Security mommies and daddies

So where does this leave Hillary Clinton? She seems to have as good a resume for the Commander in Chief job as any woman could have with her close proximity to power in the White House for eight years, her eight years as senator and four years as Secretary of State. The only thing missing is a stint in the armed forces — which is also missing on the CV of most of the Republicans presenting themselves as fierce warriors, so it should be no harm, no foul there. (The exceptions being Texas Governor Rick Perry, a pilot in the Air Force, and South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, a member of the Air Force JAG corps.) But stereotypes are very hard to dislodge; even with her reputation for toughness, and despite her sterling resume, Clinton will be pushing against something very primal. The Republicans know this, which is why some of us have been pretty sure they would try to frame this election as a national security election if they could. And they are. Those elections always give them an advantage in any case, and if a woman is the standard bearer it stands to reason that advantage would be even greater.

But what about the women voters who will presumably be less prone to follow such stereotyping? Unfortunately, it’s not a simple case of men being sexist. As Heather Hurlburt points out in this article in the American Prospect, we live in anxious times, and in anxious times, women can often revert to stereotypes as well:

Gender politics magnify the electoral effects of anxiety in two ways. First, in surveys and other studies, women consistently report higher levels of anxiety. In fact, women poll twice as anxious as men, largely independent of the specific topic. Women are more concerned about security, physical and economic, than men. According to Lake, Gotoff, and Ogren, women “across racial, educational, partisan, and ideological divides” have “heightened concerns” about terrorism. Those concerns make women “more security-conscious in general and more supportive of the military than they were in the past.”

Walmart-sponsored focus groups found women expressing a significant and steady level of anxiety over the months preceding the 2014 midterms. At one session, the explanation was Ebola; another, ISIS—whatever had most recently dominated cable-news headlines. The pollsters interpreted the responses as “emblematic of anxiety they feel regarding other issues, including national security, job security, and people ‘getting stuff they aren’t entitled to,’ such as health care and other government benefits.”

The majority of voters express equal confidence in men and women as leaders, but when national security is the issue, confidence in women’s leadership declines. In a Pew poll in January, 37 percent of the respondents said that men do better than women in dealing with national security, while 56 percent said gender makes no difference. That was an improvement from decades past, but sobering when compared to the 73 percent who say gender is irrelevant to leadership on economic issues.

That isn’t inevitable, of course. A lot depends upon the individuals who are competing for the job. And from the looks of the GOP field there aren’t many who come across as great warrior leaders who can lay claim to any particular national security experience.

But as much as foreign policy and national security will likely be issues, so too will all those other anxiety-producing problems. And in that respect, Clinton is likely to be in much better shape than the Republicans who are retreating to their standard playbook organized around lowering taxes and regulations as the elixer that cures everything. It’s unlikely that anyone, much less working women, will find that to be soothing in these anxious times.

The Republicans say that Clinton is the one saddled with the old ideas of the past. But that’s actually not true at all. This piece by Adam Ozimek at Forbes sets the record straight:

I believe there is a new liberal consensus on economic policy emerging and gathering strength. Department of Labor senior advisor Mary Beth Maxwell identifies it as well in a Medium post on “A ‘New’ Conventional Wisdom on Labor”. She quotes Paul Krugman, who provides what I think amounts to the basic case:

“Low wages, he argues, are not the product of inscrutable market forces, but rather choices. He joins many others in connecting rising income inequality with the decline in workers’ bargaining power.”

It’s not just Paul Krugman and liberal politicians like Barack Obama and labor secretary Tom Perez embracing this “new consensus” either. Even some centrist economists like Larry Summers and Robert Rubin have been making similar arguments.

What’s important is that this isn’t just a restatement of long-time core liberal commitments, but a conclusion that is drawn from recent trends in empirical research. For example, the strain of minimum wage research led by Arin Dube and coathors that suggests little to no impacts of a higher minimum wage. And here’s a recent publication from the Peterson Institute for International Economics with empirical papers arguing for higher wages from Justin Wolfers, Adam Posen, Jacob Funk Kirkegaard and others.