The Monkey Cage

Lots of opposition within the military, among the rank and file.

So, I bet at this point it is not a concern for domestic politics generally as much as concerns for (a) unit cohesion and morale in wartime, and (b) votes in particular states and congressional districts.

The point is that changing the policy is not a big vote winner, and it might lose some key House seats. Your majorities in the aggregate are heavily concentrated in the cities of CA and the northeast.

Irrespective of the facts, the national media can be counted on to repeat conventional wisdom on this subject, which is that it hurts Democrats politically. Therefore, poll numbers showing widespread support notwithstanding, any change is going to be accompanied by several days of blather about how this could hurt the Democrats, which then in turn actually hurts the entire agenda. Best to time the announcement of the policy change when the punditry is distracted.

Another 2nd piece of conventional wisdom is that the military establishment is not thrilled about this policy change. While on substantive grounds, the idea that the brass cannot impose a policy change from the top down is a joke — after all, they have military discipline and can order people to put themselves in mortal danger — this probably tells us that the brass itself is a) uncomfortable with homosexuals and b) disrespectful of the President as commander in chief.

There is other evidence of (b) that I think explains Obama’s main hesitation here. He could damage the institution of the presidency and contribute to the military’s misplaced view of its constitutional role if he sets up a showdown in which it becomes advantageous for his political opponents to subvert the policy. I think he’d rather get a higher degree of consensus within the military establishment so that defiant officers stand out as outliers who can be demoted or fired for insubordination without it causing a broader power struggle that has as much to do with institutions as it goes gays.

Then again, there is the possibility that Obama paid lip service to gay rights but actually doesn’t get it and isn’t willing to spend political capital on this unless he absolutely has to.

Finally, whether or not it is legally necessary, one of the excuses thus far is that this requires Congressional action. Thus, it does, and there is no way that is going to get put on the table until after health care reform is over, if not other legislative priorities.

It’s going to take legislation, and he’s moving slowly and cautiously. Step one was the hate crimes provision, which is really the least controversial. He got that. DADT is harder, and he’s moving slowly, working with the military to keep at least enough of them on board.

If he wanted the issue, he could have moved it quickly and been stopped (at least) in the Senate. But if he wants the thing to pass, he’s probably doing it the right way. Or at least that’s how it looks to me. I think the key is to have as much of the military (active duty and retired) on board as enthusiastically as possible, and he seems to be working for that.

I also see a strong “fight the last war” mentality in Obama’s moves. Take, for example, how he approached health care, which was to negotiate with the big interests beforehand. Thus, he has avoided the Magaziner/Clinton problem whereby they didn’t get the interests on board before proposing Hillarycare.

Of course, fighting the last war is a famous logical/strategic/tactical blunder. But, it seems to me that Obama isn’t touching DADT because Clinton DID touch it, and paid for it. In the case of sentiments towards gays (gay marriage, gay troops, general feelings towards gays), there is almost always a consistent age effect, which isn’t actually an age effect, but a gradual cohort effect.

I agree with Jon, though, that forget the public opinion on it; Congress is really swamped these days, and this might just be a better policy to leave for the 2nd, or maybe even the 5th year.

Matt —

Isn’t this one of those things where the conventional wisdom runs both ways? Fighting the last war: bad. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result: also bad.

I think he’s moving towards DADT repeal next year. DOMA repeal is the thing that waits, probably for a while.

I think ENDA is the more interesting question. At least with DADT you can argue there’s an institutional opposition to it among some of the flag officers. ENDA has been popular for years and years, in some cases for as long as the topic has been polled. Hardly anyone will come out against it openly. It would affect a much broader segment of the LGBT community than the hate crimes legislation. And yet movement on it remains slow.

What’s the data on unit cohesion and morale? I assume with so many other countries recently allowing openly GLBT soldiers there must be plenty of data on the transition.

I think this may fall into a type of economics of total system coordination. It reminds me of how, if I’m not mistaken, no major professional sport (or at least no NFL team) has an openly gay player. And this without rules prohibiting it.

Are there certain types of changes where one outlier changes the whole system?

Seems worthy of social scientific study.