassical economics was a not altogether successful attempt to explain the still largely agrarian economy of the late 19th century. They did this because neoclassical economics is supply side lead economics favorable capitalists. Neoclassical economics is the fantasy of the self-regulating free market, an economy that never existed and can never exist.

If all of this could be condensed into a 140 character twitter message to counter the conservatives' snappy slogans and bullsh*t platitudes it still probably wouldn't make a difference. As it is it is counter intuitive. It fails the common sense test that governments face the same economic limitations that individuals and businesses face.

But what has hurt much more is the idea that the labor/liberal parties have universally adopted that they should box in or triangulate the conservatives by moving themselves to the right. It is a questionable election strategy because it validates the positions like this that the conservatives take, positions that don't stand up to any kind of investigation or logic.

 

[bilby]

Because the economies of most nations crashed in 2008, and people still haven't recovered their confidence.

At the time many people took the fear this created and argued the answer was bigger government, more regulation and spendy Keynesianism.

The bitter clingers still do.

The various nations listed in the OP all have fairly marginal conservative governments. Plenty of people vote for more left-wing solutions; and plenty of people need no excuse to vote for conservatives. It is the people who change their voting intentions who are important to this discussion, and their net move to the right is due to a false perception that the right wing will defend them from the things they fear - whether those fears are rational or not.

None of the things you list are real policies of a mainstream left-wing party in the countries under discussion; they are the things that people fear; and as a result, they are the things governments of all colours shy away from - even if reason would dictate that they are necessary or desirable at the time.

 

[bilby]

Yeah but you need to sell some counterintuitive ideas and big words with that.

"We're outa money and must tighten our belts and work hard like grandma did" is a much easier sell and kinda reassuring in scary times.

But in this country anyway, the Democrats gained massively in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis and pundits made exactly the arguments I described as to why. A new era of big government was upon us.

Then people saw the Democrats govern for a bit and the electorate went all Emily Litella: "never mind".

If the Democrats had gained massively, they would have had a large majority in both legislative chambers.

Ephemeral opinion poll bullshit is a good example of the sort of low-grade background of anxiety that is perpetuated by the need to fill 24 hours with "news".

Political shifts at timescales of less than a few years are just statistical noise.

 

[dismal]

But in this country anyway, the Democrats gained massively in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis and pundits made exactly the arguments I described as to why. A new era of big government was upon us.

Then people saw the Democrats govern for a bit and the electorate went all Emily Litella: "never mind".

If the Democrats had gained massively, they would have had a large majority in both legislative chambers.

They did. They had the Presidency 1-0, 60-40 Senators if you count Sanders and Lieberman and a 257-178 lead in the house.

Then they started governing and the seats started going away. Starting with Ted Kennedy's death in MA.

 

[Sarpedon]

And gerrymandering dismal, midterms and gerrymandering.

The fact you left that out of your mocking reply shows just how honest you are.

Quit making a spectacle of yourself.

 

[Will Wiley]

What does everyone think is responsible for this trend?

"Anglo saxon" nations are afraid that the rest of the world is "catching up" and that their dominant position is under threat. So they are tending to elect "fascists".

 

[Canard DuJour]

... and spendy Keynesianism.

Unfortunately for this conservative mantra Keynesian economics isn't just an alternative option to free market economics. It is an attempt to explain the economy that we have today, not some fantasy economics that we should have like the self-regulating free market.

Keynesian economics does a good job of explaining the economy that we have, the economy that has evolved over thousands of years, that has incorporated all of the lessons that the market has provided and has taken into account all of the collective decisions that the market has made.

Inevitably, as always happens, the reality of Keynesian economics which is the reality of today's economy, conflict with conservatives' long held beliefs. Reality is never kind to conservatives.

What Keynes illuminated about the economy was devastating to movement conservatism's sponsors, the very wealthy. Keynes and those who came after him realized that the modern industrial economy was moving from the supply side limited agrarian economy of the 19th century to a more demand limited one. That capital was the limited amount of land in the agricultural economy but in the modern economy capital is just money. And money is not a limited resource, more money can be created to fulfill any demand for it from the productive economy. More machines can always be manufactured and purchased, new factories can always be built. That what now limits the economy is the amount of labor available and the amount of demand coming largely from the wages that are paid to the workers.

This seriously diminishes the importance of capital and capitalists. But the wealthy capitalists were in the unique position of being able to influence the academic economics that is taught and which determines the economic policies of the nation. They fund the schools of economics and the research that it produces.

They went back in the history of academic economics and resurrected the neoclassical economics of Marshall, et al, the economics that Keynes had throughly debunked. They combined it with the absolute minimum amount of Keynesian economics that they couldn't avoid.

The result was Samuelson's neoclassical synthesis economics, today's mainstream economics. It accepts that the economy has to be controlled to avoid dramatic instability in the economy. But this control can only use 3/4 of Keynesian controls. In monetary policy the government can raise or can lower interest rates to modulate the economy, two of the four Keynesian controls. But in fiscal policy we can only lower taxes to stimulate the economy. We can't as Keynes said that we must do, raise taxes to dampen an overheated economy.

They did this not because neoclassical economics explains the economy that we have today, neoclassical economics was a not altogether successful attempt to explain the still largely agrarian economy of the late 19th century. They did this because neoclassical economics is supply side lead economics favorable capitalists. Neoclassical economics is the fantasy of the self-regulating free market, an economy that never existed and can never exist.

If all of this could be condensed into a 140 character twitter message to counter the conservatives' snappy slogans and bullsh*t platitudes it still probably wouldn't make a difference. As it is it is counter intuitive. It fails the common sense test that governments face the same economic limitations that individuals and businesses face.

But what has hurt much more is the idea that the labor/liberal parties have universally adopted that they should box in or triangulate the conservatives by moving themselves to the right. It is a questionable election strategy because it validates the positions like this that the conservatives take, positions that don't stand up to any kind of investigation or logic.

That's the other big thing in answer to the OP.

Yer average voter, quite sensibly, doesn't care so much about the ideology and asks what the science says. We're so used to the success of science. Unfortunately the "science" here is almost pure ideology, and not by accident. Parties of the left are thus always on the back foot. Even centre-left parties which almost invariably manage market economies better than do conservatives.