July 27, 2025

By Stephen Stofka

Sunday morning and another breakfast with the boys. This week they discuss how to improve the favorability ratings of both political parties. The conversations are voiced by Abel, a Wilsonian with a faith that government can ameliorate social and economic injustices to improve society’s welfare, and Cain, who believes that individual autonomy, the free market and the price system promote the greatest good.

Abel dribbled a bit of syrup on his pancake. “A guy at the Liberal Patriot on Substack pointed to a recent survey by SSRS on party favorability (Source). They’ve been conducting these surveys for two decades for CNN and they posted the previous survey results for comparison.”

Cain poured more coffee from the pitcher into his coffee cup.“What questions do they ask?”

Abel replied, “It’s broad. ‘Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of these people or groups who are in the news?’ That kind of thing. They randomly mix the questions about the two political parties in there. The historical context helped me understand the change in political sentiment over the past two decades.”

Cain asked, “When was the survey taken?”

Abel replied, “Just this month, mid-July. Only 28% of people in the survey rated the Democratic Party favorable. The Republicans didn’t do much better at 33%.”

Cain said, “That helps explain the polarization in this country. Most people are voting against the other party rather than for their own party. It’s still weird that House members get reelected more than 90% of the time (Source). People are voting for House members like they choose their salad dressing. It’s habit, not analytical.”

Abel frowned. “It’s also weird that House members would care if Trump threatens to primary them. There are only a few instances of candidates who unseat an incumbent.”

Cain wiped his lips with his napkin. “And some of those upsets get a lot of attention. Eric Cantor in 2014. He was the Majority Leader, #2, in the House (Source). And then AOC in 2018 took out Joe Crowley, a long time member of the House (Source). So plane crashes are rare but people worry more about the dangers of flying than getting in a car accident, which is far more likely.”

Abel said, “The historical context of these surveys was even more interesting. So they have been asking this question for several decades. The high favorability rating for Democrats was 58% in the early part of 2009, in the depths of the financial crisis. Republicans, on the other hand, have never had a favorable rating higher than 48%, and that was in the fall of 2008.”

Cain frowned. “Republicans run on a law and order platform and being tough. That probably hurts their popularity rating.”

Abel looked astonished. “Come on, Trump flouts rules. McConnell, the former Senate Leader, flouted the rules for Supreme Court vacancies. Republicans don’t give a crap about rules.”

Cain replied, “Laws, not rules. Democrats blew it when they stopped enforcing immigration laws. If they had followed Obama’s stricter enforcement policies, Trump probably would not have won a second term. Democrats have only themselves to blame.”

Abel argued, “They were following the law. People are entitled to asylum if they have a credible threat. That’s the law that Congress passed in 1980. The Senate voted unanimously for the bill, something that rarely happens. Ninety percent of the House voted for the bill, another rarity (Source). That is the law, whether Republicans like it or not. When Republicans and Democrats agreed to revise the law last year, Trump told Republicans to kill it. That’s a fact.”

Cain nodded. “That was unfortunate. Pure political posturing. But it’s also a fact that the cartels have turned refugee status into a lucrative business. They tell economic migrants what lies to tell. Fear of gang violence or fleeing poverty is not a valid claim for asylum, according to the law (Source and Source). Most of these asylum claims are denied but only after many years because of the backlog in the immigration courts. People voted for better immigration enforcement.”

Abel argued, “So Trump gets better enforcement by breaking the law and acting tough. In fact, acting tough is all that the Republican Party has. Anyway, let’s move on. So both parties have fallen out of favor in the past decade but the Democratic Party’s fall is more noticeable because they had further to fall.”

Cain said, “That’s a long way down, from 58% to 28% in like fifteen years. I think the Nazi Liberals have taken over the party.”

Abel laughed. “The Nazi Liberals? What about the Nazi Christians on the right?”

Cain smiled. “That’s why both parties are out of public favor. They’re Nazis. People want freedom. They don’t want to be told what pronouns to use.”

Abel nodded. “Or women be told what choices they can make with their own bodies. Hey, I agree. The Democrats could raise their favorability with the public if they would embrace personal freedom.”

Cain smirked. “Yeah, Dems want personal freedom with abortion but not with pronouns.”

Abel smiled. “You’ve been saving that one up, I bet. I’m serious. Both parties could go in that direction. Both Christians and the liberal left want to impose their beliefs and practices on the rest of us. It’s about time they sit down and shut up.”

Cain asked, “Ok, let’s see how expansive your tolerance of personal freedom is. There’s a group in northern Arkansas that calls itself Return to the Land (RTTL). They advocate “whites-only” communities. They say that people should be free to choose whether to live in multi-racial communities or not.”

Abel frowned. “That’s against the Fair Housing Act passed in 1968 (Source). Like apartment buildings can’t discriminate against people with children unless it’s a senior community.”

Cain shook his head. “But claims of race discrimination are the majority of housing complaints to the Justice Department (Source). People and businesses are doing it indirectly, saying that housing is not available or making it a bit tougher to get a mortgage.”

Abel argued, “During a century of Jim Crow laws in the south, stores like Woolworth said they should be able to discriminate against blacks if they wanted to (Source). Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 which outlawed such discrimination. If a business is open to the public, it can’t exclude someone because of some inherent trait like race or color.”

Cain argued, “It’s not only inherent traits. A business can’t discriminate because of religion. That’s a practice, a behavior. It’s not inherent like color, race or national origin. So, a business in Paris, France can prohibit a customer wearing a burka but a business in New York can’t. To some people that infringes on the freedom of the store owner. It’s like I said last week. Governments can only give to someone by taking from someone else. Only private enterprise can create.”

Abel frowned. “Well, to a lot of people who have been raised with a set of religious beliefs, that religion feels like an inherent trait.”

Cain asked, “So you wouldn’t go that far with personal freedom? Where would you stop? All this DEI stuff. As an institution serving the public, a university has an obligation to accommodate people of different religious beliefs. What should the university do when those beliefs clash like with the pro-Palestinian protests?”

Abel sighed. “I see what you’re getting at. There’s a conflict between the First Amendment’s right to free speech and the responsibility of an institution to provide a safe space for students. That’s the ‘life, liberty, and property’ part of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. So, how to resolve those contradictions?”

Cain nodded. “As much as I criticize the Supreme Court, they have a tough job to do. The Constitution itself is contradictory and Congress adds to the confusion when they pass laws that contradict each other. The court has to balance all these opposing principles.”

Abel looked thoughtful. “I would start with the simple stuff. Like pronouns.”

Cain shrugged. “Not so easy. What if a woman says that the use of male pronouns in the employee manual threatens her? It’s exclusive and implies that there is less chance for advancement in the company. The rules were written by men and for men.”

Abel frowned and asked, “You’ve experienced that?”

Cain sighed. “Yeah, it was a while ago and I kicked it over to the legal department. But people resent that kind of thing. Businesses are vulnerable to multi-million dollar lawsuits because of someone’s perceived discrimination. Despite the cooperative language from a company’s PR department, business managers feel an inner sense of combativeness, or resentment.”

Abel laughed. “Oh, come on, stop with the sob stories for multi-billion dollar companies. They take advantage of employees. Personal freedom should include the right to form a union without going through a bunch of legal hoops. A corporation is a union of capital that gives it more power in the marketplace. Labor should have the same freedom.”

Cain argued, “In principle, I agree. I disagree with the tactics that labor unions use to bargain. Strikes that shut down businesses, for instance.”

Abel smirked. “It’s the main bargaining tool they have. One person quitting a job has little impact on a business unless it only has a few employees. Capital in isolation is not enough to start a business. Both labor and capital are more effective when they are allowed to combine.”

Cain sighed. “We are getting no closer to a compromise on personal freedom. If I’m a restaurant owner, I can hang a sign that says ‘No shoes, no shirt, no service’ but I can’t refuse to serve someone with a burka? Maybe I don’t want them in my restaurant because I am worried about a political fight that does damage to both my customers and my restaurant. I can’t act on my prudent judgment? People left Europe and came to America because they wanted more freedom, not less.”

Abel nodded. “I agree with you in principle. Unfortunately, the practice in this country has been just blatant prejudice. Stores that had a policy of not serving blacks, for instance. Elite universities like Princeton that limited admission for Jews (Source). Acting with prejudice attacks the personal freedom of others. Police manage the frictions between people living together.”

Cain argued, “Agreed, but the police can’t be the only ones responsible for keeping order. There is an element of self-policing in a society. The closer that people live together, the more likely their interests will clash. People and businesses have navigated those conflicts by excluding some people. It’s like an informal form of policing. Is it fair? Maybe not, but it helps to keep the peace. Which principle is more important? Freedom or fairness? More of one can mean less of another.”

Abel looked into the distance as he thought. “Democrats have run on a platform of fairness and its not popular. Why is that?”

Cain interrupted, “Fair is like beauty. It’s in the eye of the beholder. Anyway, governments cannot be fair to someone without being unfair to someone else. It’s a principle of government.”

Abel shrugged. “It’s your principle of government. I don’t agree with that. I’m just wondering how Democrats can improve the public’s perception of the party’s goals.”

Cain replied, “Maybe it’s not the goals but the practices. The party leaders weren’t fair to Bernie in 2016 primary race. They covered up for Biden, which wasn’t fair to other presidential hopefuls in the party. All their grand policies have done little to improve the lot of many Americans in the public’s eye. Maybe people just don’t trust them. I mean, Dems have had the presidency for 12 years out of the past 16. Eight with Obama, four with Biden. Why did Trump freak out the Dems so bad?”

Abel thought a moment, then said, “If Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio been the candidate in 2016, the loss would have hurt, for sure, but the Dems would have taken it as part of the political game. Trump was a newcomer and a figurehead, the erratic leader of what was now a reactionary party. Republicans mouthed platitudes about tax cuts improving economic growth without any evidence (Source). Tax cuts were little more than a branding mechanism to distinguish Republicans from Democrats. The 2017 tax cut package was traditional pork barrel politics where the pork goes to the rich. They were against Obamacare because the Dems proposed it. They’re an opposition party with few ideas of their own and that’s why the party has never had majority support in these surveys.”

Cain argued, “Surveys may capture idle sentiments but elections are the real surveys. Since 2008, the Republicans have controlled the House far more than Democrats, ten years to six years. In the Senate, the Dems have had control for ten of those sixteen years.”

Abel interrupted, “Barely had control.”

Cain nodded. “Ok, barely, but it has allowed Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Leader, to control the agenda of the Senate, what issues got voted on (Source).”

Abel sighed. “It seemed like most of the time, the House Republicans controlled the Senate’s agenda. They voted to repeal Obamacare more than fifty times but could never get it through the Democratic controlled Senate. When Republicans took back the Senate and passed a repeal, they didn’t have enough votes to override Obama’s veto (Source).”

Cain frowned. “In their quest for fairness, the lefties in the Democratic Party are too bossy,  telling everyone how to talk and behave. They’ve become a party of scolds. Elizabeth Warren, for one. AOC and the other members of the House Squad, for another. Adults don’t want to be scolded.”

Abel argued, “Republicans were the party of scolds during the Jim Crow era when it was Democrats who engaged in reprehensible behavior. People need to be called out when they commit heinous acts.”

Cain smirked. “So Republicans heaped moral outrage on Democrats back in those days. Did that stop the lynching of blacks in the southern states? No. In the 1930s, Democrats in the North joined with Republicans in the House to pass anti-lynching legislation. Democratic Senators filibustered the legislation (Source). Moral outrage is rarely effective. When Hilary Clinton called Republican voters a ‘basket of deplorables,’ that hurt her campaign (Source). Moral outrage inspires resentment and opposition, not a desire to be more fair.”

Abel pushed his plate to the side. “Ok, good point. So, you’re saying that Democratic messaging has been equally reactionary.”

Cain nodded. “Neither party has been able to package one principle and sell it to the American public. That’s why neither party is popular. All that’s left is electoral and political strategies.”

Abel slid out of his seat and stood up. “Fairness is a difficult principle to package. You’re helping me realize that. I think economic fairness is more important to people than social fairness.”

Cain made a gun with his forefinger and thumb. “You hit the target, pardner. Dems need to turn down the dial on the identity politics and stay focused on pocketbook issues.”

Abel nodded. “Like James Carville said during Clinton’s 1992 campaign. ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ Hey, I will see you next week.”

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Image by ChatGPT